The modern marvel of MAIL!!!

Well, we had one of those really 'CUTE' moments with J last night.... He came home from daycare with the cutest drawing he had done of a whole bunch of little stick people that he called his 'famiwy' (read FAMILY, lol!). He told me he had drawn it specially for his cousins, so I asked him if he would like to post it to them in the mail (I know, SO old school!)

I wrote their names on a piece of paper, and he then wrote them onto the envelope (with a little verbal coaching from me), I addressed the rest of it, and he wrote his name and a couple of kisses on the back ('one kiss for Brianna, Mummy and one for Alex' awww). I let him put the stamp on it, and then we walked round the corner to post it in a REAL mailbox.... I know, REAL mail, not EMAIL!

So.....being the good scrapbooking mother that I am, I didn't let all this happen without taking photos for a future layout!!! How adorably CUTE is this envelope? I just LOVE it!

See...... just TOO cute!!! Ha ha ha! Oh well, that's it from me, earlier to bed tonight, because I am SO NOT a morning person at the moment when it is time to get up and go for my walk! Oops :)

Toodles, B x

Back to work again tomorrow, sigh....

Well, we had a lovely evening for our barbecue last night, and I think everyone had a lot of fun! J fell into bed at about 9pm, but do ya think we could get him to go to sleep? Arrggh! Consequently he woke SEVERAL times during the night (overtired me thinks), and has been a right grumpy bum all day today :( Fingers crossed he sleeps much better tonight! I am going to post a pic of him eating tea last night with his cousins, Brianna and Alex - he LOVES having them come visit!

Oh, and I have just finished the page I started at Rose's on Thursday night - is a bit different to the style of canvas I did on Wednesday huh? I'm still pleased with it all the same....

I used my warehouse circle cutter (thanks Rach), then hand-drew in all the ink dots/circles. I went nuts with multi-coloured buttons, freehanded the scribble border around the photo, then glued beads all over the show (see below). Am loving that Scenic Route chipboard lettering at the moment.

Oh well, is nearly 9pm, and D and I are gonna watch a DVD, so I best skedaddle. Toodles! B x

Ah, it's SATURDAY!

Hello again... yay, it's Saturday! I spent some of last night sorting out the photos on my laptop, so I now have some 'out of sequence' photos to include...

First of all, there is the Crop Night Christmas Barbecue that we had at our place before Christmas, which was a complete BLAST! Lelia sounded put out that she hadn't featured on the blog yet, so especially for you Lelia, here you are... LOL!

Back: Jen, Lelia, Gina
Front: Michelle, Beck, Rose

Not only did we FINALLY get a shot of all of us together, but got a couple of snaps of the kids having a ball - we had a treasure hunt (looking for chocolate bars, yum!) and then had a lolly scramble...

I also found some great shots of our New Year's Day at Lake Opuha - particularly of D waterskiing. I think I might have to get one blown up for the wall! Check it out...

Not bad huh?! What you don't see are the several hundred photos taken with half a head, or half a body, or no water-skiier at all - it's not easy using a telescopic lens in a boat that is bouncing around on the choppy water! Ha ha ha! They only got to see the inside of the recycle bin!

I also found some snaps on D's camera of our trip down to see Kim and Sarah - we stopped off at the Oamaru Blue Penguin colony (where J bought a toy penguin originally called Nigel, but lately called Cody, out of 'Surf's Up' movie), then we stopped at Moeraki for a bit too....

So, that's about it for all the latest pics - you are officially now UP TO DATE! It's a lovely day here today, and has been a busy one... D helped Dad put new brake pads into Gem's car, which took a while, then Dad and Gem (with a little help from me) put a new Buzz Lightyear border up in Jake's room. I have spent the rest of the day cleaning, making a pav, making a salad and generally preparing for the in-laws to come for tea! It's about quarter to six at the moment, and I think they are starting to arrive, so I'd best get going..... Have a great weekend, toodles! B x

Back to work....aarrrgghhh!

Well, I have survived the first stint of being back to work already... feels like I never even left, lol! Sorry for the delay between posts, I'm still trying to 'find my rhythm' again between work and home life - it's not always easy!!!!


I have already had to have a day off this week....Jake had to stay home yesterday as he is on antibiotics for another earache, which meant a 24 hour stand-down from daycare, dammit! Here's hoping that this doesn't mean another set of grommets required for this winter.... there's always something, huh?


Jake now has some amazing drawers in his room thanks to Auntie Gem's artwork - she painted an awesome rocket on the front, and Jake just loves it - in fact I had to take a photo specially this morning and print it out so that he could take it to daycare and share it for 'news' !!! How cute is that?! I will post photos soon.

Yesterday at home wasn't SO bad - J was a whingy whiny little @#$!? in the morning, then happy as larry when Daddy came home for lunch (of course!). After lunch he watched a DVD, then we popped over to see Rachel, and he ended up watching ANOTHER DVD there with Abby. I was about to take him home when Rachel said "Let him watch the rest of that with Abby, I'll drop him home when it's finished - you go home and get scrapping!"....... FANTASTIC!!!!!!


I started out doing a page of our wedding photos, but ended up converting to a canvas - looks great, will post pic tonight. Am well stoked with the outcome.

Well, best dash, will catch up again soon - off to Scrapbooking tonight at Rose's, so will probably be tomorrow before photos get added.


Toodles! B x

Phew - the party's OVER!!!!

Well, the party is over, and we are all absolutely knackered! Jake has had a blast today though - he was excited about the party from the minute he got up (at 7.15am!!). I will post some pics of the cake, I was really pleased with how it turned out in the end...

He and his little friends had fun playing in the paddling pool, in the sand pit, on the trampoline and throwing water balloons! We played 'Pass the Parcel' (of course!), and ate copious quantities of party food - chippies, lollies, cheerios and cake! YUM!!!

Check out MR COOL posing for DJ holding the camera! Ha ha ha :)

The Space Rangers at our party: Oakley, Arthur, Jake, Oliver, Jakob (mischievous looking lot, huh?!)

Well, it's 9.20pm, and Jake has only been asleep since 9pm, so I'm picking it'll be a quiet day in the Caithness household tomorrow, because everyone will be tired and grumpy - yay! Besides, have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to go back to work on Monday anyway, dammit.

That's it from me, I'm going to get myself a long cool drink (did I mention it was about 36 degrees here this afternoon? Too #$%?!$% hot for this kiwi!). Till next time... toodles! :)

Nearly Party Time!

Well, I have spent a fair bit of my time off this week at home with Jacob organising things for tomorrow's Buzz Lightyear birthday party ... I have even dabbled in a bit of sewing (most unlike me!). I have made little Buzz Lightyear tops for each of the party guests, kind of like the old netball-bib type of top. I am impressed with myself at how they have turned out, as I am NOT a gun seamstress by any stretch of the imagination! I started out with a pile of cheap fabric, Jake's Buzz toy and an idea in my head......

and ended up with.....

Not too bad huh?! The rest of today will be dedicated to making party food and birthday cake, although I am off to town for morning tea at the Red Rocket shortly, and have to pop out for a family tea later for Grandad's 84th birthday today. I have a list of things to get done in between times, not sure how much I will manage! Baking, cleaning, wrapping pass the parcel, blowing up balloons, making crepe paper streamers, supermarket shopping, etc etc etc, PHEW!

Oh well, best get off my @#$!#? and get going.... toodles!

Our baby turns 4?!

Really? I guess so - unbelievable really to think that it was 4 years ago he was born, sad but true. He had a great birthday at home, with lots of visitors which was awesome. I don't think the phone stopped ringing all day either, and he loves talking on the phone :)


We got him a T-ball set, and he got lots of lovely other things too, including (unfortunately) a mega-horn from my grandparents (thanks Nan!) and a battery-powered damned noisy guitar from my parents - just lovely - NOT!!! Here he is playing the infernal guitar while wearing his Buzz suit that Santa got him for Christmas (now that's cute!)

We made a simple cake for his actual birthday because he is having a Buzz Lightyear birthday party on Saturday with some of his little friends, so he helped me cream a supermarket sponge and then ice it with chocolate icing. He put the icing and chocolate hail on it himself, then blew out the candles and cut himself a MASSIVE piece of cake! (Why not?!)

Erm, the last photo here would be of the cake monster that resides in our house from time to time - attractive little beastie isn't he?! Lol! Only a mother could love that face!

Oh well, that's all from me for now, gotta go get some stuff done around here... Toodles! :)

Brighton

We spent three nights in Brighton with Kim, Sarah, Josh and Brodie last week - had a ball. On Saturday morning we went into Dunedin and saw the butterflies at the museum in the Tropical Rainforest Exhibit - they were beautiful, but MAN was it hot!!!! After some lunch at the Meridian and a sleep for the Young kiddlies, we headed off down to the beach (all of 50m from the house) and hung out for a bit. The little boys had a blast being towed at speed on their boogie-boards by the big boys - see?

The weather was just gorgeous, and the water in the lagoon that the kids were being towed is was probably warmer than bath water! It was great to see Jake playing in the water, as that had become a bit of a battle lately, although it would have been a different story in cold water me thinks :) Anyways, it was lots of fun!

It's ok - I am still here!!!

Hi there - we have had a crazy few days since my last post... This is coming to you live from Brighton (about 15 mins south of Dunedin).

We are staying with our friends Kim and Sarah until Sunday, hoping to spend some time on the beach and just chill out for a bit.

What have we done over the last few days? Well, New Years Eve was a bit of a disaster for us - we got invited to a barbecue, and after only an hour or so there, Jake was sick and we had to go home, dammit! I think we were tucked up in bed by about 11pm, so I wasn't even awake to see the New Year in - how sad is that?!

New Year's Day we went up to Lake Opuha to hang out with D's family and get in some waterski-ing.... D had 3 skis I think, before landing in about a foot of water and hurting the bottom of his foot. As we speak, it is a nice purple colour on the bottom where his arch used to be (not an arch at the moment due to the swelling, ouch)

When we came home from the lake we brought our niece home with us for the night. D towed the boat back with his ute, so I had the two kiddlies in the back of the rolls (my Corolla) for the trip home. It's only a 45 min trip, but I had to stop twice.... Once because J was threatening to be sick, oh joy, and the second time was to scare the crap outta the kids for being naughty - I had warned them that if they kicked each other one more time I would stop the car and someone could walk home, but would they listen? NO! Well, when I stopped the car, they looked a bit scared, uh-oh, they said, she's serious! No-one wanted to walk home from Albury, so they behaved after that, thank goodness! Ha ha ha! Method in my madness, that's for sure.

January 2nd was spent in partial chaos while J played with cousin Brianna, and we tried to kinda tidy the place up a bit behind them as they went. I had to shoot out at 3pm to take some photos for a Temuka family, and by the time I got home at half five, Bron had arrived to collect Brianna and take her home. Of course, by then neither child wanted her to leave - isn't that always the way?!

January 3rd (yesterday) we were due to head here to Brighton about mid-morning-ish, but J woke up with a splinter in his foot and couldn't walk on it, and we also hadn't packed anything yet, so leaving in the morning was never really on the cards anyway, lol! Dr Rob was fully booked, so we took J to A&E like he suggested, and an hour or so later we came out with a splinter-less son (after several tears, screaming bouts and rugby-tackle-type holds to hold thim still!). We managed to hit the road about lunchtime, and after a stop off at the Rainbow Confectionery factory in Oamaru as well as the Penguin Colony and the Moeraki Boulders, we arrived in Brighton about 5pm. Must admit, it is a lot nicer travelling with an almost 4 year old that you can reason with for a change.

Today is the 4th, and we haven't a lot planned. Cruise into Dunners and get some groceries and of course Coke to go with the Wild Turkey and Kahlua (not in the same glass tho, lol!), then maybe head on down to the beach if it warms up a bit.

Hope everyone else is having a nice New Year so far..... will post more later maybe. Till then, toodles! :)