On Christmas night we decided we would go for a walk down to the bridge after tea, it was a short but nice walk. I would have walked further, except it was getting dark and we had the kids with us and there were spiders appearing everywhere on the bridge as well. Considering I didn't have my tripod with me I was quite pleased with this shot.



The start of the Murray Bridge



Mum the red nosed reindeer :)




Me with no prescription sunnies on ... I love wearing my contacts, but I still am not used to looking at myself without them and I am not totally sure I like my look without my glasses. But it is convenient!



Brad pulling a funny face while blowing bubbles. :) I think this is one of the first if not only times I have got a good bubble photo :)

The photos are in no particular order and will be just random... but that is about normal for me Ha!

My Purple Sunset

We are home after spending a wonderful week with my family in SA ... the heat wasn't my preferred choice, but I survived Haha!!

I took over 400 photos and I will put some up over the coming days, but I wanted to share my 'purple' sunset photos that I took. (not edited at all!)

The trip over was great with our normal stop in Horsham for the night. The trip back was soooo long and really took it out of us all. I think it had alot to do with how busy the roads and the shops were.

I am looking forward to the New Year and the change that it will bring to our lives, it will be a challenge, but it will be worth it I believe.

This week has been a VERY long week, on Monday we had Brad and Sian with temps and yucky colds so they were both kept home, Gareth was also home as he had been up all night with a toothache, he ended up at the dentist (with a 3 hour wait) to have his wisdom tooth taken out. (ouch) I have been fighting the cold off like crazy. I got fitted for my contacts on Wednesday which was great, it feels a little wierd and I think it shows too many bags and wrinkles when I haven't got the glasses to hide behind LOL.

We are off to SA this afternoon for a stay with Mum and Dad... it will be a nice break that we are all looking forward to.

I have been extremely slack with my photo taking, but I am going to try and make up for it in the next week!

Have a fantastic Christmas!!

Brad & Sian Christmas Concerts

Days 7 8 10 & 11

I missed day 9 ... I will come back to it at some stage.

Day 7 My Christmas scrapping stash



Day 8 Brad at his Christmas concert




Day 10 Christmas Cards I have made so far this year




Day 11 Sian at her kinder concert

December 4/5 & 6

These are my photos for Days 4 - 5 and 6

Day 4 is my purple bauble tree in my scrapping area



Day 5 is Tinsel



and Day 6 ... Community Christmas ... this always says Christmas is coming



I have been good the last 2 days and gone out walking. I walked for almost an hour Saturday and then about 20 minutes today. I feel sore, but I know that it's a positive step :)

December 3rd

Today Brad,Sian and I did some baking .. the smell was delicious. Not good for the weight loss (or lack of) though.

Brad made Gingerbread biscuits and Sian and I made Lemon Cream Melting Moments :)









and this is my magazine Christmas Tree

December 2nd

When we put up the tree we realised we had a heap of decorations missing ... but they were in storage in a suitcase. yay

BUT I went and bought this star because we couldn't find



This star. I have used this star on my magazine Christmas tree that I made. (I will take a photo later:) )




And Happy 36th Anniversary to my Mum and Dad for today ... love you both!!

December 1st

Today's photo - A favourite ornament on the tree



and off the tree



I heard about this on the radio this morning, but had to go out this evening and then forgot about it when I got home, until the girls on the forum reminded me :)



I believe it is the moon, venus and jupiter smiling on the earth :)


Also a big Happy Birthday to my Sister in Law Sereah for yesterday and my nephew Braiden for today.

Happy Birthday to my angel in heaven xx
11 years already

yay I have scrapped :)

I have scrapped 3 LO's and altered a notebook in 3 days... for me thats lots :)

This one for Sandie's Sketch Challenge at Bon's Scraps


This is for Sian's kinder teacher



This one for Simonne's Sketch Challenge at Scrap Pile



I will share the other one when I can. It was for a blind challenge at Bon's


Well alot has happened this month. Dad went in to have the shunt/stint put in his heart and all went well. He is home and after his checkup they are really pleased. This is a huge relief :)

The falcon is starting to fall apart :( I have mentioned to Gareth we may have to start looking for another car next year. something smaller and maybe a little newer depending on the cost.

I have only a few days left now of being on the kinder committee yay!! I am unofficially helping out with the fundraising next year and that will be very low key.

Christmas is looming and I am looking forward to seeing my family again :) The visit will be shorter than normal. But with a little luck Mum and Dad may come back here to Vic for awhile after.

I spoke to Tracey on the DT over at OSS and cleared the air as I really didn't like leaving things as they were and there was nothing that she had done or said that had offended me. I have made the decision though that I resign from the DT and that I won't be reapplying next year. I was going to sign back into the forum and take part on a low key level, but I am not able to sign in. I do believe that is something to do with my new pc though :~{

We are planning on putting up our Christmas tree this weekend which will be fun. I am thinking I might do some Christmas Craft with the kids too. I found the most gorgeous Christmas tree to make out of an old magazine. It is in the latest Scrapbooking Memories, but there are steps missing, anyway I found another version on Jaki's blog, who got it from Mel's blog, who got it from a someone else (there is a link on Mel's blog) They turn out really well and it is something that the kids could make easily enough.

With Dylan's day coming up tomorrow I am finding that this year I haven't been as sad about it and I am finding that I am not thinking about him every single day leading up to it. I will never forget, I will remember and smile. :)

We were looking at photos the other day and there was one of me holding Gareth's god son. Brad looks and says is that your other one mum? I was floored. We don't talk about Dylan very often and even less often in front of the kids. But he has obviously heard me talking about him at some point and not forgotten.

I am thinking this year I might try and do what I did last year as part of a challenge and take a photo every day in December :) If anyone wants to join me, leave me a comment so I can check out your photos :)

Farewell buddy

Back in about 1993 (I think) I was out looking at garage sales with my mum on a Saturday morning. One house we went to had pups for sale. There was this one little guythat grabbed my attention straight away and I decided I would take him home with me. He was just so cute! Well he was a bit of a ratbag growing up ... jumping a 6' fence in a single bound ... maybe we should have called him superdog! We didn't however, we called him Sole. He was with me until my marriage fell apart in 2000 and then he went to live with my mum and dad while I went overseas on a 4 week holiday, I think it was about then really that he became their dog, they had adopted him and he got along well with his adopted brother Max (Mum and Dad's other dog) So I guess he had a fair old life ... not as good as it probably should have been in the earlier years, with him not getting as much attention as he deserved. all that changed when he moved in with mum and dad though, he got the attention he needed and deserved. But 15 years is along time and he was getting old, every time we visited Mum and Dad's I wondered if it would be the last time I saw him. Well October's visit was the last one. At least he is at rest now and not suffering old age. Rest in Peace solly dog!

Happy Anniversary and a weekend away!!

Happy 7th Wedding Anniversary for yesterday to my DH :)




We went away with our good friends to Mildura for the Melbourne Cup weekend. For the last few years we have gone away with them camping. It's becoming a great tradition and I have to say a great one at that... the thing that makes me laugh is this

2 years ago at Silvan Reservoir



Last year in the Grampians




This year at Mildura .... I think we should hire ourselves out on Cup Weekend in coming years as the rain makers!!!



Due to my lack of sleep, (thanks to a snoring hubby and kids that didn't want to sleep) I had bouts of grumpiness (but hey whats new!!) I don't think they lasted too long! It was a fantastic weekend. A big thanks to Pete's parents for feeding us for lunch and dinner.
We visited NSW, took a drive to where the Murray and Darling rivers meet.







The kids took a paddle ... wellll supposed to be a paddle in the Murray down at the sandbank in Apex Park.





We drank wine which I must say I really like (Moscato, Brown Brothers is definately best) the kids played really well for most of the weekend with very few disagreements. We were planning on visiting an old homestead, but didn't manage to get there this time (good excuse to go back sometime I think!) and on the way out we stopped to look at Big Lizzie, which I found fascinating... more than the kids did I think.












A stop at charleton for tea and then home to Melbourne last night.





We all crashed and thankfully Sian fell asleep about an hour from home and stayed asleep!! I was dreading she would be awake most of the night because she slept so much in the car. No one stirred until after 8am this morning :) ahhh bliss. Unfortunately Gareth is in at work today, so the kids and I are amusing ourselves at home. But it is nice to not have to do much today.

my attempt at a self portrait!