Happy Birthday to our littlest blue monkey!

Mackenzie has always been known as our littlest monkey, the blue part of the name well that's a lovely embarassingly funny story from a few days ago.

I'll add photos & you'll get the picture....but for now imagine the result of a little girl sucking on a bottle of blue food colouring whilst shopping at Woolies, silly me to assume that the plastic seal meant the bottle would stay closed, sillier me to think that Mackenzie would have no reason to put it in her mouth.

Probably needless to say at this point but there was much as laughter as concern from fellow shoppers, Lily & myself as well as one very blue face, teeth, lips, tongue & of course her hands & mine!

Anyway after a very long bath & lots of soaking the colour was gone but not the photographic evidence!

Happy 4th Birthday gorgeous girl, our days are definitely never, ever boring! Love you to bits xxx

Here's some photos of her special day

Humpty Dumpty, the easiest cake ever, she found it in a magazine & asked me to make it for her (lamingtons for the wall & a decorated easter egg for Humpty) & probably the most fun too as Lily & Mackenzie spent quite sometime singing & reinacting the Humpty Dumpty song when all the formalities were done!

This is the birthday cake we shared with Oma & Opa on Mother's Day. I've kept those sugar animals for years in a container, they were too cute at the time we bought them to eat so both Lily & Mackenzie have both had them on cakes now.

HAPPY EASTER

In the lead up to Easter Mackenzie had a couple of opportunities to meet the Easter Bunny, firstly at Preschool, where they had an Easter Hat parade for all the parents & then at one of our local shopping centres. As you can probably see she was quite chuffed by both meetings!

Mackenzie also won the Easter Raffle run by our local Scout group. Check out the size of the basket & the amount of chocolate! One lucky little girl or should I say family...LOL!

The girls left out some treats before going to bed on Saturday night for the Easter Bunny & on Easter Sunday morning they were excited to see that the Easter Bunny had enjoyed their offering & even left a little treat of his own for them!

And here are some photos from there fantastic morning of easter egg hunting & the only day of the year where chocolate actually is on the breakfast menu!

Hope everyone has had a fantastic day as well & as always, thanks for stopping by. xx

Some more cards, photos & a layout

These are a few more of the cards I made for the SBM card drive which I sent away last week.

Hopefully they will be well received & put a smile on some faces, even just for a short time during these difficult times for some of many of those affected by the bushfires in Victoria.

On Sunday we took the train into the City to go & see the very large cruise ship which was docked at Circular Quay, Diamond Princess.

We also went to the Australian Museum & spent most of our time there in the dinosaur exhibition to give Lily a bit of a headstart to preparing for the project all Yr2 kids will be required to do later on in the year. She's chosen her dinosaur which she plans to research & we took down loots of information & also snapped lots of photos.

Other than that it's all pretty much "same old, same old" here. Swimming lessons, preschool, school, washing, cooking, cleaning, Uniform Shop & Craig at work.

...........oh just for a change though (& not a good one) Buster has decided to rip washing off the line as opposed to digging large holes in the backyard..........puppies!!!???!!! (not happy but at least nothing has been torn yet & hopefully he's going to learn very quickly that it is not even remotely acceptable.)

We are also currently housing about 100+ incy wincy huntsman spider babies in our bathroom. Talk about cute but so, so creepy. Craig is planning on catching them all in a plastic container & letting them go outside, far away from the house...........me I was going to use the fly spray, LOL!

I scrapped a page yesterday of Mackenzie's antics whenever she's asked to smile for a camera. She is such a funny little thing!

I also made a card for a sketch challenge at 3AS.

Hope you are all having a great week & please leave a comment when you're popping in.

Victoria's bushfire tragedy

It's difficult to come to terms with the extent of the tragedy that is still occurring down in Victoria, hearing of all heartbreaking stories of such a devastating loss of life, livelihoods, homes & communities.

Our thoughts & prayers are with everyone affected as they somehow have to come to terms with the nightmare they are living & slowly try to begin rebuilding their lives & their homes.

Reading this story & seeing the attached video sends chills down my spine.....one of the ladies is the sister of our best friends. She, her partner, their son & neighbours certainly had God & all the angels looking out for them when their properties were engulfed by the fires.

It is so heartwarming & inspirational to see that in the face of the biggest adversities how the Australian way is to help & support one another. Through unity great things are achieved & it is amazing how much money & resources have been donated to help out those who so desperately need it.

Our school had a mufti day fundraiser yesterday with all donations going to a charity "Kids helping Kids", which as I understand works through the NSW Dept of Education. The photo below is of the school's special message covered in mostly gold coins.

I've also been busy making some cards to donate to the "Card Drive for Hard Times" organised by Scrapbooking Memories magazine. These are a few samples of my cards.

Lily is February's Aussie of the Month

for her class.

We went to the assembly to see her get presented the award by the school's new principal, Mr Andrews on Friday 6th February.

Quite an impressive start to the new school year & a fabulous way to meet Mr Andrews for the first time.........WELL DONE LILY!

Holiday Snapshots

I really haven't completed much in the way of scrapping so far in 2009.

Being sick myself & having the kids both sick with whooping cough really has taken it's toll. I have a few 1/2 finished pages, mostly Christmas themed on the go waiting for me to get back to them very soon.

These are samples of the card front & stamped images which are my contribution to some swaps over at 3AS. Looking forward to seeing the creations from the other ladies very soon.




We went out 4WD-ing with Josh, Lesley & Catherine in their new Land Rover early in January which was lots of fun. The Wattagans were very scenic.

The beautiful Somerbsy Falls, the first time we had been to visit after nearly 3 years of living on the Central Coast. Lily & Mackenzie had a fabulous time. We've actually been back since just to show Daddy & Uncle Stef & Aunty Yoshimi came along too when the popped up for a visit on the long weekend

Goodbye school holidays

.........Australia Day 2009