Scrapping at the Shop

Wow, it has been such a busy few months at the local scrap shop (LSS) where I teach. I have had what feels like an absolute heap of classes, but now there is only one left and it is tomorrow. Even though I am tired and ready for a break, I am also really excited about the first term next year too. I have set the sylabus, I have done the sketches and now I am set to scrap my little heart out over the coming weeks. I will have to be really organised because I am going to be away in Perth and then in Tassie. That means having all the supplies I will need bagged up, essential tools packed and photos printred. It will be a challenge, which hopefully also means a burst of creativity!

I have an article that I have written being published next month in Creative Paper magazine. I got confused when they commissioned it and thought it was going to be in the November issus, but no... it is in the January issue! I can't wait for it to come out because I have only ever had a page published. I must be on a roll, because I have had a page chosen for the Love gallery of Scrapbooking Memories (I am assuming that is the February edition) and also another article for the May edition of Scrapbooking Memories. It is very exciting! I also have plenty more article and project ideas, but no where near enough time at the moment to submit them.

Our Funny Kids

I thought it was about time that I updated the photos of the kids!

Caitlin just loves to scrapbook with me. Here is a gorgeous creation of hers! She loves to send some of her layouts to the scrapbooking shop with mine and Renaye is good enough to put them up in the shop, which I think is a crack up and Caitlin thinks is great!



Dad is regularly inundated by kids - good thing he loves them to bits!



Callum has been taking an interest in some more challenging toys lately. Caitlin and I got out a heap of jigsaws recently and he loved the easy ones too.



Just checking to see if it is gold...



Last but not least, Caitlin is having a little break from jewelery at the moment, so when she does play with it, she piles it on to get a fix!

Chinese Whispers

A friend has asked me to be the first cab off the rank with a chinese whisper - you know, like the message that would start at one side of the room when you were a kid and you had to see how true to the origional it was at the end? Well, this is the same, scrapping style!


My chinese whisper:

there is a plain cardstock background

photo and embelishments are clustered in the bottom half of the page

it has one photo 4x3 (landscape) which is set to the right of centre

there is a medium - large embelishment on either edge of the page framing the photo and embelishment cluster

there is an embelishment laid vertically down the right hand end of the photo with another embelishment in the centre of the larger embelishment

there is a journaling block to the right of the photo

there is a small square of patterned transparency/patterned paper to the left of the photo.

there is an embelishment with a word for the title in it overlapping the top left corner and the bottom right corner of the photo

there is a hand drawn border around the outside edge of the page


I would love it if some lovely scrappers joined in. Once you have done your page, write a chinese whisper about your page and pass it on to another lucky scrapper.

When you have done your page, email me a pic so I can see what you have been up to!

Happy whispering!

Published!

I have a great secret, but you will have to get your hands on a copy of the next Creative Paper magazine for all the details...

Cal's First Birthday

We celebrated Callum's first birthday last saturday. I can't believe that he is a year old already! We had a cake at playgroup on friday the 26th and had friends over for tea on his actual birthday, which was the 27th.

I made him a catepillar cake and I am so happy with how it came out. I am not a fancy cake maker, but given that I am very impressed. Callum (and Caitlin!) thought it was pretty good too.



Here is a picture of the birthday boy enjoying some of his cake. He went back for more, so I take it he likes chocolate catepillar cake!


He got some great boy toys for his birthday, like cars, trucks and tractors. This truck is one that he has had for a while, but he just loves it. He leart to broooooom his trucks at about 10 months and he is doing it flat out now! He interacts really nicely with his toys now that he has some more age appropriate toys. I am going to have a huge clean out of the "baby" toys this week and get rid of a heap now that he has some big boy toys.

Wow, he's one! We had a great day!

Home Made Cordial

I have been trying so hard to finish off the oranges from our tree because the new leaves are just starting to grow and I thought it was time for the tree to put energy into growth rather than sustaining old oranges. I was reading a blog and got the idea of making some fresh cordial using citrus juice - perfect for my oranges.

Don't these bottles of cordial look great! We are not huge cordial drinkers and Caitlin actually won't dring commercial cordial, but she loves this one! I made 5 bottles altogether but have already given a lemon cordial away and one of the orange ones is earmarked for L and her family.



Here is the recipe if you are interested:

Citrus cordial (recipe from a sustainable living blog)

First, make a sugar syrup: * Combine 1 part sugar with 1 part water in a saucepan. * Heat mixture, boiling gently, stirring to dissolve sugar. Then, your basic cordial recipe is: * Combine 1 part fruit juice with 1 part sugar syrup. Chill. * To drink, dilute cordial about 1:10 with water, mineral water or soda water. * Keep refrigerated and drink within about a week. Citrus cordials: If you are making a citrus-based cordial, you can add 1 teaspoon of citric acid or tartaric acid (both are derivatives of fruit, found in the baking aisle of supermarkets) per litre (quart) of cordial as a preservative, which will mean it lasts about a month. I also suggest adding the finely grated zest of one of the fruit too, for added flavour.

I am off to bed - early nights for me for a while because Caitlin and I have school sores. We went to the doctor today, thinking Caitlin had chicken pox and came out with a highly contageous infection that requires us to be house bound for a while, so no scrapbooking classes either!

The Scrap Room

Here is a picture of the room at the scrap shop (Keepsake Krafts) where I teach scrapping during the week.

Kung Fu Panda

I took Caitlin to see her first movie today!

My friend C and her son T wanted to go to see Kung Fu Panda, so we tagged along. The kids had so much fun. Towards the end of the movie they both got quite fidgety, but that was to be expected really. On the whole they were both great. Caitlin was frightened at one stage and sat on my knee, but was generally OK with the big screen and the dark. I thought the movie was great too!

Poor Cal and Craig stayed home! Callum slept pretty much the whole time that we were away and Craig pruned some more of that hideous vine (now dead) from a tree at the side (near the dove cote) that has suffered from it being so invasive. He got just about all if it trimmed out I think.

It is raining here. The bureau of meteorology says that we have only had about 5 mm, but I believe we have had quite a bit more. For about 3 days now we have had heavy rain at night and drizzle on and off during the day and the garden is looking great for it. Now the weeds will be even more out of control than they were before! My patch of spinach that I had to re-sow is up and looking good. The new patch of corn is still not up, but I think that takes a while.

CSI is about to be on TV, so I had better go and get my weekly fix of TV!

Scrap Classes

I had my first class at the shop on Tuesday night! It was fantastic. I love the room and the dynamics were great. I have had lots of positive feedback too. I am teaching there again tonight, so hopefully it will be just as good. I have to get the hang of payments now. Thank goodness Renaye is there for the first few classes because I would have felt a little swamped otherwise!

I will post some pictures when I have some.

Ten Pin Bowling!

Can you imagine a group of 11 three year olds ten pin bowling - no? Well, we did it today. And it was the cutest thing ever! Caitlin LOVED it. "I can do it myself Mummy" was about all I heard this morning. She would get her own ball off the shoot thing, carry it over to a special stand they have for kids, get me to put the ball on because it was too heavy for her to lift up that far, then she would roll it down the stand (it was sort of like a ramp) and towards the pins. She did so well. I think we will make an endeavour to go as a family some time because we all had so much fun. Can you believe they even had shoes small enough for her? I wish I had taken my camera.

Child Health Visit

I took Caitlin for her 3 year old check up and Cal for his 8 months check on Tuesday.

Caitlin had a full audiology check because the speech therapist wanted to check that her hearing was OK to rule that out as a cause for her lagging speech. She heard every sound that was produced, so that is promising. On height and weight, she is going well too. She is 100cm tall, which is almost right on the 75th percentile, which means that only 25% of girls her age are taller. She weighs 15.8kg with clothes and shoes, which is between the 50th and 75th percentiles, which is also great. She is on track to be a bit taller than me. Maybe I will end up the shortie of the family like my Mum has!

Callum has lost a small amount of weight since I weighed him at 9 months - he is now 8.06kg (he was 8.14kg at 9 months). When he had the bad cold and tonsilitis he hardly ate or drank, so I can fully understand that he has lost some weight. The CHN was onto it and wants to make sure that he has put on some again by 10 months because of his weight loss when he was 3 or 4 months. I am sure that he is fine though. He is growing longer despite being sick - he is now 72.5cm long. He has suddenly decided food is OK too. His appetite has increased heaps and he is starting to tolerate lumps and loves rice rusks and toast crusts. I expect that he will be beefing up from now on!

Some Photos

Both of the kids just love us reading to them. I am so grateful that Craig loves reading as much as I do and is setting a great example for both Caitlin and Cal.



Caitlin is loving her babushka dolls at the moment. Every day I have to open the biggest one for her so she can stack and sort and line them all up. I think there are 15 in the set and goes down to the size of a grain of rice. I worry that we will lose the smallest one or two, but hey, if they go by the wayside it doesn't matter I suppose because they have had good use so far!



Our little acrobat has learned a new trick (trained monkey!). She loves to hang upside down. She is getting stronger too. Because she has always had weak shoulders I have been paying attention to getting her to pull herself up using her arms and try to get herself high enough to flick her legs over the bar. She perhaps gets about half way by herself, which is pretty cool.



Dad's earmuffs are also the flavour of the month. Doesn't she look cute?



I have just realised there is a distinct lack of photos of Callum in this post. I will have to make up for it in another one. This is just a classic photo - I get this frown all the time at the moment. He uses it to full effect. Whenever I do something that he doesn't like, I get this huge frown or scowl! I know I do it to Caitlin so that she knows that I don't like what she is doing so I don't need to discipline her in front of her friends, so I must unknowingly be giving the same look to Cal. Classic really! I must scrap this one!

Long time no post!

Wow, I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had posted!

Most of my vegies are up! I was out in the garden yesterday and the spuds are just coming up, which is great, but means I need to be diligent in covering the vegies at night now because we have had heaps of really harsh frosts over the last couple of weeks. Mum and Andrew will be here at a great time because I will have spinach, carrots, zuchinis and probably redbeet ready in the garden at the time - yum!

We had a quick trip to Esperance last weekend - 3 nights. It wasn't as enjoyable as usual. It seemed like a mountain of packing to get 4 of us there and back, the weather was rainy and windy, and while we were there I had my wallet stolen from the toilets at the Boulevard, so it has discouraged us from going away again in a hurry.

I had my last scrapbooking class at home on thursday night which was sad but also exciting. I am moving classes to the scrap shop because it is hard on Craig and the kids having their home invaded 3 times a fortnight and I was also feeling the pressure of not being able to get into a mess or have an off day or two, like so sften happens when you have 2 kids. Classes start on the 22nd and I am really looking forward to it. Renaye from Keepsake Kraft has made a great scrap space that I am looking forward to teaching in.

All the cards for the June card swap are in and they are all so fantastic. I love getting them all and seeing just how differently we all interpret the challenge. This month was an embossing challenge and the August swap is a fold challenge, where we have to use a non-standard card fold. I would like to try a pop-up card fold, but I think I need to do some research on the net first.

We had a busy weekend again (what's new?). Craig has shifted a heap more lawn from the spots where we are going to have garden beds to the spot where the kids swing set is going to go. It is really hard work, but it will save us money in the end and will establish pretty fast once spring is here. I have set myself the task of completing one job a day over the school holidays to get the inside of the house sorted out. Boring I know! Saturday I cleaned out Caitlin's wardrobes. Sunday I sorted out the kids old clothes that I had boxed up. I set aside piles to go to Good Sammi's and piles that I am going to try and sell on eBay. Today I have started listing things on eBay, so I hope that they will sell. I still have quite a few items to go on, but I am going to work at it of an evening over the next couple of days and hopefully get rid of them. Tomorrow I am going to clear off Callum's bed and make it up, ready for Mum and Andrew's visit in August. Then if I finish that I will make a start on the toy jungle! I have warned Caitlin that we are going to have a big clean up of her toys. Also, Callum has grown out of many of the baby toys like rattles etc, so we can cull them now (maybe to sell on eBay too).

Callum has been really sick over the past week or a bit more. Yesterday evening his temp shot up to 39, so I was a bit suspicious. He has progressively been getting more and more miserable too, so we headed off to the doctor today. Didn't take long to discover that our poor little man has tonsilitis. I really hope he doesn't suffer with it like I did as a child. He has a course of antibiotics and hopefully that clears it up, but we have a repeat if he still isn't 100% by the end of the 5 day course.

I am off to watch the tennis - we taped it last night because it was still not on at 10pm, so we went to bed. We have heard the result (boo hoo) but want to watch it anyway. I will post photos in the next couple of days.

Busy!

Both Craig and I feel as though we have been unusually busy over the last couple of weeks. Craig was away with Mitchi and Big Yammi over the weekend, so he has worked the last 2 weeks without a break, which means I haven't had a break either. Today we took it easy and had some time with the kids and also pottering in the garden.



Planting two more rows of red beet hopefully to preserve or make chutney out of. My rows are pretty crooked! Wouldn't make a very good farmer!



In this photo, you can see the vegie patch starting to take shape. I have carrots, spinach, parsnips, red beet, broadbeans tomatoes and zucchinis already up and today I planted Bernie pumpkins, purple runner beans, spuds, corn, more red beet and spinach and red onions. Tomorrow I would like to get a half row of cos lettuce and rocket in, some shallots and capsicum (may be too cold yet) and some green and butter beans. I feel a real sense of satisfaction tonight that the vegie patch is coming together so well this year after it being a dismal failure last year!



I know this photo is blurry, but Caitlin looked like such a cool cat in my sun glasses. She was very impressed that I wanted to take a photo and posed like a model!



I tried Callum on some toast crusts on Thursday. I was really surprised that he loved them! He only gagged a couple of times and actually swallowed a heap - perhaps the toasted crust off half a small slice of bread. This is really funny, considering that he can't stand a single lump in his vegies and is super fussy about the texture, temperature, thickness and vegie combinations (he likes everything mixed with apple or pear!). Caitlin thought that it was great that he was eating her crusts that she leaves all the time!



Caitlin can be so laid back some times! Here she is having a pick-wick (picnic) on her special owl plate, feet up, resting in Dad's cane chair from when he was a little boy.



I caught a photo of Callum in action blowing a raspberry today. He loves doing this and uses it as emphasis all the time - cheeky little man! Luckily he hasn't started doing it when he eats... yet.

We have the first Winner of one of the RAK packs! She finished the layouts in a super quick time and says she was on a huge roll!

And, the winner is...

Dee Wells.

A little pack of goodness is coming your way!

There are 2 more up for grabs if anyone can complete the challenge by next weekend.

ED again!

We had an eventful day yesterday. Caitlin and I were getting lunch and she was jumping around everywhere like she always does and she tripped over and... crunch, her little chin hit the floor. It was such a small fall, that when I picked her up, screaming her head off, I was really shocked - she had blood actually dripping from her and I thought that she must have put her teeth through her tongue or lip which she has done before. Actually, she had, in that really small fall, managed to put a one inch gash in the crease under her chin (where the double chin starts) and about 1/2 a centimetre deep. Blood just poured from it! She was, naturally, absolutely distraught.

We took her down to the emergency department and saw a Doctor there (can't get in to the clinic here on short notice). They debated whether to put stitches in, but they were fairly confident that skin glue would do the trick. Caitlin was such a brave little girl. She didn't cry or even complain, even when the Doctor was squeezing her cut and making her put her head right back. The Nurse managed to steri-strip her chin twice (because she didn't get it right the first time) and still no objections from Caitlin. When the Nurse said "now this might sting a little bit" that was the end of Caitlin's good humour!

When we were still at home Caitlin had been asking "they won't hurt me will they Mum?" and I had tried to play it down by saying that I didn't know and that they would be as careful as possible, not knowing if she would need stitches and that they could hurt. Caitlin screamed and kicked and would not, for anyone, stay on the trolley. She was down and on her way out of there. In the end we had to wrap her in a sheet to restrain her and while I held her down and another nurse held her head still, her chin was glued and a piece of fixomul put over the wound.

Craig said later that he didn't envy me having to do that. When I was trying to reason with her to stay on the bed, I was so close to crying. It was a really hard thing to do! Of course not long after we had finished, she calmed down and was fine. The nurse mentioned an icypole as a special treat, so she perked up quickly! I think the episode will have damaged our chances of being able to treat her easily in that sort of setting again though.

She has to keep the fixomul on for five days and is not allowed to get it wet, so I think we will give swimming a miss on Monday, just to be on the safe side. I really hope it heals well because there was a patch that bled for quite a while and it looked as though the glue had not stuck in that one spot. We will see next week.

Callum, of course took it all in his stride. He is such a calm and placid boy.

I will post some photos at a later date because my camera memory card isn't being picked up by the computer. I think I need to shut down the computer and give it a rest!

I am just working on my second layout for my challenge. Actually, it is a frame that I have been making for at least 4 months, so I thought that qualified as old stash! It is coming up nicely and I can't wait to paint the scrap room now so that it looks nice on my wall (get rid of the hideous yellow)! A couple of friends are absolutely motoring with the challenge. D has done 7 layouts and L had done 3 last time I spoke to her and I am sure she will have done more by now!

Time for bed and to check my little ones are sleeping soundly!

The New Dockers

Sorry, but I just have to say... Poor Eagles! All they have to do now is emulate Carlton and lose the rest to get some priority draft picks!

One Down

Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill. Patterned paper: Crate Paper . Stamps: Stampin' Up, Hero Arts. Ink: Color Box. Brads: Making Memories. Acetate bird: Heidi Swapp. Alphas: Making Memories, American Crafts. Gel pen: Hyper Gel. Other: thread, staples, edge distresser.

Here is layout number one for my challenge. Pretty simple, but I can't really do anything else and get it to look good! I took inspiration from Elizabeth Karchener's blog header. To get these layouts done pretty quick, I have decided that I will lift some layouts or use some sketches or even lift some of my own layouts. I have also decided that I will try to do five layouts on Caitlin and five on Callum. Seems only fair. Rolling along!

Challenging myself...

I seem to be scrapping up a storm at the moment. Running classes always inspires me to scrap more and to scrap better I think. Classes have been so much fun! Thursday night my cheeks were hurting by the end of the session, so thanks ladies! H and D, you two together are just a crack-up.

This layout is a class one (using pics of my friend L), but I love it, so thought I would post it here. I think I will do another for Caitlin but use some circles of patterned paper and perhaps the quote "she makes the world a better place" by Kobi Yamada. I have a heap of layouts to share, but I think I will upload one or two per post so as not to completely bore everyone!

I am about to start a challenge that I have set for myself - to make 10 layouts out of old supplies (no recent additions allowed) to get rid of some of my stash. It is getting out of control in my desk and need to make room for some new buttons and alphas that Craig bought me when he was down in Perth this week. The 10 layouts, no doubt, won't even make a dent on the stuff spewing from my drawers, but I have to try!

I have three small RAK's (random acts of kindness) from my stash to go out to some lucky people if you would like to join me. All you have to do is:

• Leave a comment on the blog to let me know that you are going to join in.
• Let me know every time you complete one of your 10 layouts by commenting on the blog or emailing me.
  
• When you finish all 10, email me with your name and address and I will send you a RAK if you are one of the first three to finish!

Hope this is heaps of fun! I am about to start... what are you doing reading? Go and start using your stash!

Long time no post!

Yes, I have been reminded that I should post at least as many times as Mardi Winen! (every other day!). Do I have that much news? Maybe...

I think winter has hit here. Finally the days are below 20 and the nights below 10 degrees. I am not looking forward to the really cold nights because I am still up at least once a night to Callum, so I think I might freeze (or be doing some serious controlled crying to get him to sleep all night!).



Callum has been changing heaps lately. This is his usual pose at the moment - hands shoved in his mouth to sooth his gums. He had his second hair cut last friday and is completely blond now! He is saying mum mum all the time and when he is really upset he calls out Mummm eeee! He has also started saying bub bub, which is pretty cute. He is building his language pretty fast compared to Caitlin, I think, because he is also babbling heaps and putting two sounds together already, such as goo ahhh, which I can't recall Caitlin doing so early.

On Tuesday a little tooth popped through at the bottom. He now has 3 teeth at the top and 3 at the bottom. I was having a feel a little while ago and I think the 4th tooth at the bottom will be next - I can feel it just sitting there. I can't wait for all these teeth to come through because he has been so unsettled and in heaps of pain with them. At least he has started eating again. He had 3 days where it was far too painful for the spoon to go into his mouth (even the rubber ones we use).

Today, for the first time, Cal put up his arms for me to pick him up! Yay! I love it when they start to do that. I know when he is excited to see me because he kicks and wriggles all over the place, but actually making a "pick me up" gesture is just great.



Caitlin and I had our review at the naturopath last week and she is impressed with how well we are both doing. Caitlin is just a changed girl. Not that she has ever been a really naughty kid, but she could get really grumpy and difficult sometimes but she is now mostly a very agreeable girl. She chatters all the time, sings the most amazing songs that I have never even heard before (and she knows all the words) and is just the best company. Neither of us have had a cold either, so that is the best news of all considering how sick we were last winter. Craig has his review next week and I think he will be doing well too. He is almost off his reflux tablets and feeling well.

Craig has been away in Perth for 2 nights for a business meeting and will be home on the last flight tonight. It is our wedding anniversary today, so it will be great to have him home . We are going to get some nice take-away from Villa Maritana and have a romantic tea in! Then tomorrow, he trips off again with Big Yammi from Mitsubishi in Japan and won't be home again until late Sunday, so I will be missing him heaps by then.

Time to give Cal a snack! I will post some scrapping stuff after the snack.

Canvas

Here is a canvas that I made a couple of weeks ago. I had painted it and was going to put a "She" quote on it by Kobi Yamada, but I seriously stuffed it up, so I wanted to cover it over! You can't see the detail very well in this photo, but I have distressed the edge of the cream cardstock and doodled a line about 1/2 a cm in from the edge in silver. I have also roughly stitched some journaling lines in the top right and written "you ROCK little man (03/08)". The red cardstock is stitched on and then ripped off and the flowers are stitched and then distressed.

I am teaching at the local scrap shop (LSS) as of next term and this is going to be one of my off the page projects. I would love to take about 2 classes there a week, one at night during the week and one on the weekend, so hopefully they will take off.

The garden and some photos of the kids

We are borrowing a little trampoline from L and G at the moment. Caitlin thinks it is just the greatest! She would spend almost every waking moment on it if she could! She has learnt how to bounce down onto her knees from standing and yesterday she got brave enough to bounce down onto her bottom. She thinks she is pretty clever. I got some cute action shots and here is one of many.




She still will not push herself on her trike. It isn't that she can't do it because she can - I just think she likes doing it the way she always has and she is pretty stubborn, so there is no convincing her that there is any other way! She has her smock on in this photo because we had been doing some painting.




My garden is coming along so nicely at the moment. I love growing my own fruit and veg and being able to go out and pick an apple or orange when I want, or choose the vegies for tea and go and get them from the garden. I also love being able to give some away. Craig thinks this is a bit of a waste, but I like how much people genuinely appreciate getting something out of someone elses garden. Here is a shot of my oranges - aren't they yummy looking? Mum, wouldn't you love to go out and pick your morning orange fresh off the tree every day? They still have a couple of weeks to go because they are still a bit tart.




Here is a picture for Dad - my broadies are looking yummy already! I hope the soil condition is OK because they are planted where the slabs were laid in the old chook shed. I fertilised well, so I hope that makes up for it.




And finally, we have a mellon on our watermellon vine that has been there for about four months and done nothing. I think it has not been getting polinated, so now there is one on it, maybe we will get some more (then we will get a rippa frost and it will be gone!). It is about 15 or 20 cm long at the moment and growing fast.




Look at this cheeky little man! Callum is teething at the moment and he is getting about four teeth at once, so he is in quite a bit of pain, poor little boy. Unfortunately for him he takes ages for the teeth to actually come through, so he may be like this for about 3 weeks. He loves putting this ring in his mouth because it sits just nicely on his gums where the teeth are coming down.



When I saw this photo I realised just how much he is changing at the moment. In this photo he is looking much more like a little boy than like a baby. Wow - he is eight months old tomorrow!


And guess who is finally sitting up most of the time! He just loves to throw himself backwards though, so he can often be found staring at the ceiling again!



This is a photo that I took myself of Cal and me, because I forget to ask Craig to take some. I think he was watching Caitlin at the time!

Healthy?

Caitlin and I saw the naturopath about 4 weeks ago and have been on a pretty serious diet change. Last winter we were so sick with colds and gastro that I just couldn't handle it again for another winter, especially with two kids to look after now.

Erin has cut wheat out of our diets and reduced the amounts of dairy and sugar we consume. I have also given up coffee and tea and almost completely given up chocolate too!!! (not quite). It took me about 4 days to detox, and boy did I feel bad! I guess Caitlin was feeling that way too, but I couldn't see past my own headache at the time. We have given it a really good go - on the weekend Craig accidentally made us pancakes with wheat in them and Caitlin and I both had a really bad reaction to it. Caitlin was still distressed at bed time. We will know for the future that pancakes are not the best food for us. Caitlin, I think, has had the most amazing change from our diet changing - she is so even tempered, sleeping really well, very well mannered, energetic and just a joy to be around. None of the mini tantrums that we used to get either. The most remarkable change has been in her bowel. For the first time in her little life, she doesn't have diarrhoea, which I think would pretty much indicate that she has a wheat intollerance!

We will see how good this new diet is... I have a cold lurking around but not really coming to anything at the moment, so we will see if I can fight it off. We see Erin again on Thursday, so it will be good to get a progress report from her.

Our weekend

A funny face from our little girl!




Today we continued our never-ending project of sorting out the backyard. Caitlin decided that it was easier to ride in the wheelbarrow than dig the dirt.



She had fun because she was "helping Dadda" which lasted all of about 5 minutes, then she decided that the trampoline was more fun.

The Eagles finally won "Yay", the poor Dockers again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I thought that it was a frustrating year for Eagles supporters, but I really feel for all the frustrated Dockers supporters.

Craig.

Take a photo Mummy!

Caitlin loves having her photo taken (most of the time). I suppose I have subjected her to it since she was born so she has gotten used to it! Today I was taking a couple of photos of layouts and she piped up "take a photo of me eating apple shoo (stewed apple) Mummy" so I did. Isn't she gorgeous? I love her so much!





I am having a LeReve aromatherapy party tomorrow afternoon and I am waiting for my chocolate cake to finish cooking. All I want to do is go to bed! So, what better thing to do than update the blog?

Catch you soon.

Update of Callum

So much has been happening in the short like of Cal lately. He had his first swing in the baby swing on the 5th of April and he loved it so much. Caitlin thought it was hilarious that he was in "her swing" and laughing at her and watching what was going on. She had to push him and no one else was allowed!







Callum had his first hair cut on the 24th of April. He has gone from a dark and shaggy haired boy to a little blond bombshell! He looks like a real little boy now, rather than a baby. Here is a picture of Deanne cutting his hair. I was really surprised how much she had to cut off. I think it is funny too that most babies are well over one when they need to have their hair trimmed and my shaggy haired kids were both pretty little when they had a trim up!



This is a shot of my little boy with his new "doo". Pretty cute hey! Just look how light his hair is! The chair he is sitting in is Craig's old chair from when he was a child.




I will update on Miss Caitlin in another post.

Bye XX

First Layouts

This was my first layout for Caitlin! Wow, my scrapping has come a long way since then!


This was my first layout for Callum. I love this photo so much, partly because it is so hard to catch an impromptu moment like this.

Some Old Photos

I thought I would start with some cute photos of the kids when Callum was just new! This is a photo of Cal at only a day old. Can't believe that he is pretty much blond now! Little cutie!



Here is a photo of all of us at the hospital. Looks like Caitlin is giving Cal mouth to mouth!



I love this photo, even though it is heavily photo-shopped. I scrapped this one first!




Callum at one month and Caitlin at 2 and 8 months. I adore this photo. It shows how it will probably always be - Caitlin kissing and cuddling Callum and him just taking the adoration in his stride!