Daly Journal

Bribery and the Play Station...

2012-01-23T16:13:00.002+11:00

In order to get us through the school holidays in a sane fashion, we instigated a new 'rule'. If you are generally good and nice to each other all day, then you get to play on the PS3 for an hour at 4pm. Mostly it has made them ask us "Is it 4o'clock yet?". We've taught them to read the clock, but the question comes just the same. Plus any time it gets to 20 minutes past the hour - "It's 4o'clock, it's 4o'clock!".

The days when they don't get to play are not fun, but when it works - bribery and the PS3 make that one hour so peaceful!

She's here!

2012-01-07T16:22:00.002+11:00

Our family is complete with the safe arrival of Monique.

The ticker is right`

2012-01-03T17:18:00.003+11:00

"I should be here by now" But she is not. 4 days overdue and we are still waiting. Having never gone overdue before it's driving us all a bit crazy.

Some news soon - I hope!

Christmas Present for GG

2011-12-09T16:20:00.003+11:00

Stuck Sketch Nov

2011-11-21T15:08:00.001+11:00

Challenges

2011-11-05T16:55:00.002+11:00

Sketch from Stuck!

"Play" is using Kaisercraft's tools paper (whatever it's called). The photos were taken in Sept 2011 and include one of Keegan all ready to help Dad renovate the laundry.

The second layout is a challenge from Scrap the Boys. The challenge was to include a photo of your boy in team colours. This layout is about Keegan's champion soccer team - they won all their games (bar one, when most of the team was sick) and usually by huge margins! The close games were played with more players on the opposing team to 'even' things up.

December Daily Album

2011-11-05T16:41:00.002+11:00

Nic at LSBS has created a template for a Christmas daily photo album. You can find the instructions here. Here are a few photos of mine.

LSBS Rainbow Challenges

2011-10-31T15:04:00.001+11:00

Yellow challenge, using a sketch from Stuck!

LSBS Rainbow Challenges

2011-10-24T14:49:00.005+11:00

A couple of layouts (red and orange). Red seems to have gone sideways (stupid bug!), and orange has lots of photos representing the segments of an orange.

I might just get to the other 5 colours as the weeks go by, let's see....

Am slowly recovering from my operation. The bruises are fading, and my tummy cut looks much better, but is being stretched by the baby while it tries to heal, so it's quite tiring. Being a naturally energetic person, it's rather frustrating to be struggling for energy, but each day is better than the one before.

Appendix Drama

2011-10-17T14:05:00.002+11:00

It’s an odd thing about life, one day you are happy being busy doing the usual things – work, family, planning for the future. The next day you wake with an indescribable pain in your side and rush off to the doctor. Not knowing that the next week is going to be solely focused on your internal organs and the fight to get back to normal.

Perhaps an experience like this ought to change your perspective on life, and maybe it will when it’s over, but while still in the midst of ‘recovery’ it is hard to see past that next step on the doctor’s list of achievements. Small steps become overwhelmingly important when just getting out of bed makes you feel like you’ve been to the gym for an hour.

It started on a Monday morning. At 4am, I woke with a huge solid pain in the side of my stomach. By breakfast time, I thought I was going to vomit from the strength of the pain and we rushed through the breakfast process to get the boys dropped off and myself to the doctor. When in the doctor’s clinic, the pain made me feel faint. So I took the precaution of lying on the floor to avoid fainting, but this set a giant drama in action. “Oh my, she’s collapsed in my office, call an ambulance”.

The ambulance arrived and took me to RPA Maternity – since I was 28 weeks pregnant and already booked in there it seemed like a sensible thing. The pain eased by now, perhaps I’d been given something? And a long process started at RPA. Ultimately I was sent upstairs to the antenatal ward with all the other pregnant ladies with complications to wait it out. Lots of scans (on baby and on stomach), antibiotics and pain meds and by Wed I thought I was doing better. Rather optimistically, I even said on facebook “antibiotics appear to be working, so signs are positive that i can avoid an operation. Dr says appendix will prob need to come out one day but hopes that can wait till after bub is out to reduce risk.”

Half an hour later, the pain returned much worse than before and had spread across the lower portion of my stomach. The surgical team was called urgently and decided that it was best if I went under a general anaesthetic while they put a camera inside to have a look around and see what the problem was.

I woke from the general a few hours later with a giant gash in my stomach from top down through my belly button to the bottom. Apparently when they put the camera in via a small hole, a bunch of pus flew out, so they split me open to clean everything out properly. There were a few anxious times waiting for the baby people to come and check the baby, but she did appear to have a good heartbeat if a bit sleepy.

After a few hours lying in the recovery centre, the team decided it was better for me to go back to maternity rather than intensive care, and so I was wheeled upstairs to be started on intensive antibiotics and morphine. Amazingly, the pain in my side was completely gone and replaced by new pain in new places. But the intensity was gone, or perhaps that’s just the morphine!

Time starts to blur around now, I vaguely recall a visit from my parents at some point, perhaps it was Wednesday or Thursday? Lots of unhelpful advice about lounging about in bed for a month. And the crazy scheme of flying Jacqui over to do the housework for Brennan. I talked to her on the phone about it and said, “don’t worry he has it under control, so only come if it’s going to suit your family, although of course we’d love to see you”. She said “I was in a total panic, I got a text from mum saying “have you got a current passport” and after reading on facebook that you were in hospital. Of course I thought, oh no Renee is going to die and I’ve got to rush over and say goodbye but it turned out just to be a big scheme. Brennan seemed as confused as me when we skyped about it later!”

All of this whirred around me but somehow seemed mostly irrelevant as I was focused on sitting up, getting out of bed. A physio visited and told me I’d recover faster if I could walk every day, and off we went for a little walk around the ward. The walking itself wasn’t too bad, a little wobbly, but the getting in and out of bed with essentially no stomach muscles was much more difficult. Somewhere in here I came off the morphine and became unhooked from the multiple drips. The kids came to visit and were much less freaked out than the initial visit when I was all hooked up to machines – poor Vincent had a nightmare that first night and ring me early in the morning to hear my voice. I suggested he sleep with my pillow and hopefully it would smell a bit like me which might help.

Saturday was good, lots of walking, even out of the ward once, a long visit from the kids, and most of the day pretty active. Keegan even said “Mum, how come you are walking faster today” “I must be getting better if I’m faster than yesterday” “Ok, now look at me run!” I went to sleep feeling like I’d been doing crunches all day, stomach muscles were pretty sore from the work-out, but sleep seems to have cured that.

Now it is Sunday morning and I’m pretty mobile again. The baby team are happy with the baby who is back to her usual galloping about in there – she has recovered well enough to boot me in the cut on a regular basis! This morning brings the final lot of antibiotics, then home on Monday. Tomorrow, wow, I will have been here a whole week.

It’s a good thing I was fit and healthy when this process started, as it’s given me a great base to recover from. Although apparently with a cut like this, it takes about 6 weeks to feel ‘almost normal’ and 12 weeks to feel ‘completely normal’. I think there is a baby due somewhere in the middle of that, in about 10 weeks!!

The doctors say that about 1 in 1000 pregnant women get appendicitis, but it is very rare for the appendix to burst and require such a large incision. Most are easily dealt with using keyhole surgery.

Fathers Day Clock

2011-09-06T12:33:00.003+10:00

I created this clock (Kaisercraft) for Brennan for father's day. The photo was from an idea from the blog Be a Fun Mum; it's hard to see in this photo but the boys have "We (heart) DAD" written on the bottom of their feet.

The papers are October Afternoon. Oh, and the cogs are from Scrapmatts, and they move - which is cool, but took ages to put together.

A few projects

2011-09-06T12:29:00.004+10:00

Wow, going on retreat really gets the creative juices flowing. So this morning, rather than do number crunching and analysis of sales records for work, I thought I'd take the opportunity to scrap. And even better, Fergus was (mostly) asleep, so I could scrap in peace without having to defend my tools from being taken on little walks around the house! I managed 3 layouts for the SEVEN SEAS challenge over at LSBS.

Challenge 1 was to use BLUE and inspired by the Roaring Forties.

Challenge 2 was to do a group photo and use yellow, black and white.

And Challenge 3 was to use at least 3 circles.

A weekend away for inspiration

2011-08-31T15:11:00.003+10:00

I spent last weekend among fellow creative types at the LSBS 2011 Retreat, and created all sorts of goodies. One is a present for my mum, which is up on the Tattered Inspirations blog (since I used one of their funky kits to make it). Some of the other creations I made:

Rejection and a history of my scrapping...

2011-08-19T14:01:00.003+10:00

I've just read a really interesting post about rejection (here). And it's made me realise that I don't need to get my scrapbooking 'accepted' anymore.

I first encountered scrapbooking at playgroup. Another mum invited me and the boys over for a playdate and she had these amazing off-the-page albums. I asked about them and she said "oh you should totally start doing this". I was pretty ho-hum about it, I considered myself more of a logically brained person than a creative person. And felt I wasn't up to making anything like she had.

But the idea of doing something cool with my photos and not just storing them on the computer; and especially the idea of having the story with the photo; ... well, this idea rattled around my head for quite a while. And eventually I started scrapping in 'secret'. I bought a couple of magazines, some cheap papers and so forth and gave it a go.

And found that I really liked it. Ok, I was dreadful, uninspiring, bland and not creative. But slowly I got more confident and played more and occasionally I would produce a page that actually looked pretty good.

A couple of years of this 'secret' scrapping went by, and I eventually got enough courage to go to a retreat with other scrappers. The idea that I'd never done a class and had just, well, made it up by reading magazines was seen as a bit out there. I didn't really make any friends at that retreat, but I came away with lots more confidence and a huge improvement in quality.

I tried another retreat a year or so later and met loads of great people and by now was starting to get comfortable with my own style. It's not arty, not fussy (which seems to be in fashion at the moment), but it's fairly stylish, graphic and tells the story!

So I figured it was time to get on a design team, or get published, and stop being all secret. Get out there and show off my new-found creative confidence. And, man, did I get rejected!

I've still never been published, but I have done a few guest designer spots for a website or two. And am now on the design team for 2011 for Scrapping Shoebox. Mission accomplished.

But what I've realised, most of all, is that it doesn't matter (which is probably easier to come to terms with since I achieved a goal!). I scrap for my own enjoyment, to tell the stories, keep the photos in an interesting way, to make the photos and stories more readily available to my family that stars in them.

I've also realised that scrapbooking is not the main part of my life. Being on a design team takes a lot of time, and I have a family and a burgeoning career that also need me to put in the time. Scrapbooking is a hobby that tells the story of my life, but it can't be life itself.

Whitsunday Holiday 2011

2011-07-20T14:43:00.003+10:00

The first layout of the holiday! This one was done for the "Reng's Random Challenge" over at Scrapbook Divas. You can find the details here.

Whitsunday Holiday 2011

2011-07-19T19:19:00.004+10:00

Present: Brennan, Renée, Vincent, Keegan, Fergus, Caro, Andrew

Tuesday 12 July 2011

An uneventful start to our Whitsunday winter holiday. Early train to the airport, flight at 10am, arrived at Hamilton Island on schedule. Checked into Holiday Home (Oasis #10) and received the keys to our little house and most importantly, our golf buggy. We threw our things into the house and meandered off in the buggy for a tour of the island that included a stop at the first café we found for lunch. We were starving by then, and ate WAY too much! A short explore, and home for a rest before it was time for dinner. The Steakhouse looked inviting, but had an hour’s wait. We decided to take a tour of the island in our buggy, but the dark of night made it difficult to discern any details! Back to dinner, with a buffet for kids (what a great idea, they could start immediately, while we waited for our order). We were pretty full after our big lunch, so ordered fairly small. Brennan and Renee shared a lamb roast.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Our food order hadn’t arrived yet, so we were forced out for breakfast. The only place open was the ‘eat with koalas’ attraction. Brennan said “overpriced hotel breakfast, the usual crap”. Caro said “I can’t believe he (the chef) wasted so many eggs”. No wonder it cost so much, and of course the cost is further inflated by the people staying in the hotel who have breakfast included in their room charge.

Off to the swimming pool and playground. Keegan said “Zero degrees, so cold” but swum anyway! Vincent said “loved the pirate playground and Dad dug a HUGE hole”.

Our food arrived, then we went for a glass bottom boat ‘look at fishes’ ride, while Caro and Andrew had some time to themselves (with the buggy) before they went snorkelling out on the reef. The glass bottom boat ride was better than expected, a bit tacky and the driver persisted in telling a long winded story about the cost of everything. $250k to join the Hamilton Island yacht club, cost to stay at qualia, cost of the bath tubs at qualia, how much the owner of the island bought it for, etc. But we did get to see a lot of coral and several fish. Keegan said his best bit was “seeing the fishes”. Vincent said “zebra fishes” and also that he saw “one hundred turtles with my tricky eyes!!” Brennan liked the section where the boat was left to drift in the strong current of the gap between Hamilton Island and the neighbouring island. Keegan also liked “going speedy, so fast, faster than I can swim”. Vincent’s imagination ran away with him and he also ‘saw’ “a shark so big under our boat”.

We swapped the buggy keys with Caro and Andrew and took the chance to have lunch at the pub. It was a terrible pub, bad music, no atmosphere and no interesting beers on tap. The lunch was adequate, but nothing special either. We went back to the house for a rest, Renee read a book, boys played rugby and watched a bit of tv, Fergus and Brennan slept.

Best part of the day. Vincent: “Rugby with Andrew. It was me and Keegan vs Andrew and we won 7-3” Brennan told Andrew that he should be more inventive with his application of the rules in order to beat the boys, who are starting to work as a team and thus getting better at winning! Keegan: “Boat ride, speeding along faster than I can swim”. Brennan: “3 hour day sleep!”

Andrew made BBQ dinner, boys to bed (they crashed to sleep!), and we stayed up drinking and talking till late.

Thursday 14 July 2011

Breakfast at home. The toaster made the smoke alarm go off – why is it that we could fill the house with BBQ smoke during dinner the night before, but a little piece of unburnt toast makes the alarm fill the place with piercing noise? Brennan’s height was an advantage as he reached up and turned it off. The boys were very impressed that he could reach and Andrew couldn’t quite reach. The couple of cm advantage that Dad has makes him superman!!

Caro and Andrew took the boys to the beach to play rugby and swim so the Brennan and Renee could have some time to ourselves. We wandered aimlessly about, up and back the beach, around the resort and so on. Laughed at ourselves for walking along the beach at a rapid clip – can’t slow down even on holiday! After an hour or so of that, we were bored and missing the boys, so went over to them to organise lunch. Did a bakery mission in the buggy, left them with some sandwiches and pies before high-tailing it off to a peaceful lunch in the sun by ourselves. Took our leftovers back to the boys and played for a while. Hide and seek was the game of choice for the boys! Then it was time to go back to the house for a rest.

After a rest, we leapt back in the buggy to the high point of the island to enjoy ‘sunset cocktails’. Caro and Andrew were still feeling a little seedy from the night before (Brennan’s 10 year drinking advantage over them shows up here, as he felt fine!). Took lots of photos and the boys had a grand time running all over “one tree hill” and exploring the hillside. The name of the hill is about as silly as Auckland’s similarly named hill – Auckland’s version has no trees, Hamilton Island’s version has many.

Home for home made lamb burgers.

Friday 15 July 2011

Vincent came into our bedroom with a note he’d written. “to mum, we will make pancakes for 5+2=7 breakfast” Caro did the actual making, and Vincent helped by setting the table and waking everyone up!

After breakfast, the weather was less than ordinary, so we went to the sports club and played a round of mini-golf. Fergus had a great time chasing the balls and interfering with all the games by ‘catching’ the balls and moving them around! Near the end of the course, Keegan lost his ball and was sad. Renee went over to help him find it and discovered that he’d sunk it on the final hole and it had gone down the shute back to the shop. After adding up the scores, Brennan won on 49 shots, and Vincent and Keegan drew at the other end on 81 shots. Andrew pulled out a prize for each of them from his magic bag and they both had a ‘sticky hand’ to play with for the rest of the day. Until they got too much crap stuck to them and lost their sticky. But Andrew to the rescue again and a quick wash had them back to original stickiness.

Home for lunch of bacon and eggs leftovers.

Then slightly improved weather encouraged us back to the beach for more swimming and rugby. Everyone shot each other with water guns, before the cold seeped in and we went home to warm up and have a rest. Mad aunty Caro decided that since she didn’t swim at the beach, she was going to swim in the house pool. Being in the shade of the neighbours house, it was colder than the ocean, but that didn’t stop the boys from joining her for a dip. They had fun swimming with the rugby ball as a floatation device. But soon had to run inside for a shower to warm back up again.

Renee went for a walk to town for some peace and quiet, went a bit crazy in a pretty shop, purchasing a new perfume. Couldn’t decide between vanilla or ginger ‘flavoured’, but went for ginger because it had a prettier box. The decision making of a scrapbooker – this one has a nicer box, which would look lovely if I just added a few things to it!

Caro made her coconut fish risotto concoction for dinner. Yum! Boys to bed – all this holidaying is hard work, they have slept so well, almost instanteously as they hit the pillow!

We stayed up and played cards, an old Geelen family game that is a variation on 500, called ‘nominations’ or ‘up and down the river’ depending on who you talk to. Caro won.

Saturday 16 July 2011

Holiday is over. Breakfast and packing. Once packed, we checked out and dropped off the buggy. Then we wandered aimlessly about the island until it was almost too late for lunch. Had a mad fast lunch at the pool bar before a furiously fast walk to the airport so we’d be in time for our plane. We arrived to find that it had all been in vain, as the low cloud had forced the cancellation of all flights for the day.

Virgin (the airline company) put us on a boat to Daydream Island, a nearby resort, and left us to it. The communication with them was fairly incomplete, but we arrived after a 35 minute boat ride to find that if we waited for a couple of hours there was going to be a room for us. Unfortunately they had only one room, with two double beds, for all seven of us. So it was back to the line at reception to get another room for Caro and Andrew. Luckily the resort found one for them, and a cot for Fergus, and we all had a bed for the night.

By this time it was almost dinner time, but with just enough time for a walk around the island to explore a little. And since we might be leaving the next day at an unknown time, we thought it wise to make the most of it and see as much as we could. We discovered a really cool kids playground and the boys played for a while, a bit more walking, then back to the main section for dinner. The resort was struggling to cope with a plane load of unexpected guests, so it was room service for dinner. We ate in the main lounge, under the large plastic brightly coloured fish, and the quality was excellent.

The resort at Daydream is like walking into ‘80s world. It’s full of mad bright colours, and great retro music. Which sure beats the rubbish pop covers they played at Hamilton Island’s bars. The kids loved it, it’s such a great place for kids, but oddly it feels under-utilised.

After the change in plans, which was not much of a hard-ship for us, but a big drama for Caro and Andrew, we had an early night. The cancellation of the flight meant that Caro missed her flight back to NZ on Sunday, and Andrew missed the first leg of his great international adventure. They spent a fair bit of time on the phone and the internet organising new flights and sorting out insurance dramas.

Sunday 17 July 2011

A bonus day in the Whitsundays! Breakfast, then mini-golf at the very funky ‘play around Australia in 19 holes’ course. A much more challenging and interesting course than Hamilton Island. A Fergus nappy drama at the tenth meant a walk back to our room for a change and a wash, while the others played chess. This had the added bonus of giving Andrew time to catch up, since he missed the first half as he was still on the phone sorting out his interrupted travel.

We finished the game and the winner was Andrew on 60, just pipping Brennan on 62. Vincent (76) smashed Keegan (94) this time around, but Keegan had the most shots! Keegan and Vincent have both perfected the drag shot during their two min-golf rounds and this substantially lowered their potential scores…

All this exercise makes you hungry, so we had lunch at the bakery before taking the long way back to the resort via the rainforest walk. We didn’t see any creatures during our journey, but with Vincent as leader and Keegan as ‘sign-spotter’ we read all the signs and learnt about several of the plants and animals that live on the island. The pram didn’t work on the 1km walk, so Andrew carried it, and Brennan carried Fergus. I think Brennan got the rough deal, as Fergus weighs more than 10kg and wriggles a lot!

The sun finally came out and we swam during the afternoon. The water wasn’t that warm, but at least we could all say that we’d donned the swimmers and taken to the water during the holiday! More water gun action to be had, then back to warm up and enjoy the resort’s bar.

Caro had the good sense to book us into the fancy restaurant (whether Virgin will cough up for the cost is another matter) and we enjoyed a gorgeous meal for dinner. Renee had to make do with ‘mocktails for the pregnant lady’ while the others enjoyed a bottle of fine red. The boys thought they were spoilt to be allowed icecream for dessert.

Monday 18 July 2011

The weather finally came out beautiful. And all flights were back on. We were up early to pack and get ready for a day of travelling. At breakfast, Brennan said “I bet Keegan gets lost today, he seems more dreamy than usual.” About ¾ of an hour before the boat to Hamilton Island was due, Vincent and I went to find Caro and Andrew. Keegan belatedly decided to join us, and proceeded to get lost. Vincent and I arrived back at the jetty without Keegan, Caro or Andrew. Brennan said “where’s Keegan, he chased after you”. No idea, so Vincent and Renee went hunting. Renee took the ground floor and Vincent went back to Caro and Andrew’s room. Vincent found him and said “his eyeballs were dripping, so I held his hand and we came back to Dad”.

Disaster averted, (Brennan proved right), all seven reunited (Caro and Andrew found us), and we boarded the vessel back to Hamilton Island. It may have been gorgeous, sunny and warm, but there was still a fairly violent wind to contend with. We arrived back at the airport with plenty of time to fill in, so left our bags with the Holiday Homes staff and wandered off to the beach for some tropical sunshine and, of course, lunch. This time it was at a more leisurely pace since our flight wasn’t till 2pm. We did manage to get on board a plane, but since Virgin had two days of backlog to cope with, we were flown to Brisbane before transferring to a Sydney flight. We finally arrived home at 7pm and took the train home. Andrew had a 3 hour wait before his flight to Greece and the belated start to his European adventure.

Takeaway dinner from the Thai place in Ashfield, then crashed into bed! Caro was up again at 4.30am to catch her new flight home to NZ, and thus the adventure ends. Only 20 loads of laundry, general unpacking and sorting of photos to do.

Scrap the Boys Challenge - July

2011-07-06T14:40:00.002+10:00

It feels like it's been a year since I did a challenge for Scrap the Boys, but here is one.

And google has made it spastically sideways, but oh well. Or perhaps it's the driver rather than google?? :)

7 Sins - LSBS

2011-06-22T14:32:00.002+10:00

The last three layouts for the series (though I haven't done week 4 yet).

My first flight

2011-06-21T15:10:00.002+10:00

A forum asked today about our first flying experiences and I ended up writing a big long tale. Here it is:

I don't remember my first flight - but I'm sure Dad has it written in his log book somewhere. Yip, my Dad keeps a log book of all his flights - has done since he was a kid. Even the big boring commercial ones. Type of plane, rego, everything

Growing up with a father that is a plane nut, I spent a LOT of time at airports as a kid. Very, very occasionally we were rewarded with a flight in a little plane around the airfield - a takeoff and landing usually (there is a term for it that my memory seems to have lost, bump circuit perhaps?). We spent far more time looking at planes than going in them!

But mostly we were stuck on the ground watching while he talked planes with old men for his latest book! http://www.nzaviationpress.co.nz/

The worst flight I did was Hamilton (NZ) to Sydney in about 2002. We were due to take off at 6am, so arrived at the airport at 4.30am having had a piece of toast for a quick breakfast. Went through customs, and waited. At 7am they announced that the plane was broken and a part had to come from Akl. So we had a 2hr wait while the part arrived and the broken one was replaced. They did this while we waited in 'no mans land'. Which at Hamilton airport is one very small room with one very small shop - nothing like Sydney with loads of shops and restaurants!! Read the book that I'd taken for the trip..... Eventually the powers that be decided that the new part didn't fix the problem and we were all going to put on a bus to go to Akl airport. So it's lunch time, and we haven't eaten since 4am and we had to go back thru customs and get on a bus for a 1.5hr ride.

The bus drove out the driveway of the airport, and about 1km down the road when a big bird (presumably a turkey) flew up in front of it and smashed into the windscreen! That poor driver. Everyone on the bus yelled out "keep on driving" and he drove all the way to Akl with a half broken windscreen! We arrived at about 2pm and were, thankfully, given vouchers for lunch at the pub. And told to wait for our flight at 4pm.

So we had 2 hours to get SMASHED at the pub before getting on our plane We did make it to Sydney, but the whole thing took more than 15 hours. There is a photo of us somewhere on arrival looking dreadful.

Our big boy is 6 tomorrow....

2011-06-17T17:13:00.000+10:00

#1 sons birthday tomorrow (6 - wow). Soccer is cancelled, so the day is up to him really. He wants porridge for breakfast

Then we are taking them to the Tigers game at Leichhardt tomorrow - I'm not much into league, but live games are fun no matter the sport, so it should be good.

Spent the morning with the parents group at school walking around deciding on 'educational' paintings to go on the different paths. Alphabet snakes and hop scotch, big chess boards, etc. Should be good when they are done - apparently the parents group has cash to spend, and this was what they came up with. I'm hovering on the edges of the group, not sure if I want to get involved yet...

Scrapping has been non-existent lately, sick kids, too much work, plus winter in general is uninspiring. But perhaps tonight, hubby is off to the pub, so I might put these monkeys in bed early and actually do something...

Number Four due End December

2011-06-11T15:33:00.002+10:00

Goodness, a Christmas baby!!!

And check out the cute ticker I've put on the blog to count down the days, and shows the development...

Seven Sins

2011-06-03T12:13:00.005+10:00

Or at least the first 3. The LSBS competition is in its fourth week (of 7), and I managed to do 3 of them this week! It's a catchup thing. Luckily, the deadline is the end of the 7 weeks, rather than weekly :)

Here they are:
Anger (This Boy - makes me angry how he eats SO slowly, but at least he'll try anything even spicy stuff, so I shouldn't complain. And his antics make me laugh more often!)

Envy (to scraplift someone you envy)

Gluttony (is wanting lots of kids a form of gluttony?)

Album for cousin Toby

2011-06-03T12:09:00.003+10:00

This little album is created with an acrylic base and various scrap pieces...

A terrible mother

2011-06-01T11:51:00.002+10:00

I've just been reading a great blog, Never Been Hip. And was reminded of a day after school last week. I was at school to pick up Vincent, when I saw him start a fight with another kid. A teacher went over and sorted it out. The mum I was chatting to said "oh, look at that". I said "yip, I'm looking, and I'm going to ignore it and let the teacher sort it out!" Later, that teacher and Vincent's teacher came over for a chat, and I said "well, when he's sick, he's just a little shit". I mean, it's true, why the shocked faces? Or is truth a terrible thing for a mother in public? Should we pretend that it's all sweetness and light all the time?
Normally Vincent is a practical, empathetic kid, but being sick makes him surly. It's just the reality of it.
Of course, parenting as a competitive sport doesn't allow for reality. Either your kid is super-perfect or is super-terrible and you have 'such a hard time' as a parent. Give it up - some is good, some is bad, and everything is MORE! Kids give you more happiness, more frustration, more laughter and more moments of complete terror than life without kids will ever give you!

An update

2011-05-03T13:36:00.001+10:00

Ok, so I've been crazy busy lately and have completely ignored by blog. But I have a guilty reason to update: a competition to win a few trips to Brisbane to wax lyrical about the place and encourage people to visit. Tourism Queensland have such great competitions!

The idea is to write 250 words about a place that I have discovered in my current locality. And our family should be the ideal people to do this. We are, as friends once said, always having little adventures. I don't think it will be the drive to find the waterfall that the town of Waterfall was named after - that was somewhat underwhelming, plus it rained like crazy and we ended up totally soaked! Perhaps our favourite haunt for a rainy day, the Powerhouse Museum. Full of cool engineering things and a couple of fantastic playgrounds. Then there is that other cool engineering location, Cockatoo Island. We love to explore all the old machinery, run through the tunnels, and climb up to the top and look out over the gorgeous harbour. But I think I'll run with the Sydney Ferries - it's the cheapest way to get a harbour cruise and see all the sights of the most famous beautiful harbour in the world!

Some creations

2011-03-17T10:15:00.003+11:00

The quad bike one is using a Kaisercraft sketch.

The kitchen one is Week 6 from LSBS.

And one of Fergus, just for fun!

School Bus (Kaisercraft)

2011-03-15T11:02:00.004+11:00

Scrapbook Divas gave me the new Kaisercraft Class of 87 collection to play with. Here is a layout using their march blog sketch (#1): First Day.

I also used the Scrapbook Divas month sketch to do this layout:

And of course, the bus album:

And a bit more... gee I've been busy!

2011-03-01T11:56:00.003+11:00

For my Two Tips post on Scrapping Shoebox, I created this purple layout.

A bit of creativity...

2011-03-01T11:54:00.003+11:00

This pyramid/star album was made for LSBS's 4-7-11 Week 1 challenge.

The photos are from our recent camping trip to Port Stephens. On the way home we went for a swim in Fingal Bay (where that famous spit is), and the 'wallet' sized photos seemed perfect for this little album.

Instructions can be found here.

Kids - update

2011-02-18T12:08:00.001+11:00

Vincent has settled into school really well. He has lots of new friends, although he had a fight with Reda last week, and they broke up. But are apparently pals again! Oh the trials of being a kid. His friends all have crazy names; Axel, Reda and Ozen, are the ones we hear about most. We haven’t heard about what he’s done in the classroom, if you take his word for it, all he does is eat lunch and play! But he comes home with little booklets of letters each day with his writing, plus they have to cut them out themselves and staple into a booklet. And lots of drawings. His teacher is Miss Stansbury; whose Dad grew up in Opotiki of all places! She grew up in Maitland (Hunter Valley), but spent some of the summer just gone in Opotiki visiting relatives. She says Vincent has settled in well, and has been doing lots of things.

Keegan has struggled to get used to his lack of big brother. He got punched a few times at daycare by other kids (too much teasing by him and not enough big brother to protect him!), but seems to have figured out when to stop teasing or run away! He’s pretty tired after daycare now, but perhaps that is more to do with the pre-school program than the lack of big brother?

Fergus is growing madly, and is a naughty baby. He’s reaching that age where naughtiness stops being cute and is just naughty. He seems to think that crawling isn’t good enough for him, and is obsessed with getting up on his feet. He even stands holding on with only one hand! He yells a lot too, and I’m pretty sure he thinks his name is “hey baby” as that is all that Keegan calls him!

Scrapping Shoebox Sketch

2011-02-11T12:51:00.001+11:00

Same sketch, done twice!!

LSBS 4-7-11 (2011 Annual Theme Competition)

2011-02-01T10:41:00.003+11:00

I managed to get most of last year's Seasoned Scrapper finished, apart from winter - but I hate the cold, so that's probably appropriate.

This year, LSBS are doing "4-7-11". 4 sets of 7 challenges in 2011.

Each session will run for 7 weeks, the first one starting on Sunday the 6th of February.

So, now you know that there are 7 design team members, and each session will run for 7 weeks... but there's one more thing!

Each session has it's own '7' theme...

Session 1: 7 Wonders
Session 2: 7 Deadly Sins
Session 3: 7 Seas
Session 4: 7 Colours of the Rainbow

You can join up here.

Scrapping Shoebox

2011-02-01T10:33:00.002+11:00

My first post on their blog is all about me. Why is it that writing about yourself is so tricky?

I put a couple of layouts in it. Here they are again.

Scrapping Shoebox

2011-01-30T17:28:00.003+11:00

Wow, I read the email twice. Had to make sure it wasn't spam. But it's true - my first design team!! And it's all fancy, I'm really a "contributing artist". I'm so excited!

Here it is: Scrapping Shoebox

Six and a half years - wedding memories

2011-01-19T15:25:00.001+11:00

We got married in the middle of winter and lucked onto a dry-ish day. We had some scattered drizzle during our photos, but you can't really tell. It was freezing cold tho, and I had velvet full length jacket to match my dress. I don't think I took it off all day, even inside :)

With my huge family, we booked out a whole country hotel (made everyone pay for their own rooms), but we had the whole place to ourselves. Stayed up all night drinking and had a wonderful time. Then everyone was still there for a late breakfast the next day, and we didn't have to worry about upsetting anyone else!

It ended up being quite cheap on a relative scale. The amount we'd set aside for alcohol ran out just after dinner (omg, everyone drank twice as much as we'd expected, and we'd expected a lot!). But we told everyone that it was going on their room tabs after that, and no-one had a problem.

We also made a spy game for all the young cousins. Gave each a disposable camera and a list of guests. They had to spy on their guests and get a photo of them - the end result being that we had at least one photo of everyone who came.

We also made a game for everyone while we were getting our photos done. We matched everyone into pairs and made little cards that matched together when you found your pair. Then included a description of the person and a conversation suggestion. Eg, you are looking for someone tall who might like to talk about rocks. It worked brilliantly, except we spent our photo session looking whistfully through the window at all the hilarity! It also meant that people from my family were forced to find and talk to people from B's family.

And we intended to have a winter holiday every year to celebrate - someplace WARM! We've managed it twice (our honeymoon and the year before last!). Ahh well...

Some recent Layouts

2011-01-17T15:13:00.006+11:00

For the creative team comp at Red Earth Scrapping
and the lower four are for the Jan CC at LSBS.

Same Photo; Two ways

2011-01-11T12:34:00.003+11:00

Ok, so I'm not sure about the whole ceremony of graduating from pre-school. But the photo is so gorgeous that I've done a layout for his album, plus a canvas.

Thanks to all our gift givers

2010-12-26T10:03:00.002+11:00

To all of us:
Movie tickets from Jacq, Sims and Rooster
Aussie Jingle Bells book from Nathan, Jaye, Hannah, Jasper

To Vincent:
Lego box from Jacob and Jessica
Playdough dinosaurs from Jacob and Jessica
Surfboard from Dad
Lego Jet Plane from Dad&Mum
Walkie Talkie set from Keegan
Ben10 Shorts and Lego from Grandma Laura
Watergun and REAL (!) tools from Nathan, Jaye, Hannah, Jasper
Rubix Cube Game from Grandpa Kevin

To Keegan:
Lego box from Jacob and Jessica
Playdough dinosaurs from Jacob and Jessica
Surfboard from Mum
Lego Fire Engine Helicopter from Dad&Mum
Big Green Truck from Vincent
Spiderman Shorts and Lego from Grandma Laura
Watergun and REAL (!) tools from Nathan, Jaye, Hannah, Jasper
Disney stories book from Grandpa Kevin

To Fergus:
T-shirts in a red bucket from Dad&Mum
Windup Submarine from Jacob and Jessica
Thomas and Whistle from Nathan, Jaye, Hannah, Jasper
Barn Animals from Grandma Laura
Penguin bag and towel from Nathan, Jaye, Hannah, Jasper
Jumpsuits from Grandma Laura
Pots and Pans from Grandpa Kevin

To be updated....

Scrap the Boys: December Challenge 1

2010-12-17T15:48:00.001+11:00

Challenge 1–“Dancer or Prancer”

Another month past and start of a new one…this month we have taken inspiration from Santa's reindeers..well their names anyway. So get those photos out of your boy strutting his stuff either in general or on the dance floor… and scrap whether he is a dancer or a prancer…

A few Xmas Creations

2010-12-15T11:08:00.000+11:00

2010 Summary

2010-12-10T16:09:00.001+11:00

Brennan’s work erupted in excitement, and interrupted our camping holidays when his client at Lane Cove went bankrupt. Suddenly life at Lane Cove (which had been boring in 2009) became interesting with the tunnel up for sale and the prospect of a new client. Contract negotiations with the new client gave him a chance to learn some new skills, and at the same time, Transfield started to get him involved with other work. All up, in 2010, Brennan has made 21 flights around the country (plus a few to NZ) working on bidding new work, and attempting to make a loss making contract in Tasmania into a golden opportunity. Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig…

I’m still working in racing, with 3 main clients and doing interesting work. I did a lot of work at the start of the year on a massive court case that will be heard in Aug 2011. Apparently I have a high chance of being cross-examined as an expert witness, which should be an intriguing new experience.

Life at home with Vincent and Keegan is always full of adventure and in May we welcomed the arrival of Fergus Lorcan Daly to make it three Daly boys to run with. “Will he jump on the trampoline with us?” “Can we play cricket with him?” Well, not yet…

Operating under a lack of sleep for those first few months, we saved on organisational time and held a joint birthday party for Vincent and Keegan in July. Now 5 and 4, they are enjoying day care for 3 days a week, swimming lessons on Thursdays and playgroup on Fridays. Generally they are great pals who play well together, but with the usual sibling spats occasionally. Vincent learnt to ride his bike without training wheels and zooms around at great speed.

In September we bought a house and moved south-west by two blocks. Yes, still in the same suburb, and about the same distance walk to daycare and the shops. The house is really just an apartment, but we have a ground floor with kitchen and lounge and top floor with 3 beds and bathroom. It’s a 1970s development, so tastefully decorated with navy blue carpet and orange curtains. We’re in a block of 10 units with some common ground that the boys can run on. It’s next to a busy road, but we had to compromise in order to be able to afford something! The highlight for the boys was hiring a moving truck and getting to spend two days riding in the truck and going up and down on the lift at the back.

The other big event of the year was our trip to NZ for 10 days. The full story is at: (http://dalyfamilyjournal.blogspot.com/).

Renee: Hey boys what was the best part about the NZ trip?

Vincent: Campervan and farm

Keegan: Campervan and farm

Vincent: Why you like the same?

Keegan: What? Huh?

Also from other conversations, they liked the plane rides, riding on the quad bike, playing with their cousins, and going to the snow. It was great catching up with family, and we had loads of fun.

Now we are back in Sydney and back to the normal routine. The boys have joined the local cricket club and go to cricket lessons on Fridays. Vincent starts at Ashfield Public School in February. We spent a week at school in November doing ‘transition’ which consisted of a couple of hours each morning pretending to be a school kid and finding out what he will be doing. Mostly, I think he played in the playground and went on tours, or at least that’s what he told me!

Wishing you all a good summer holidays.

From the Daly family in Sydney.

December Daily - it's begun...

2010-12-03T08:50:00.002+11:00

Well, I said I'd start one of these, and here we are:

Scrap the boys: November Challenge

2010-11-23T13:20:00.002+11:00

I'm not sure why it's posted sideways, it's not saved that way.... (it's my "computer touch of death" at work again)

Christmas Portrait for 2010

2010-11-21T14:18:00.002+11:00

November CC at Mad About Scrappin

2010-11-17T12:56:00.003+11:00

http://madaboutscrappin.spruz.com/

December Scrapping Challenges

2010-11-10T10:42:00.004+11:00

I've been struggling to get motivated lately to do any scrapping. Sounds crazy when it's just a hobby anyway - why should it matter if I'm doing it or not? But the events and the photos keep piling up and I feel like I "should" be documenting them. But perhaps waiting is better as I tend to get through a bunch when I'm in the mode.

But I've found a fun xmas project to do this year, and it uses up some stuff I bought last year for a project that I never really started - let alone finished.

So the Ali Edwards December Daily it is. Apparently I need to do some pre-planning. Maybe I'll find time today, or next week...

Here's a fun photo of Fergus enjoying flying with Brennan!

NZ Trip Addendum

2010-11-08T20:04:00.005+11:00

Dinner on the Friday night, while the boys were hamming it up at the Halloween party, was at the restaurant where bil Scott works. Dallows at Sale St

Scott put together a six course degustation menu for us and it was just gorgeous. A night out with just Brennan and I to chat, eat, drink and be merry.

Fabulous !!

NZ Trip October 2010

2010-11-03T16:17:00.002+11:00

Thursday 21

Flights ought to be unmemorable and the majority our flight told no tales. The landing into Auckland was a bit bumpy; well, ok, it was one of those landing where everyone in the plane bursts into spontaneous applause. I leaned over to the boys “Was that scary or fun?” “Fun, fun, let’s do it again” were the cries that almost drowned out the applause!

All five of us cleared customs without one missing bag and met Caro who had picked up our campervan for us. We had intended a quiet night at Caro’s flat before venturing off the next day. But the whole family were there and the boys ran around crazily with everyone for a few hours. Of course, sleeping in the upper deck of the campervan was also too exciting, but luckily we were still on Aussie time and when they finally slept at 10.30pm it was still really only 8.30pm.

The missing bag was the one with the adult clothes in. So while the kids were madly meeting their NZ relatives, Brennan and I went out quickly to get some clothes for the next few days. What an excuse to buy some nice new fancy undies!

Friday 22

The idea was a gentle drive to Taupo for lunch, then play in the garden at Helene and Pete’s for the rest of the day. It took considerably longer than we intended to sort out the bureaucracy for the campervan and we finally hit the road just before lunch! Eventually we arrived at Taupo and settled in for a very cold night. At 5 degrees it was just about as cold as we’ve been since our last visit to NZ. There was plenty of wine drunk and many crazy exaggerated stories told that night – a warm up for the main event.

Saturday 23

Everyone at the house seemed to be quite organised and focused, breakfast was made and ate and everyone hit the road. Our campervan crew took slightly longer, already in holiday mode, but we were on our way soon after the rest of the entourage. Only to find that we were locked in the property and the front gate was firmly closed. I guess that huge campervan just blended right into the garden!

“Ahh, but we have Helene’s number” “She’s not answering it” “It’s probably still in the house” “How about one of us asks the neighbour for the gate combination number, and the other rings around the family to see if anyone else knows it”

It took about half an hour, but the neighbour did know the number and we could get on our way. By then, most people knew that we would be late to the farm visit in Napier – and we thought we had everyone’s lunch in the esky that had been carefully loaded into our vehicle that morning.

We arrived at Johan’s farm about an hour after the organised time, after nearly running out of diesel and having to do a detour to fill up. Luckily the guy at the gas station knew the road that Jo’s farm was on, and could give us better directions than the useless GPS which thought the road didn’t exist.

And we weren’t the last to arrive!

Everyone piled into Jo’s ute, along with the working dogs, and he took us out to a steep paddock to show us (well, primarily Jan and Jan Jr) how the dogs work the sheep.

After all that, the esky wasn’t required for lunch. We were to carry on to Waimarama and have a late lunch there. Our bag still hadn’t been found, so we left the touring party and detoured to Napier to purchase more clothes and some lunch for our very starving children.

We finally arrived at Waimarama and spent the afternoon socialising with the extended Geelen family. From the oldest (Jan – my grandfather’s brother) to the youngest (Fergus), we were there to celebrate the 60^th birthday of Andre (my Dad’s brother). Plenty of aunties, uncles and cousins to pass the time with. And plenty of beer and wine to ease the conversation. Can’t forget the Russian vodka either!

Sunday 24

The thought of lunch at a fancy winery sounded brilliant last week when it was organised. Everyone was applauding Tash for her inspiration, but that applause faded quickly into grumpy scowls when we all woke with massive hangovers! What better cure for a hangover than a winery lunch? How about a half hour drive along a windy road first – sure to cure that seedy feeling! At least we gained some humour. Katrinka hitched a ride in the campervan and was soundly told off by Vincent “Put your seatbelt on!”

Armed with sunglasses and after treating the seedy guts with bread and water; suddenly the idea of lunch sounded brilliant again. The boys had a great time, galloping about in the vines, eating the fanciest fish and chips you ever did see (totally lost on them), borrowing everyone’s cameras and taking loads of photos of stuff. Leaves, grapevines, grass, rocks, and each other (up really close).

After lunch it was back to Waimarama for more drinking and mad conversation. “How is Australia?” “How is the new house?” “Are you still doing horse stuff?” and finding out what all the rest are up to. The boys had dinner with their cousins, and spent the time riding the quad bike and tearing about on the lawn and beach with the other four little boys that were present.

Brennan struggled with the question “How is your job?” “Well, it’s a long story, I’m still at Lane Cove, but I’m also doing ….” Brother-in-law Scott had tried valiantly to hide the fact that he was a chef, but failed miserably as each person he met said “Nice to meet you, welcome to the family, and what do you do?” Suddenly, the idea that he could cook up one of Jo’s sheep into a fabulous mutton dish was embraced by everyone! So he spent the afternoon in the kitchen – in the midst of everyone – and surpassed expectations with the most wonderful roast!

Another evening was passed in drunken conversation. Perfect.

Monday 25

Spent the morning playing and cleaning, then parted ways. The NZers back to work the next day, but we thought we’d take advantage of the weather and show the boys snow. So we drove off to Whakapapa and arrived in time for dinner and sleeping. It was a nice quiet night in the bush to settle ourselves before spending more time in company later in the week. The boys slept well, even though it was very cold!

Tuesday 26

Snow, snow, snow. Snowball fights, snow down the back of clothes, eating snow. So much fun to be had, in what was really so little snow. Most of it had melted – after all, it was nearly Nov – but we could find enough to get excited about.

To finish off a quintessential kiwi experience, we drove down the mountain to Tokaanu and swam at the hot pools. Fergus poo’d all over the floor during a bit of nappy free time – you’d think that we’d have this perfected by the third kid and have less of these dramas! Vincent and Keegan gave Brennan a fright by leaping into the big pool and swimming across to the other side. He leapt in the rescue them (unfortunately for the humour value, he was already in his swimmers not fully dressed), but they showed off their skills and cruised across the pool without incident. Several more laps followed before we piled back into the campervan and cruised up the road to Taupo.

We arrived in time for Brennan and the boys to help Pete in the garden, then had a quiet dinner before a long sleep.

Wednesday 27

Our drive back towards Auckland was slowly taking shape, and as we pulled out of the driveway at Taupo, we decided to relive a little history and take SH30 and SH3 to view the old roads that brought our lives together. It was a fun drive with a photo shoot at the Mangapehi railway station, and a plan to have lunch at Waitomo and show the boys where we were married. Of course they didn’t care, and were just starving. Being midweek nothing much was open, and so we fed the boys ham and cheese sandwiches from the campervan fridge and carried on to Hamilton.

After lunch there, we arrived mid afternoon at the local Transfield depot and caught up with some of the old team. Much chatting later and we reconvened at Doug’s place for the evening. His wife made the most wonderful Indian meal for dinner; albeit a little hot for comfort! And another night of drunken conversation was undertaken. Pretty much the standard theme for our holidays!

Thursday 28

On leaving Hamilton, we were running quite early to get back into Auckland, so decided to drop by Waiuku to catch up with Gran. Had morning tea there and lots of interesting conversation catching up on all the gossip including Hemaima’s new baby, even saw pictures. So cute.

Onwards to Auckland for a quiet dinner at Marua Rd.

Friday 29

Spent the day at Auckland Zoo wandering around and found it quite pleasant to go to a zoo that is flat. The boys had a wonderful time with Ruth, and among the highlights were the howler monkeys, the playground and a seagull eating tomato sauce. Once we’d had enough sun, and ran long enough we went shopping to get outfits for the Halloween party that Ruth had invited the boys along to that evening.

Vincent became “Justice Police” while Keegan was “Zoroo”. Not sure if it was just a spelling mistake, or a misguided attempt at dodging copyright, but much enjoyment was gained from having a sword and a cape. Ruth was made into a ghost with the help of some massive industrial sized scissors and a white sheet. “Stand still, where do you want your eye holes?”

The boys stayed the night there, Fergus and I had an early night and Brennan cheered our rugby team home. He was a lone cheerer in the lounge!!! Go the Wallabies…

Saturday 30

Our last day in NZ and the weather was still amazing. It hasn’t really had a mention in this whole story but it was miles better than expected. Sunny every day and most warm enough, apart from a cold wind. We were all off to the secret location of the unsurprising surprise party for Mum’s birthday. Some garden in Auckland somewhere, lots of trees, reasonable café. Weird that it had plaques with the sponsors names all through the plantings, I thought that they were all memorial plaques and the whole thing was a bit morbid, but no, just a thanks for giving us money to weed this bit plaques. Lunch was nice, the gardens were fun. You could tell our family was there, the peace was shattered with calls of “Hey, where are you?” “over here with Tash” “where?” “here!” etc.

Back to Caro’s for a BBQ and Stefan, Sarah and Noah came along too which was good to catch up again. Noah and Ruth seemed to enjoy the enthusiastic influence of our children, Vincent had them climbing up the outside of the deck, and he enjoyed shooting everyone with his gun from the Friday party.

Sunday 31

Spent all day cleaning up the campervan and taking it back to the depot. It took ages to get it all signed up and I thought we might be late for our plane, but luckily we made it with time to spare. Mostly because the people at the airport saw us with 3 kids attempting to join a massive queue and rushed us to the front! We said our goodbyes and spent the next 4 hours completely stressed out, in lines, on the plane. The idea that they might all be tired and sleep for part of it was crazy in hindsight. The three of them just got tired and grumpy and did silly things. By the end of it, we were pleased to get them in the car and home to bed. Even though it was late, we gave them a quick bath to ease the nerves and they dropped off the sleep the minute they all hit their respective pillows. It took a little longer for the scarred nerves of the adults to recover, but after a good sleep we could see that it was all worth it and we’d had a wonderful time.

Mad About Scrappin Oct Challenge Kit

2010-10-13T16:11:00.001+11:00

Gran is ok...

2010-10-08T15:36:00.000+11:00

To add to the madness of the week, I got a text yesterday from one of my sisters "gran is in hospital, but she's ok, you'd better ring mum" I rang mum and listened to 20 minutes of how it was so inconvienent, etc. Finally i said "so mum, what is actually wrong with gran?" and got a story about how no one listens to her and gran hasn't been taking her medicine and she has some long term heart failure etc. (big breath) "so, mum, she's basically ok and is just being monitored?" and that did seem to be the answer!

today, i hear via skype that actually Gran cut her leg last week and has blood poisoning and this has led to heart failure. they caught it in time and she is in hospital on antibiotics and should be fine in a few days.

so a totally different story.

at least the first part about gran being ok (now that she is in hospital, being monitored and on antibiotics) is right! we are going over there in a couple of weeks, so will catch up with her then, but it sounds like she'll last another ten years easily. she was probably chopping firewood and cut her leg that way and doesn't want to admit it to the family!

and then, gran's sister visited her in hospital and said "what are you doing here doreen, there is nothing wrong with you. all you need is a good night's sleep"

yeah, a good night's sleep with cure blood poisoning! good one (shakes head). i guess crazy runs in the family!!

Is there a rule about blogging while drunk?

2010-09-11T17:45:00.002+10:00

I wrote a couple of posts at LSBS today that has got silly, so I thought I'd share....

2.38pm:
Back from a busy morning at the park. Hubby is at a training course today, so it's just me and boys. They've been bike riding all morning and are now crashed on the couch in front of telly. So tired that they've forgotten I promised them juice! Better go and get it for them; or perhaps they are asleep (but I doubt it).

Fergus slept in the pram, so now he's ready to practise his rolling - something he worked out only a couple of days ago!!

We are supposed to be packing as we move house on Thursday, but oh well. Maybe tomorrow - B's course couldn't have come at a better time

Other than that, I"m looking forward to the two sporting fixtures of the day. The Dato Mile at 3.40 - go Typhoon Tracy and Shoot Out (and old Zipping, I love him, but fresh up is too hard I'd say). Then the rugby tonight - Go the Wallabies!!!

3.45pm:
Oh yeah!!! Whobe back to his best - can't wait for the Cox Plate. Aussie breds 1,2,3 - makes my job easier

5.44pm:
Just after the race, hubby rang to say he was finished his training course and coudl we pick him up. A quick car ride over to Leichhardt and home and he decides we should have a bonfire in the backyard to burn everything we dont' want to move (goodness, i'm having trouble typing = too manybeers and a crying baby in my arms!)....

We have quality red neck music ont he ituens - my typing is disintergrating!@!!!

Scrap the Boys: Nickname Challenge

2010-09-08T16:39:00.002+10:00

LSBS Clayton's Retreat

2010-08-31T15:57:00.001+10:00

LSBS Seasoned Scrapper

2010-08-27T14:19:00.002+10:00

A couple of 'winter' layouts. http://www.littlescrapbookshop.com.au/home.php

New look for blog

2010-08-26T16:47:00.001+10:00

I'm not very patient with all this online design stuff, but I wanted a lighter background so my new Tickers will show up nicely. Here it is - a new template! Easy...

Plus this album I made a few weeks ago

2010-08-17T09:30:00.002+10:00

Vincent and Fergus....

I've been madly creating this week....

2010-08-17T09:28:00.001+10:00

Check this out!

A few layouts

2010-08-15T15:31:00.002+10:00

http://madaboutscrappin.spruz.com/

Mad About Scrapping has brought back their challenge kit - here are the first two from August!

2010-08-10T09:50:00.002+10:00

Scrap the Boys giveaway here: http://scraptheboys.blogspot.com/

Organising Scrapbook Albums

2010-08-04T08:51:00.003+10:00

LSBS asked the question this morning - how do you organise your layouts/albums? My answer was quite long, so I'm putting here too.

I'm quite organised in this sense.

I put the photos into album sleeves in chronological order when I get them printed. Then I flick through the albums to see which photos leap out at me that day and 'want' to get scrapped.

When I first started I would scrap them all in order, but found that didn't quite suit me. I also have a time limit on photos. If they've been sitting in albums for over 2 years, then I'm just not going to get inspired to do them! Then they get either:
- left there with just the story and no layout (if the photo or story is important)
- taken out and given to grandparents.

I have 6 albums on the go at once - one for each boy (these consist of about 3 actual albums each that have photos still unscrapped, as i've found that albums don't cope with more than 20 sleeves each before they fall apart!), one for random family moments, one for historical family stuff and one for house/renovation projects (this one is currently finished as we sold our house 2 years ago, but we're about to buy a new one so it'll get resurected - it's basically before and after photos of each room).

Oh, plus I have "benchmark" albums for each of the boys. These have the best photo of them for each age, 1 day, 1 week, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc plus the annual family xmas photo. My idea was to end up with an album for each boy for a 21st present or something! These layouts get extra thought and more expensive embellies than the others too.

All of this adds up to 4 shelves of albums in our house, and each one, when full gets a label created and hung off the back of them.

National Tree Day

2010-08-03T15:47:00.003+10:00

I took more photos than I planted trees on Sunday, but the boys did a great job. About 30 people turned up at the site we went to, and got over 2,000 trees planted. With this rain, they should mostly survive which is good.

Another environmental cause supported by us!

Visitors

2010-07-27T12:54:00.005+10:00

We love having visitors. The boys get so excited. They went to sleep on Thursday night and I said "Just close your eyes and think happy thoughts about our visitors. They'll be here tonight and you'll see them when you wake up". The taxi delivered Caro and Bert that evening and we chatted about how it was visiting Bert's parents in France, coping with the language barrier, coping with the onslaught of winter here after three weeks enjoying summer in Europe! And early on Friday morning, I walked into the lounge to discover two very excited little boys climbing all over Caro and Bert who were valiantly trying to sleep! It was inevitable, so we all embraced the day and farewelled Brennan off to work. By 8am we were ready to go, and left the house to catch the train. Bert wanted to see the Opera House and Bridge, so we trained to Circular Quay before walking up Pitt St to catch the monorail to Darling Harbour. Caro sneaked the boys into the Aquarium for free by removing a year from their ages, and we spent the rest of the morning looking at the 'fish zoo' at top speed. I'm pretty sure that Bert saw everything he'd planned on seeing, while I spent most of my time navigating the pram through the crowds and chasing two excited boys and getting them to come back to the pram!
After seeing the sharks, we emerged to have lunch at a pub on Darling Harbour. Ahh, beer in the sunshine, nothing beats it! We took the train home from Town Hall station, and sent Caro and Bert home while we did some grocery shopping. An hour or so later we arrived home to find the tv on and those two visitors sound asleep!

Day two of the visit was taken with a cheap harbour cruise - the most effective way to see Sydney Harbour in our opinion is the ferry to Manly. The boys love the boat ride, and go mental running around on board. "Take a grown-up with you" is the continual cry, along with "Come here", "Stop", "Listen" and "Can you see Grandpa's house?". We had yum cha for lunch at Manly Phoenix, then cruised to the Ocean beach for a look-see. Plenty of surfers, but Bert was disappointed not to see one get eaten by a shark. Caro had all the shark excitement on her last visit to Manly with the shark alarm going off, but nothing this interesting this time around. The boys dug in the sand. Then gelato to eat on the boat ride back to the CBD. Amazingly both boys managed to eat theirs without covering themselves in icecream stickiness! We had a quick look around The Rocks Markets before the boys became too tired, and we took the bus home. What a nuisance it is when the trains are having maintenance. The bus took twice as long as the train would have taken, but we made it home. We sent Bert and Brennan out for beers and pizza and relaxed in front of the fire. We frittered the night away chatting, but a house with three young boys never allows a sleep in. Sunday morning arrived and we bid adieu to our visitors and spent the day cleaning the house.
No wonder Monday was a non-productive day at work!

Winter Week One

2010-07-20T09:26:00.001+10:00

Here is a cute layout of Fergus at one week old:
Done using criteria from LSBS's winter challenge. http://www.littlescrapbookshop.com.au/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=242

Miss Anu says....

2010-07-07T09:50:00.005+10:00

Vincent: "Miss Anu says I'm cheeky, but I'm not cheeky"

Wisdom re: daycare! Life at the Daly house has been it's usual chaotic self, but we don't seem to have done much. Grandma Kathy came to visit for a weekend and we went to the zoo to see the baby elephant on the Saturday. On Sunday we braved a freezing wind to go on the ferry to Watson's Bay for lunch - fulfilling the desire to have a "2 grandma" lunch with a view! The visit was great, and the boys loved catching up with Kathy.

Fergus is now 6 weeks old and growing well. Last weekend we went up to Ourimbah to visit Uncle Nathan's new house and managed to grab a photo of all the cousins together!
Their new house is massive and made Brennan totally jealous. So much so, that we are putting together a plan to have a "sea change" and move to a regional centre in order to be able to afford a house with lots of space! Typical of us, we have lots of plans and ideas but the implementation is always trickier. The transfer to Qatar is looking unlikely - but we'd still jump at the chance if it comes to be, as it would be a fabulous opportunity to live on the other side of the world. Time will tell I guess. But it is becoming apparent that this house is too small, and the Sydney market is out of our reach (at least for the size we need!), so something has to change.

My work is going really well, it's easy to promote Australian horses when we're kicking goals around the world!

Long weekend

2010-06-14T15:34:00.001+10:00

We took the family to the 'seum (aka the Powerhouse Museum) today so the older two could run in the playground while we sat quietly in the sun having coffee and repairing ourselves after getting up for the soccer. I remember now why I only watch soccer during the world cup - what a terrible decision sending off Cahill. Grrrr, still our boys did pretty well to keep the goals down to another two while only having 10 men. Home now, and ready to put the fire on, get wrapped up warm and do it all over again! Fergus is going well, now on 4 hourly feeds, so only up twice a night. Which is not so hard after being up once a night for pretty much the last five years with the other two!! I've also been madly busy with work, which seems unfair as it's basically the off-season for racing and I was banking on having some quiet afternoons on my daycare days to rest. Hasn't happened yet.... Ahh well, having a new member to our family is great fun, so no complaints here. And I worked out that in 3 weeks I've used approximately 140 nappies. Hubby did the calculation and by using cloth, it has cost us $2 in electricity, water and washing powder and 3 hours of my time. The equivalent disposables is $52 - so I've 'earnt' $17/hour by using cloth! Love it.
Plus I did some scrapping last night - got a layout done for each boy. I might upload them tomorrow....

Challenge Heaven June 2010 LOs

2010-06-08T15:08:00.002+10:00

http://challengeheaven.blogspot.com/2010/05/june-challenges.html

I've still got no idea why some of these are side-ways - must just be a weird quirk....

What a day - and it's only half through....

2010-06-08T12:27:00.002+10:00

What a day! One boy woke with a temperature, filled him with panadol and sent him to daycare with his brother. Boy #3 decided to start crying when I arrived for my weekly massage (hubby's idea to help my neck and shoulders not get too sore from breastfeeding) - so missed that.

Got home, put on some washing, flooded the laundry. Fergus still fussy, gave him some no nappy time, and he promptly did a massive poo all over his mat - but stopped crying!

Cleaned up, fed him, got him to sleep. Rang work and heard that the lawyers in a court case that we've been working on might want to see all our correspondence on the subject, including all my emails and draft documents! What a pain if I have to put all that together.

But at least it is sunny, and the floor will dry quickly!! Second half of the day must be better.....

Here is a layout for Challenge Heaven.

First couple of Fergus layouts

2010-06-02T13:59:00.001+10:00

First day with Mum, 3 boys and no help...

2010-05-27T13:47:00.002+10:00

We've been to swimming lessons; Fergus slept through it. Picked up a few groceries (big thanks to Brennan for leaving us the car today), then home for a rest over lunchtime. Scrapbook Memories mag arrived today, and even had a chance to flick through half of it while we ate lunch and watched some kids tv!

Thankfully the rain has finished. i'm currently sorting out washing - bringing in the wet stuff from the line, spinning it and sticking it back out, washing dirty stuff, bringing in dry stuff. the pile of folding is steadily increasing.

Vincent and Keegan are outside digging in the mud and re-discovering all their outdoor toys (haven't been out for a few days!); so they are busy which is making my day a whole lot easier. fergus is sleeping - small babies are pretty easy once you've learnt how to 'do' them!! i think my life will descend into chaos once he starts moving (or is there already and i'm too busy to see it!).

Photo is Fergus on Sunday (one day old)

Welcome Fergus

2010-05-26T12:53:00.004+10:00

We are pleased to announce the safe and successful arrival of Fergus Lorcan Daly. He was born at RPA on Saturday 22 May at 7pm. His brothers are happy with the new arrival; Vincent says "He's cool!"

Now at home, he is eating and sleeping well and is a nice healthy baby boy. Everything you hope for really.

Baby update

2010-05-18T09:43:00.002+10:00

Only a week to go, and we are pretty much ready for the arrival of #3. Ok, we're still discussing names and haven't made much progress there, but otherwise, we have a cot, a car seat and some new cloth nappies. The old ones are pretty much rags! So it's a matter of waiting now.... Here are some pics of the boys helping to wash the cot we have borrowed from Nathan and Jaye.

A few layouts

2010-05-18T09:10:00.001+10:00

From the LSBS May Birthday Crazy Crop: http://www.littlescrapbookshop.com.au/

It seems I've got the weird sideways problem again. Oh well...

Divas Crazy Crop

2010-05-14T13:54:00.002+10:00

I've been asked to put together a challenge for the May Crazy Crop at Scrapbook Divas: http://www.scrapbookdivas.com.au/forum/viewforum.php?f=159

Here is a sneak peak....

Some layouts and another photo of the bike rider!

2010-05-13T15:01:00.000+10:00

Vincent rides his bike (no training wheels!)

2010-05-03T13:38:00.003+10:00

It started with an innocent discussion “You are a big boy now, Vincent, let’s take the training wheels off your bike”.One morning of biking at Olympic Park and a short lived failed attempt, Vincent decided “When I’m five”.

But in late April, Vincent saw a friend of his at the park without training wheels and made the big decision by himself.“I want my training wheels off”.So on 2 May 2010, we removed the training wheels from his bike and went to Olympic Park for an attempt.It was hard work at the start – Brennan had to work out how to teach someone (see previous earlier attempt); and Vincent had to trust that Brennan knew what he was talking about. A short word from Renee "Brennan, he thinks just like you, so think about how you would teach yourself" ironed out any kinks.

And after an hour or so, Vincent was speeding along with only a guiding hand at his back. Not long after and Vincent had the hang of it – speeding along by himself with Brennan running alongside.

Persistence pays off.

October Afternoon: Thrift Shop

2010-04-20T12:02:00.002+10:00

Some layouts using this range - thanks to Scrapbook Divas for the range as part of my Guest DT spot! http://www.scrapbookdivas.com.au/forum/

Been so busy

2010-04-20T11:58:00.003+10:00

We've been madly busy over the last few weeks. Easter, then visitors from NZ, me at a conference and Brennan still jetting about the place (he loves it!)....

Having my parents visit from NZ was good, the boys loved having them around. Caro and Gran made a great little book about the Easter bunny, must take pics of it sometime and pop them up here. "What does the Easter bunny do when it's not Easter, Mum" "He sleeps under a shiny blanket" And so on.

Easter Hat Parade at Daycare

2010-04-01T12:51:00.003+11:00

Some photos from day care today. The hat's were simple to put together - roll a tube of cardboard the size of their head, then create a circle from the remaining cardboard (I used a dinner plate as a template). Stick the circle to one end of the tube, then cut out the middle of the circle so the hat fits over their head.

Decorate with easter things - we bought a set of bunnies, chicks and feathers from a craft shop.

Easter craft at Playgroup

2010-03-27T09:38:00.000+11:00

The boys made these little baskets for the Easter bunny to fill with eggs at Playgroup on Friday.

We won the Ikea battle

2010-03-23T08:24:00.003+11:00

Now the boys have a nice new big cupboard in their room, and even better, lots of room for the new baby!

It took all day, mostly because Brennan added some reinforcing to the design, which has made the cupboard stronger and more sturdy.

A couple of layouts

2010-03-21T16:40:00.001+11:00

The second two are from Kaisercraft blog sketches. The first was a St Pats Day challenge (all green layout!).

Nothing much is report this week, just had some friends over for a lazy lunch. Nis made the yummiest Thai beef salad for lunch - yum! The boys are all tired now, resting in the lounge.

Back to work tomorrow - have to answer some interesting statistical queries from a bookmaker! Looks to be a big challenge, but fun.

Even an engineer can make a mistake....

2010-03-15T09:30:00.001+11:00

Had a crazy weekend. I decided (nesting!) that the boys room needed rearranging so we could fit in the new bub; so we spent all day Sunday working out how to fit in their current furniture, plus a cot! Got it sorted and decided that we could get rid of their toy cupboard and get a taller narrower one to make it work better. Off to Ikea, along with the rest of Sydney it seemed. We waited in traffic for ages, then squashed through the shop only to discover that they were having a massive sale - hence the gizillions of people!!! But found the perfect cupboard, sent Brennan home to get the roof racks while the boys played in the kids room. He came back an hour later and we packed the stuff on the car and home again.

By now it was nearly dinner time, we were all tired and not thinking properly. Should have put it away for another day, but nope - in stubbornness we tried to put the thing together. Completely misinterpreted the instructions and the whole thing collapsed in a pile!!

Poor engineer husband was mortified! I made him walk away, we had dinner, then put all the bits away (under the boys bunks) for next weekend. Luckily nothing major broke, so we can fix it - and as Brennan says, now that he knows the weak points he can strengthen the design and make it better than ever!

Back to work today. Oh, and yes, he did notice my hair (just noticed my tummy first). "Goodness you've got big, oh and your hair looks cool"

Funny quotes

2010-03-12T16:31:00.001+11:00

Keegan yesterday: "I didn't make the mess, Giggle and Hoot made the mess" (in his bedroom)
Vincent today: "It's too cold mum, must be Zealand. Australia has gone somewhere else" (25 today, so hardly cold. We visited NZ in Oct 09 and the cold is their strongest memory of the trip).

LSBS Seasoned Scrapper

2010-03-02T15:51:00.002+11:00

Week 3: Summer words
Week 4: scraplift/inspiration (i used the title as inspiration for this one)
Week 5: 3 cards in summer colours

March 2010 Already!!!

2010-03-01T09:38:00.005+11:00

March already, but at least I've become accustomed to writing 2010 now! Here is a photo of the boys with their new masks; we bought a kit for a few dollars at an art supply shop in Macquarie Centre and had fun gluing them together.

Sounds like everyone has been typically busy; doesn't time just faster as you get older. A day seems so short now!

Only 12 weeks to go with this pregnancy, so just the hard bit to do. I'm pretty lucky in that I don't get sick at the start, but have had pre-eclampsia with the other two. No symptoms yet which is a blessing, but am feeling the weight of it now in my back and bad knee. I'm trying to keep reasonably fit which is helping tho.

B off to Brisbane again this morning (bring on mid-April when this tender is finished!). And the boys slept in till 8 - totally unheard of. I was up at 5, ironing pants for B cos he forgot to ask me last night But went back to bed after that. So it's half past nine and I'm just getting ramped up to finish two articles due today. Then perhaps some work.

Oh, did you see that SM are having a front cover competition for people who have never been published with them before?

More Layouts

2010-02-22T20:09:00.001+11:00

From Mad about Scrapping kits.

LSBS Seasoned Scrapper

2010-02-10T10:59:00.001+11:00

Week One Challenge - put together a journal to keep all the challenges in.
Week Two Challenge - a crazy fancy box to put cards or notes in.

2010-02-07T14:41:00.003+11:00

My entry for the Mad About Scrappin DT team.

Mad About Scrappin is looking for New DT Members to join our Team!!!

We are looking for someone who has an absolute passion for the craft, a versatile scrapper who can use a wide range of products and off the page items!!

Entries close - February 14th 2010.

http://madaboutscrappin.blogspot.com/

Please downsize your layouts!!!

This DT Position is for a 6 month period unless otherwise stated. You will need to complete a monthly kit. Class kits that require instructions may also be sent out during the 6 month period.

You will also have to complete any Blog challenges and Blog Cyber Crops that Mad About Scrappin may have.

You will need to have an up to date blog to be eligible for the DT Team

You will need to do the following

1) Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your style, your blog address, any other DT Teams that you may be on.

2) Send 2 current layouts. One that is your normal style and one that is a bit dfferent from what you would normally do.

3) Send a picture of a completed Off the Page Item

I can't wait to see all your layouts and I hope you will soon be a part of the team at Mad About Scrappin and help us celebrate our 4th Birthday!!!!

Some Layouts

2010-02-07T13:47:00.002+11:00

For the http://outofthehatscrapchallenge.blogspot.com/ February Challenge: Use butterfly, buttons, bows, and a 4 word title.

For the http://madaboutscrappin.ning.com/ Feb sketch challenge.

A couple of layouts

2010-02-02T17:16:00.003+11:00

Meet the Locals (Stuck Sketches Feb #1 Challenge)

Yes I can (Scrapbook Divas P&T Challenge Feb). Not sure why this managed to get itself turned sideways, cos it's saved the right way....

LSBS Seasoned Scrapper

2010-02-02T17:07:00.001+11:00

From this Sunday 31st January the Little Scrapbook Shop will be beginning their newest challenge that runs the whole of 2010 & it is titled The Seasoned Scrapper. What a great name!! It is a weekly challenge & will be split into the Seasons - summer, autumn, winter & spring.

The challenges will posted on Sundays at about 7pm, & you will have until the following Sunday to upload your creations to be in with a chance of winning a $10 gift voucher.

So why not join in the fun at www.littlescrapbookshop.com.au, you will love it!!!

Check out this blog of a fellow scrapper

2010-02-01T14:32:00.001+11:00

http://thescrapfarm.blogspot.com/2010/01/lucy-bird-blog-candy.html

A new game

2010-01-28T14:48:00.001+11:00

Vincent; Mum, mum, quick, there is a dead man in my bedroom!
I ran in there with him, to find Keegan lying flat on his bed pretending to be dead. Naturally, I gave him CPR - to much hilarity! Now they both have to pretend to be dead while I resusitate them....

Australia Day at our place

2010-01-27T20:02:00.004+11:00

Had a nice BBQ at our place for Australia Day. The only downside is that we're still cleaning up! Nada and Greg bought along some yummy lamb sausages; I made a prawn/mango/avocado salad and a potato salad. The boys had fun playing with their friends Jacob and Jessica; and all the adults sat around talking!

Plus a couple of photos from the Day Care Australia Day party held today (day after Australia Day).

Some Layouts

2010-01-22T14:29:00.002+11:00

January 2010 Mini Album

2010-01-19T18:38:00.003+11:00

Here are the first four pages of the mini-album I'm making for the 365 challenge at http://www.scrapbookdivas.com.au/forum/

Vincent's Hair Cut

2010-01-19T16:22:00.002+11:00

A few fun photos of Vincent's hair cut today....

Keegan's Hair Cut

2010-01-19T16:17:00.001+11:00

A few fun photos of Keegan's hair cut today...

Quick Baby Update

2010-01-19T15:52:00.002+11:00

Visited RPA's high risk clinic today. Blood pressure is normal plus other indicators are normal. No reason to go back until 30 weeks; which is great. Baby has a strong heart beat. I was sent to the high risk clinic cos of a history of pre-eclampsia with the other two.

2010-01-13T15:12:00.005+11:00

http://www.scrapbookdivas.com.au/forum/
The winner of the 2010 Basic Grey Calendar for participation in the 12 Days of Xmas Extravaganza is

Renee.

Here is the finished calendar. I picked photos from the corresponding months in 2009, so when you use the 2010 calendar you'll see the boys as they were exactly a year before.