LSBS January Cybercrop

What a great way to start the year. LSBS Cybercrops are always tops, but this one was even more special as I was their first CC Guest Designer! At each CC there will now be a Guest Designer Challenge. Pretty awesome hey.

Here's the layout I did as Guest Designer. The photo is of my mum and her family at Coolangatta.

Challenge 1 was a sketch challenge. I snapped this photo of William on the beach looking intently at the sand.

This is challenge 2. We had to do some ribbon weaving. The kids exploring on holidays.


For challenge 3 it had to be hot and sticky colours. Reds, oranges and the like. I took this photo on the last night of our holiday. The sunset was amazing. The layout is actually straight, it's my poor photography that couldn't line it up!

The next LSBS Cybercrop is on the 13th of February. I wonder if it's going to be about love or about black magic? Either way, I can't wait!

Are you doing it 52 this year?

You should be! Head over to Little Scrapbook Shop and find out about our 52 Pick Up Challenge

Challenge 1 was set by Tracy Wyldman and we had to use metal on our layout. Remember metal... I have a lunch box full of it. Here's what I did for challenge 1:

Challenge 2 is a card challenge by Deanne Stewart-Mills. I haven't done this one yet. Naughty me.

Challenge 3 was set by Tash Allen. We had to do an old faithful technique, tearing and rolling. Here's my take on the challenge:

Challenge 4 is being announced tonight. I can't wait to see what Bellagirl has in store for us.

Go on... take a look at the 52 Pick Up Challenge... you never know what you might create!

Fragile

Between Christmas and New Year I made this album for William. It's about his birth. The story of his struggle at the beginning of his life.

I am so proud of this album. I've need to tell this story for a long time, and now that it's done it feels great.

{A special thank you to Michael Comerford for taking these beautiful photos for me.}

Look Mum! I'm in the magazine!

Check this out! This write up is in the Community News page in this months Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft magazine. How cool is that!

Thanks Jane. It's awesome.

Please! Please! Please! Can We Hire A Bike!

These bikes are so cool and as soon as the kids laid eyes on them they started. "Please, please, please, please can we hire a bike?"

Of course, the nagging wouldn't stop until we hired one.

They thought they were so cool. Williams legs were a bit short and not quiet strong enough to get the bike going, but he enjoyed being a passenger and Russ had to give them a helping hand up the slight rises around the park.

Top fun!

The Kids and The Pool

There just isn't a doubt that my kids love to swim. If we had a pool at home I'm sure they would almost live in it. One of the best things about being on holidays is the instant access to a pool.

"Can we go for a swim" they beg

"Yes" we say

Too easy!

Here's some photos of them swanning about.

And suddenly it's the 15th of January!

Unbelievable! It's the 15th already! We are half way through the first month of 2009! I have so many photos to put up... I only took 544 while we were on holidays lol. How do I decide what to show and what not too?

I think I might do some individual posts... I find it easier to separate things rather than write a really long post.

Ok... will start now.

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve and both the kids were very excited. I've brought bubbles for the late afternoon, and of course sparklers for after the kids fireworks on tv.

Caitlin was determined to see the midnight fireworks this year, and she did! I thought it would have been William up and running wild and missy would be fast asleep, I was wrong. William conked out about 11.30, and Caitlin was still pumped up at 1am!

Here's some quick snaps I took of the kids blowing bubbles.

After the 9pm fireworks we headed outside with our sparklers. The next door neighbours had left their outside lights on and it just wasn't dark enough in the backyard so we headed out the front. I took a couple of photos, but wasn't really getting what I wanted so I slowed the shutter speed down and bingo! If only I had of thought earlier I would have been more prepared and taken out the tripod. It's really hard to not get camera shake when the shutter is open for more than a second or 10! Anyway, overall I'm happy with the results... more than happy actually for my first time trying to capture these images... and next year I will have the tripod at the ready.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas (un)Wrap-Up

Off we went to Granma and Grampy's for Christmas dinner. Caitlin played her DS all the way there and back. William slept, which is pretty normal. He's just like his mother when it comes to travelling in cars.

There was much excitment on arrival at Kanahooka. The Christmas tree was overloaded with gifts... so much so that they were sprawling out into the lounge room. All of the kids were that excited they could hardly contain themselves, and it wasn't too long before Grannie Annie donned the Santa hat and started handing out the presents.

There was an stream of torn paper from one end of the lounge room to the other when all was said and done. It all happened so quickly I didn't get to snap off many photos.

Caitlin and Hannah really enjoyed hanging out together.... they both got (amongs other things) a little walkman radio. They were groving away all night!

And boys will be boys! Sliding around on all of the paper in the lounge room, running through the house, playing with cars, they just had so much fun together, none of them wanted it to end!

And the youngest member of the family, well, she just took it all in her stride...

All together they had a terrific time together, and I'm sure they can't wait until Christmas to roll around in 2009!