Jumping for joy...

for more than one reason, the first being that we are PREGNANT! and expecting our second child on the 17th of July. (Will post an ultrasound pic of the little one when we get our desktop computer back) The second being that my computer caught a nasty virus and it appears I haven't lost anything off of it. Can't wait to get it back and double check and back up all my beautiful pictures. Joyous!

The only bad stuff that's going on at the moment is with Lakiesha, she's in the wars again. While we were up in Dongara last weekend she got a heat rash on her leg, which became very sore and started peeling, she was one unhappy chappy. Then yesterday she was trying to stand in one of her toy buckets, which slipped out from under her and she fell down and hit her head on her wooden kids table, she had a lump on her head the size of an egg and it bruised and is all purple and blue! Charming not to mention she was screaming and crying so much that I started to cry. Oh the joys of being a parent, well it is joyous most of the time.

Take care love to you all. xoxo

Somebody save my sanity....

Ok so I started off the new year by checking emails etc.. not bad, then I need to update the program that I use for my digital pics in retrospect a dumb idea without first backing up all of my pictures but I didn't and now I am praying for a miracle. My desktop computer has completely crashed and I think I probably made it worse by trying to fix it! Anyway I am now praying that I can get some if not all of my most recent unbacked up pictures back. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks but even if I can get nothing else back I want my pictures, memories of random everyday bits and pieces of our life. However it's a tough lesson if you take digital pictures make sure you back them all up. I think I am going to start doing that as soon as I have loaded them onto the computer from now on, maybe it'll save some heartache in the future. Sad but true...

time to catch up...

It's been a busy few months for us, since I last updated our blog.

We went to our Spring Festival where Lakiesha had a great time at the Animal Farm stall. Santa came to visit at our Playgroup christmas party and brought Lakiesha a new doll pram. She wouldn't sit on his lap for more than two seconds and absolutely refused to go up there and collect her present. Nevertheless it was a really great day and we had a lot of fun.

Christmas totally snuck up on me this year but in a way I am thankful it has come and gone. Lakiesha got lots of new stuff, Santa gave her a megasketcher and a very muppett christmas DVD, Aunty Charlene gave her Narnia on DVD, Gran bought her 5 new outfits, that I'm almost too scared for her to wear! From David and I she got a new pool, beach towel, bathers & kronk's new groove DVD. In her stocking she got chocolate coins, and new colouring books as well as her very own coloured pencils. She got to go in her new pool on boxing day with Taylah and Cameron, it's quite large and big enough that Dave and I can get in there too.

Two weeks before christmas we went to Nat & Glen's for a bbq so we could all see Dad before he left to go on his trip. It was great to catch up with them all, as we haven't seen them in a while. Lakiesha spent the whole time with Paris and Jessica being carried around and kept entertained.

We rescued a baby bird, who we found on our doorstep when we got home from the bbq at Nat & Glen's. He'd fallen out of his nest and lost his mum, he didn't know how to fly. We took him in and he survived the night, so we took him to Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where he's getting the care and attention he needs. We are still waiting to hear from them as to how he's doing.

Lakiesha got given a haircut by me, not perfectly straight but it's a cute little bob and it really suits her. Plus it keeps her hair out of her face.

We went to the Wiggles concert at Burswood Dome with Aunty Narelle, Dante and Montana. Lakiesha absolutely loved it she spent the whole time standing on the chair dancing and clapping. It was great and the hour and a half just flew by. We got to see all the action as we were quite close to the front plus some characters walked past our row of chairs. Santa was also there, he's a very busy man.

We said goodbye to David's parents as they have moved to Darwin and are enjoying it except for the hot muggy weather.

We had a playgroup outing to Funstation where Lakiesha spent most of her time making things in the kitchen. We had a fun day though.

Lakiesha and I took a trip to Dongara to do a Stampin' Up! workshop weekend and to catch up with family, while we were away Dave went camping with Neil and Jamie. It was a long, eventful but worthwhile weekend. Before leaving Dongara we went to playgroup with Narelle and the kids in the hopes of wearing Lakiesha out so she'd sleep for the first part of the trip home, and thankfully it worked. She had a blast playing on the little trampoline and really got into being on the swing she was even leaning forward and backwards with the motion of the swing.

I've caught up with friends I used to hang out with and go to school with, which was really great. It's interesting to see how our lives have changed for the better.

David's grandad passed away from his struggle with cancer, he fought as hard as he could but it wasn't meant to be. We were all devastated by losing him he was a wonderful man and David will always miss him.

Overall it has been a wonderful year, full of blessings and struggles, but I think we will emerge as stronger people and a stronger family because of it. We are looking forward to a great new year and many more great thingss in 2007. We hope you all had a wonderful christmas and that your new year is just as awesome.

Web fun...

Check this out if you are a scrapbooker Clique TV.

The current series is about Stacy Julian, founder of Simple Scrapbooks Magazine and Big Picture Scapbooking. I am totally loving this so far and don't forget to download the daily pdf.

If you need some christmas inspiration check out the i wish.... catalouge from Ezibuy. Simply beautiful.

That's all I can think of right now, except today I am thankful for a sleeping child, and I am thankful for my beautiful spring flowers.

What small things are you thankful for today?

Stampin' Up! November Promotion

Buy any of four {4} predetermined stamp sets and recieve the matching standard Stampin' Around© wheel free. That's an $11.95 value.

Stamp Sets and Wheels:

Holiday Spirit & Only Ornaments

Winged Things & Wings & Things

Fishy Friends & Fishy

Buds & Blossoms & Delicate Design {as featured on flyer below}

Rebecca and Craig Gmeiner

Flowergirl (my cousin maddy) and Pageboy

My cousin Bronte as a bridesmaid

The bride being walked up the aisle by her Dad

After exchanging rings

First kiss as Husband and Wife

My brother Phil and his girlfriend Sarah

Bride, groom and our grandparents

Bride and her Mum

Bride and her Dad

Entering the reception

My cousin Rebecca married her sweetheart Craig on the 7th of October. I really enjoyed the wedding it was short, sweet, simple and they wrote their own vows. Fave bit: in his vows Craig said "I love you, because you can cook (everyone laughed) but mostly I love because you're you" majorly sweet, may not be an exact quote but it went something like that. Bad bit: Lakiesha was not happy about being with a babysitter while we were at the reception so we left early, but you get that. We however wish Bec and Craig every future happiness.

YouTube video...

When you have a spare few minutes to wait for this vid to download WATCH IT!! Love it, love the music, love the concept. Hugs should always be free.

Take the time I guarantee you'll enjoy it!

Photo album fun

We are off to a wedding on the weekend, so we are going to be catching up with all my extended family. We are leaving Lakiesha with Dave's parents over night, and because of this my Nan asked me to bring her lots of photos, so I went a little crazy with the idea. I grabbed a cool little album from Target for $1.99. Printed off a ton of photos and the result a great little gift album that cost me about $12.

The photo's only show some of my fave bits about this album, quick, easy and fun. I'm going to use a ton of these little albums to show off all the photos that don't get scrapbooked. I borrowed the idea from Big Picture Scrapbooking teacher Gretchen Schmidt's summer fun idea, I am just kind of expanding it and making it my own.

I also included two more written sections about Lakiesha one titled What I love to do and the other is a list of words she can say. Totally cool.

New Mini Catalouge

The new mini cataloge is now available to be viewed online. To check out all the cool new stamp sets, click here

For more information, or to place an order please email me

Hope to hear from you soon, and don't forget about the new october promotion! Check previous post for more details or feel free to email me!

Stampin' Up! © October Promotion

Starting October 1st if you join the Stampin' Up! family as a Demonstartor not only will you recieve your starter kit but you can choose a FREE stamp set (of your choice) from the Idea Book and Catalouge or the new Mini Catalouge, to the value of $79.95! Offer ends 31st October 2006, so get in quickly.

How cool is that, totally wishing I'd known this was coming three weeks ago I would have waited. LOL!

If you'd like more information please email me at hollyc@westnet.com.au

Good Stuff...

I seriously love everything vanilla (the smell of it is just divine), and though I don't like normal coffee I have always wanted to try vanilla coffee. So while browsing the aisles of woolies I stumbled upon these, needless to say I have fallen in love they smell and taste yummy! They come in a box of 8 for $3 something.

Other good stuff... I have been making more sample cards and I am seriously out of red cardstock, I never thought I was into bright colours until I joined Stampin' Up!, but I really like a lot of the colours in the Bold Brights colour family.

I have to get back into my scrapping now that I have extra shelving and more room in the office. Plus I have a little photo album that I need to put together for Nan and Pop. They want new pics of Lakiesha, so gonna do a cool little album for them.

I bought Dave a George Foreman grill today and we just cooked our steak in it. DIVINE. No more greasy steak or chicken for us, total goodness.

Will post more photos soon, love to ya all.

Decent people...

they are out there. On Saturday my Dad went out drinking with some of his friends, by 7pm he was drunk and ready to go home, he called us and asked us to get him but we were just about to eat dinner and it would have taken us at least half an hour to get to the casino. So he grabbed a taxi and went home, luckily we decided that we had better go down there and make sure he had gotten inside. Well he couldn't get into the house (he'd left his keys behind where his friends were staying) so had decided to lay down in his carport.

So Dave and I went down there and helped him inside, little did we know until Sunday that Dad had left his mobile phone in the taxi that had brought him home. We had tried calling it, Dad had tried calling it but no one answered. This morning at 8:10 I recieved a phone call from the taxi driver that had dropped Dad off at home. He hadn't found the phone until today because he didn't work Sundays, so all our ringing had gone to waste because there was no-one there to hear it.

Well I organised for the taxi driver to come here and drop it off and I would pay the fare. 20 minutes later I got the phone and the fare was only $39. Considering he would have had to get a new phone, heaps cheaper way to do it. The coolest part was that this man remembered dropping Dad off and that he had taken him to Parkerville and then the coolest thing of all happened he said to me "Did he get inside ok?"

WOW! not only did he remember but he cared enough to ask if he was ok! I don't know how many people this man dropped off after Dad but somehow none of them found the phone, a man who was willing to go out of his way and return it did. In fact someone who was willing to return the phone at all would have amazed me I didn't really think there were many of them left in today's world, but it turns out they do exist.

Hooray for the good souls out there!