Happy Birthday Princess

Today our beautiful Princess turned 12.  It's hard to imagine that twelve years have passed, where has the time gone!  In recognition of the digital age we now live in, we received her Birthday List via email.

My birthday list
1. The ultimate decorating set
2. Match Attax 2013
3. Craft stuff
4. Books ( Fairy books, I don't have-1, 9, 13-20, 23-29, 31-50, 57-58, 60-61, 63-65, 68-79, 81, 83-87, 89-93, 95, 98, 101, 103)
5. Panting stuff
6. Playstation games
7. Playstation romot (PINK or blue)
8. CD
9. DVD (the rise of the gardens and Scooby Doo)
10. Headphones (the ones from the smiggle shop it needs to be PINK)
11. Shoes
12. Cooking stuff

BREAKFAST
Pancakes

DINNER
Tunacasharoll
DESSERT
Cake- I am going to make it and decorate it too

In our family the birthday person gets to choose whatever they want (within reason!) for breakfast and dinner.  They also get to choose the type of cake/dessert they want.  Pancakes and waffles are the most popular breakfast choices with dinner usually being something more unusual.  The Princess' favourite dinner is Tuna Casserole and as we only have it on a rare occasion she has started requesting it every year.

I took the day off today and decided to make her a special layout for her own album all about her birth.  I haven't scrapped any of the kids early years yet and I thought she would appreciate it and it was a good way to kick start my crafting again after the shop closing.  I used an old favourite paper of mine that I now wished I had bought more of!  It was the 'Katlin Collection' by Crate Paper.  Add in a few newer pieces like the overlay and the glassine envelope and you would never know the paper was old.

The tag has writing on both sides and tells the following story ...  "Early in the morning on Wednesday the 23rd of May you decided that this was the day you were going to be born!  Grandma and Pops came and collected the boys while we waited for the contractions to get closer.  The Doctor had said to leave for the hospital when the contractions were 15 minutes apart.  As I was walking in circles around the backyard, your Dad decided to cut the grass while he waited.  He walked up and down with the lawn mover, I walked around and around.  Neither of us were really paying much attention to the time.  Thankfully the mower ran out of fuel or this story would have a very different ending!!!  That was when Dad decided to time the contractions, they were only 5 minutes apart!!!  We quickly got in the car and drove to the hospital.  Dad dropped me at the door while he parked the car.  The receptionist wanted me to wait for an orderly to come with a wheelchair.  I told her that I didn't have time and to let the ward know I was on my way up.  I got into the labour room and Dad arrived just as I was getting changed.  I hopped up on the bed and you decided you weren't waiting any longer!  5 minutes later and you had arrived!!!!"

The Princess chose to make carrot cake for her birthday and she wanted to bake it and decorate it herself when she came home from school.  We bought her a cake decorating kit for her birthday (number one on her list) and she can't wait to use it on her next cake.  I think there will be a few cakes and cupcakes in our future :-)

I couldn't resist this flannel sheet set and had to get it for her birthday.  Her pre-teen genes are kicking in and she has started to sleep in on the weekend.  She saw the funny side and as you can see they are already on her bed along with the soft, fluffy pink pillow from The Thinker.  We also bought her some more painting supplies (number 5 on the list).  She loved the canvas brush roll and the new brushes.

We have had a very special day.  Happy Birthday Princess!

Catch up :) (photo heavy)

I had so much planned to post over the past few weeks, including details of the BEST DAY of the YEAR!  So here goes all be it a bit late ... :-)

While my previous posts about Hiro were auto posting The LOML and I went away for the weekend.  I had made wedding invitations as a friend for a gift last year and they bought us a voucher for a weekend away as a thank you.  They also offered to babysit the kids too!  It has been three years since we went away together so we were very excited.  Thankfully the place we stayed was only an hours drive from home and we set off on Friday evening after work.  It was right on the harbour in a very pretty holiday/vacation town.  So we did touristy things and ate until we needed to be rolled back to the hotel.  We even went to a place with a miniature village, mini golf and a maze!  The weather was perfect and it was so relaxing and wonderful.

Our view from breakfast :-)

The miniature village

Me after we arrived at the miniature village

Entering the maze ...

Will he find his way out???

Devonshire Tea anyone???

Looking out over the ocean before dinner

Those photos were just from Saturday!!!  But so you see the dreary dusk sky?  Well Sunday was stormy, rainy and awful!  So we decided to drive home after we checked out of the hotel.  We couldn't have asked for a better day on Saturday and we enjoyed getting home early to spend some time with the kids.  They were spoilt too all weekend.

Midway through the month it was my BIRTHDAY!!!!  So of course that means that it is the best day of the year in my book!  I love birthdays.  It's not just about the presents, but that it is a day special for each person where they should be treated like a princess (or prince).  My order for breakfast was poached eggs on toast - YUM YUM!!!!  I was supposed to have the day of work crafting with a friend, but we had only just sat down to start when I got a call from The LOML to say that I needed to come to work straight away as he wasn't well.  Thankfully he didn't need to go to the hospital again and we were able to come home after lunch.  He improved over the afternoon and he instructed the kids on the preparation of my special dinner.  I had requested crumbed steak, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and gravy.  And it was YUM YUM YUM!!!!!!

I chose not to have a cake this year as I really craved warm brownies with vanilla ice cream and Hershey's chocolate syrup.  While the brownies were cooking I made The LOML call the health line to confirm that a trip to the ER wasn't warranted as he had a Dr appointment two days later.  He tried very hard to act like nothing was wrong as it was my birthday, but that just made me more worried.  So better late than never we enjoyed our brownies.  They were also YUM YUM YUM!!!

In the end I chose frosting and not Hershey's syrup :)

For my birthday I got a Sizzix Eclips (spoilt aren't I??) and some Tim Holtz background stamps.  I also got something a bit unusual from my mom that I had asked her for ... an Ikea kitchen wall cabinet.  I will have to show you later what that is for :-)  I am giddy with excitement and I just hope it works!  No, I am SURE it will work ... but you will just have to wait.

The LOML hasn't been able to drive since our weekend away.  He was constantly unsteady on his feet and light headed.  The Dr was increased his new medication from his last visit to the hospital and he was getting worse, so without telling me, he went off the medication.  Within two days he felt better!  He went back to the Dr and now he is almost back to himself.  It is crazy, but it seems that he had a delayed reaction to the medication.  As it built up in his body it was getting worse.  I was starting to get very worried and all of it was caused by a nasty tablet!  I hope that it is now the end of it and he stays better this time.  It was all very worrying and has made for a busy and chaotic month.  Hopefully he is cleared to drive again really soon as he makes a TERRIBLE passenger!

All in all I think we are headed into a pleasant September :-)  The Extrovert turns 15!!! Oh my!!! I suddenly feel old :-)  If I don't see you before, I will be back for Storytelling Sunday this Sunday. Pop back then for all the details and enjoy a story or two.

Chipper

Birthday Boy!

Party food!

Last week The Thinker turned 13!!!  Hard to believe that I now have TWO teenagers in the house.  He had a party with his friends at a laser battle place on the Friday night.  After two games we gave them all dinner in the food hall and had some cake.  They all had a GREAT time!  We didn't opt for the official party at the game place as it was way too expensive and they only get a tiny meal.  Definitely not enough  for a pile of teenage boys!  The boys all thought it was wonderful as they ate a HUGE meal each from the turkish place.  It is a very small and quite food court and I think the owner of the Turkish food place thought it was great that we were buying lots of dinners.  We were originally going to get pizza and bring it into the food court as it was cheaper.  But while they were playing their games we were beginning to feel very guilty ... we know very well what it is like to be a small business in this day and age and we just couldn't bring in food.  In the end I am glad we didn't as everyone was happy all round and the guy who owns the food store was so appreciative he gave us PILES of chips and some turkish delight as extras.

Present time!

Birthday Breakfast Waffles.

On Saturday morning the teenage gene kicked in :-)  The Thinker slept in .... he NEVER does that!  By the time I had to wake him up, I had showered and dressed, set the table, AND made the waffle batter!  He was supposed to help me with that.  But the waffles were delicious and for once everyone was too full to finish them all.  Good thing cold waffles make a nice snack :-)

Then is was time for presents.  We gave him a gold chain.  A special present to commemorate turning 13!  All up he scored lots of iTunes cards, money, gadgets and clothes.

Happy Birthday to our Thinker!!!!!  Love you lots.

Presents from us

Chipper

Almost a Birthday

It is almost time for The Extroverts 13th Birthday. Which means it is his turn for a party. I have just now finished his invitations. They are kind of teenagery (not really a word!) with a bit of sparkle thrown in. I cut the card blank on the Cricut and embossed the front with a brick wall. I used coredinations card so I could sand it back. He wanted dark blue and I added a bit of red sparkle with 'Mels Diner' glimmer mist. I cut the inserts to fit and sprayed them with a quick blotch of 'bell bottom jeans' glimmer mist. I then stamped the insides and filled in the blanks.

He is off to a laser battle place with some friends and then we will all have pizza.

I love parties and I can't wait!
Chipper

Pretty Paper Party Prompt 4

Lets get rebellious and mix dots with stripes!!!!!  Funnily enough I have always done that in my scrapping, but it is not something I would do with my clothing!  So to begin with I went to my multi coloured paper box and selected a stripe and a matching large dot (which I didn't use).  I then found matching spots and stripes in the other colour boxes.  I am finding this way of scrapping so much faster and I LOVE having all my papers organised by colour.  It was so much quicker finding matching papers and funnily enough NONE of them come from the same collection or company!

Here is the layout I made mixing spots and stripes.  Both of the blue papers are patterned with the top one being spotty and the bottom one a chevron.  The photos were taken in 2000 so it is about time they got scrapped!

The other day when I was reorganising my embellishments I spent ages sorting all of my buttons and I used a few of them on this layout.  There are buttons at the bottom but I only had three of each colour in that size and so I made a bigger embellishment and used a number 2 button as well.  I also used a balloon button and some word ones!  So I think it is safe to say that I went a little button crazy :-)

Ribbons also came into the mix with the red ric-rac (a variation of a stripe!) and the twine in the buttons and on the balloon.  There were a few more photos taken of this birthday tent so I used the scraps to make a second page to keep them all together.  I don't think this group of photos needs more than the two pages in the album as they are only a small part of The Extrovert's 2nd birthday.  I can't believe how many papers I am using.  Some of these I have had for YEARS!  The orange on the page is from a 6x12 Cricut paper pad that I got when I bought the original Cricut.  That is 5 years ago now!  But because I took all of the papers out of the pads they were in and organised them by colour I am now using them.  Amazing!

The two pages together.  The one of the right made with the scraps.

Sorry about the poor lighting in the photos but it is still early and it is over cast.  I am off for a drive to my Uncle's farm today to collect half a cow.  I have to tell the butcher how I want it cut up :-)  By the end of the day I am going to have one very full freezer LOL  But the meat taste sooooo good and it is far cheaper that the supermarket, plus I know exactly where it came from.  So I have no idea if I will get my usual dose of Sunday scrapping as I will probably still be bagging meat for the freezer.

Until next time,

Chipper

Birthday Boy

I know I haven't posted a great deal here, but our life has been just a little busy.  And part of that was due to The Extrovert turning 14!!!!! (boy do I feel old right now!)  How time flies.  It seems like only a few years ago that he was starting school and now I only have a handful of years left of his schooling (4 more years of high school!).

Earlier this year he was growing like a weed and constantly measuring himself against me.  It was driving my crazy so I told him that there was no more measuring until his birthday.  As the day arrived and the great big measure off was due to happen and I was sooooooo nervous.  But I shouldn't have been ...

I am still taller ... JUST!

So I am still the second tallest in the family, but I don't think I will be for much longer :-)

All he has been asking for is an iPod touch for his birthday for the past year.  But they are sooooo expensive over here and we didn't think we would be able to get one.  The day before his birthday we went shopping to try to find ANYTHING a 14 year old might like, and low and behold the iPod touch was on special!!!!!!  To say that he was excited was an understatement.  I wrapped it in a shirt to disguise it :-)

Very excited!

The other children were also surprised and I think we had better start looking for more specials LOL

So happy birthday to my eldest.  Love you lots!

During all of this I have squeezed in a bit of crafting but I refuse to take photos at night now as the quality is just appalling.  Which means that they haven't been getting posted.  I think I am going to try setting up posts to spread them out over the week.  Wish me luck as I could break the whole thing completely and loose my blog!!!

Chipper