One Splash!

This month's Aussie Scrapjacked is Jolene Pienaar.

Here is Jolene's layout.



And here is mine.



This Summer has been quite cold. I was telling my sister that we could count on one hand the times we wanted to go swimming. Her reply was "We could count on one hand the number of times we wanted to wear clothes!" She lives at the Gold Coast!

Tie Dyed!

Sophie-Lee decided to tie dye some jeans. She visited the local pre-loved clothing shop and bought a pair of jeans that she thought were size 10 but they were actually men's 107cm!!!Plan B - dye some jeans you already have.

We didn't look up tie dying on the 'net (which is very unusual for me) and just wung it and learnt a little along the way.

Sophie-Lee got some laundry bleach and soaked her jeans for a few hours - learnt that she should've soaked them for a few days. Then we did the tying and dying.

I hate to see a whole washing machine full of dye go to waste so we bunged in a sheet as well.

That colour was called Cherry Red - learnt that the colour is rarely (previous experience here as well) the same as what it says on the packet.

So here's the results.

Ethel's Egg and other things

Here is my layout for the Scrapapple Weekend Workout.


Our old chook, Ethel, has always laid large eggs but this egg really takes the cake! There was great excitement [yesterday] when Caitlin collected the eggs and even more when we cracked the huge egg and proved that it was indeed a double yolker!

BTW... The chook on the layout was inspired by the chook that Sophie-Lee gave me for my birthday.


Funnily enough, I bought the chook and somehow forgot (that's is a considerable worry) and then, according to Sophie-Lee she paid me back, hid the chook, wrapped it in a misleading box (not that I needed to be misled), and then presented it to me weeks later. And I was very pleased. :)

On the evening of my birthday Susannah came to me with this beautiful painting and said "Happy Birthday". It is so shiny and beautiful and totally yummy.



I know where it is going to go too - in our own private art gallery!

Impromptu Pink Party

How to have an impromptu pink party...

1. Get the pink balloons left over from a Girls' Night In
2. Get your friend (Janelle) to buy some pink serviettes.
3. Get another friend (Nae)to buy some party poppers (but then she didn't have to because I went shopping)
4. Make a cake and ice it with failsafe pink (beetroot juice) icing. We also had not-failsafe fruit salad with pomegranate juice in it.
5. Get your kids to blow up balloons and fold serviettes. Note: Before having a balloon fest, find out if anyone in the house suffers with the uncommon fear of balloons - not mentioning any names Nae and Jessica. Tell kids to go easy on the balloons!

Put it all together with pink presents and pink cards and Ta Dah!!!!



I was born at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Mum told me that this afternoon at 3 o'clock so I looked up to see what the time was in Aden and it was only 7 o'clock in the morning. At 3pm today in Aden it was, so I am told, a pleasantly warm 26 degrees Celcius - not bad for a winter's day.

Now I am off to bed before I turn into a pumpkin!

Oh! I forgot to say... I had 46 candles on my cake and when the kids blew them out Sophie-Lee mentioned the smoke alarm. Everyone ran to open a window or door before we were deafened by the sound of the smoke alarm! We decided to take the party poppers outside.

And... We set the camera up on a cushion on a chair at the end of the table with the self timer on - 'tworked beautifully.

That's all.

Billy-Jean

On the 19th February, 1993, Billy-Jean was born. If I had any control over the situation she wouldn't have been born on that day because I was only 23 weeks pregnant. Only weeks before we had seen our cute little baby in an ultrasound and she was healthy and fine, even though I was ridiculously sick and very unwell for the whole pregnancy. It seems my body went into "get-it-out-of-me" mode and no amount of crossing my legs and willing her to stay was going to stop her being born - mind you we semi-succeeded (with the help of medication and hospitalisation) for a few days.

Unfortunately, Billy-Jean was not ready to enter this world - her lungs were not quite developed for breathing and so the moment she was born she stepped into heaven to spend eternity with her Creator. It was one of those highly emotional times of my life that I wouldn't want to repeat, but learnt and grew so much from. It just so happened to be the day before my birthday which added it's own emotional challenges as well.


I was adamant that I wanted my baby's hand prints and foot prints, which I got, but in my mind I imagined them as being in Plaster of Paris. Oh well. One of the counsellor-type people made sure to take some photos too, which are Polaroid and a little worse for their age.

It seems that I wax poetic at these kinds of times. I wrote two poems. The first one was inspired by the flowers and gifts I was given. DH gave me an amethyst ring for my birthday, sweetly wrapped in gold, and the flowers..!

BILLY-JEAN

A pastel rose without a thorn,
A star in heaven bright.
A little gift box brightly wrapped.
A truly precious sight.

A petal she has left behind.
Some stardust in the sky.
The wrapping with its precious bow
For us to remember her by.

We’ll keep the petals, stardust, bow,
And treasure them with love,
And look with hope upon life’s path
To see our girl above.


The second poem just flowed out of me. Some of my family bought a headstone for Billy-Jean's grave (which is near a gum tree in Uralla cemetery) and my Dad engraved the poem for the headstone.


She left us ere we knew her
Yet we loved her from the start.
She’s now with God in heaven
And she’s with us in our hearts.
We will not see her growing
Nor kiss her pretty face,
But we’ll always have her memory
And in our hearts a place.
We’ll see her soon in glory,
United we will be.
That hope will ever keep us
Until with her we’ll be.

15 years have passed since Billy-Jean's birthday. Occasionally we visit Billy-Jean's grave but it is not a pilgrimage because she is not there - the grave is just an untended reminder that life is short and that it is worth knowing where I will spend eternity.

To a Tee

Susannah didn't quite make the T-shirt decorating competition at the Uralla Show but she was still determined to get her T-shirt finished.
First, Susannah did a fab drawing


and then we used some Office One White T-Shirt Transfer stuff to put it onto the T-shirt. 'twas easy.


And looks super cool on a T-shirt. Who needs Threadless when we have our own T-shirt designers right here in the house?!

Basically...

...is basically malachi's favourite word at the moment. I am not sure he knows what it means but he uses it a lot all the same.

Here is a layout that i did a little while ago which captures a little Malachi moment.

This was Malachi's observation when he saw one snail on top of the other in our fish bowl (we don't keep fish, or can't, cos they die!). I didn't question his scientific observation or where he obtained his knowledge. :)

Just in case you didn't know - snails are hermaphrodites.

Flourish

The Weekend Workout at Scrapapple this week is to use a flourish on your page. So I made the most of the full meaning of the word and named my layout flourish as well.



The kids can't have dairy products so a 'real' lassi is out of the question. But that doesn't matter - we made it out of tofu. They'll try anything once!!! Love the mo's.

A Small Thing

A little while ago the mirror on the side of the Transit van was smashed - we won't go into how.

Have a guess at how much a new one costs! Douglas estimated sixty bucks and I went "Phwehh! Don't be ridiculous - it'll be a couple of hundred for sure."



Well, for a lovely new mirror it will cost $551.40 - that's not fitted!!!

Oh, and by the way... I love our Ford Transit Van. When I first did some investigations about it people gave their obviously uneducated opinions, saying that it would spend more time in the workshop than on the road and the likes. I talked to a man in far north Queensland who had one and used it to do tours and he knew everything about it - to the finest detail - and highly recommended it.

Best van we've ever owned. Love it!!!!

Just thought I'd tell you.