Did someone say we needed rain?

Wasn't it back in June 07 that we just had floods? Don't they predict that a flood occurs every 10 - 15 years! Well what is with all the rain the past 10 days and all the water over the roads again! Here I was going to work yesterday, hit the back roads of Woodberry and bam, the water is all over the road! I didn't have time to turn around so through it I went! Luckily I have a Forrester! There was water over the road in three seperate sections and even Raymond Terrace river was up and over, no car park or boat ramp to be seen, all under water!

On the Sunday we decided to take a drive out through Millers Forest, then Morpeth and up to Chichester Dam to check out all the water! We stopped at Dungog for a COunter Lunch on the way! What a beautiful day! The paddocks were so green, and the drive was really tranquil, even rubbed off on the kids! Now thats a first! We got all the way to Chichester only to find the gates closed due to too much water spilling over the Dam Wall! Too dangerous, so we turned around and headed into Tilgerry Forest, checked out the river there, drove the car through the causeway covered with water and headed down to Frying Pan creek! Was a great day for a drive, especially since I have had this dreaded flu for over a week! So the drive was great for the rest and to have a family day out! Need more days like this!

Well that is me done and dusted! Time for work! Then Tuesday and Wednesday is scrapping days! Need to get the challenges done for the CC over at TSE! Thursday& Friday back to work! Thak goodness I don't have to work this Saturday like I have the past two Saturdays! Have the next two Saturdays off, then work the last two Saturdays in May!

Chat soon my friends

Love Lisxx

Happy Birthday to You!

Well in just two days there was three of my fav girls birthdays so I just had to make a special mention here on my blog!

Firstly on the 26th April was my life long BFF Jane! We have been friends since we were in Kindergarten together and mind you joined at the hip ever since! This is the sister that mum and dad forgot to give me! So Happy Birthday you Bitch! I love you to death!

Secondly today is Shells' Brithday! We have been friends since Year 11 at school so nearly 18 years! Gosh time flies! I love You to death Shell, we had so much fun in our younger years together! Some of the best times of my life! Happy birthday you dirty minx!

Thirdly it is also my SIL birthday today Kate! A big 31! Happy Birthday Kate! Wish we were there! Hopefully when we are all over this flu we will be coming for the weekend so we can all go bowling! So looking forward to that!

So Happy Birthday to you all girls! Hope you had / have a great day and may all your dreams come true!

Love You All

Lisxx

Janes 40th

What a weekend! It was the ever gorgeous Jane Jones 40th Birthday Bash at Cronulla over the weekend just gone, and it has taken me this long to get over it! Nah, just joking, I wish, but the ole system feels a little drained though!

Before the Road Trip

It was such a great weeknd, a few little glitches, but over all a fantastic weekend! Jaimee & I had the honour of meeting the every gorgeous Kerry from Newy Airport! And by gosh I was shocked at how tall and gorgeous she is! I was so excited to meet her, I was feeling quite butterflyee in the tummy! It was so bloody good to finally meet her! So I drove Kerry to Sandy's where we all had dinner and man oh man so many laughs! It was such a great let your hair down night! Then back to my house for a relatively early night 10pm, as we had a big day the next day!

Kerry & I (Love this pic)

So up bright and early, thanks to my kidlets, Jaimee and Sandy arrived around 9am, then off we set for Sydney at 9.30am. We introduced Kerry to Miss Satnav and even our Aussie version! Think she liked that one better! We arrived in Cronulla around 12pm. Checked in, dropped off our luggage and pressies and headed off down the foreshore for something to eat! Oh gosh the food is just jummo! We had sourdough bread with butter and crushed herbs & pistashio nuts and we all had some form of a Caeser Salad! So nice, washed down with two Kaluha's and Milk! Perfect! We then briefly met up with Vita and Annette before we went back to the room to meet up with Jane & Marcela, gasbag, Jane opened her pressies, then we wandered off down the beach for a little while. Come dinner time we all headed out to Opah's (Greek Yum Cha) if you have never had it before I suggest you go!

I love this photo of Jane & I

It was the best meal I have had in such a long time! The dinner, the girls, the atmosphere, the night was wonderful! Could have stayed there all night. Then we had the best dessert ever, a huge platter of all different chocolate desserts. I fell in love with the Chocolate Cremem Brulee!

All the gang at dinner!

Though I was a little disappointed that the night ended there and we all went back to the room! I was so pumped to go and have a few drinks, laughs and let my hair down! But all the same it was still nice to be out, and hanging with the girls.

The ever hilarious Sandy!

Sunday saw us all rise, luckily for the early night, with no hangovers! So we headed up the mall to a lovely little cafe and had a big breaky! It was so good! Then we all headed into the City to show Vita the Opera House, The Rocks, Circular Quay, and the Harbour Bridge! I so enjoyed walking around the city, taking photo's, no children to stress about, just us girls hanging and enjoying each other! The afternoon got a little stressful, but all turned out well in the end, Vita & Kerry jumped on a train and headed back to the airport. Boo Hoo, so going to miss those girls. Vita was so damn cute, a huge cutie, you just couldn't help but giggle along with her, and Kerry, well, I felt as if I had been friends with Kerry all my life, I had an instant bond with Kerry before the trip, but it was so reconfirmed for me meeting her in real life! She is gorgeous, funny and can't wait to do this all over again! Sandy, Jaimee and I then went and grabbed a coffee and a bite to eat before we headed back to reality! I am so please that I have met these girls, all are unique in their own way and I love them all! So girls when are we doing it again? I am hanging out and my diary is dying to know!

All of Day 1

I soooooo miss you girls and these photo's are making me nostalgic!

Mostly Day 2

Thanks for a great weekend Sandy, Kerry, Jane, Jaimee, Marcela, Vita, & Annette. Thanks Sandy for driving again, I so owe you one, thanks Dr Jaimee I love you so much, Thanks Kerry and Vita for making the huge effort to meet up with us, you girls are just to die for, of course thanks Jane for giving us another excuse to get together and taking time out of your hectic life to spend a weekend with us, thanks Marcela you gorgeous minx for meeting up with us, I so love your new hair do! And thanks Annette for booking the Rydges for us and Opahs' for dinner, I don't think I would want to stay or eat anywhere else! So three cheer to all of us! What a weekend! I am sooooo missing you all!

Take care and hope to chat soon

Love Lisxx

Mothers Day is just around the corner.......

and if you need some inspiration to create that special something in honour of your mother, grandmother, etc, I have created just the thing for you! What mother doesn't love to be pampered? For The Scrapbook Establishment this week, it was my duty to create something special as inspiration for a Mothers day gift idea with the MM Fifth Avenue Elizabeth range. There are candles and natural handmade soaps wrapped in paper, string and buttons, along with handmade Tea Bag Bath Soaks and Tea Bag Foot Soaks (fragranted in Calendular Petals and Lavender Seeds), and don't forget the matching Mothers Day Card. Perfect for your mum to take a night off, run the bath, pop in a bath soak, turn off the lights, light the candles and leave all the daily stresses behind. Sounds bliss doesn't it? Think I need one too! So get creative and I want to see what you make in the TSE gallery.(www.thescrapbookestablishment.com.au/gallery).

"Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever"

A Confusing week!

This week has been alot of searching within myself, if that makes sense. I spent last Sunday out shopping with my Aunty and my mum at Morpeth. A lovely little historic town with gorgeous little trinkets, bears, natural products, such a sweet little town. Anyway, towards the end of the day we saw a Clairvoyant shop! And we all thought, lets do it!

A Pic of Morpeths Park

So my Aunty went first, then Mum and then Me! Well, he was so eerily accurate. Told us all things and described to us people in our lives! He first picked up on a friend of mine, who is in a bad relationship, and needs to get out! And out now he said or she would leave life another way, and not in 20 years either. I think my jaw fell on the floor! He suggested a few books for her to read to gain back her confidence, courage and help her to focus! Luckily after I spoke to her, and quite a few teary moments between the two of us, she bought the books. Thats a positive step forward.

He told me that Cooper was bought to this Earth for my benefit, to teach me a life lesson of Practicality and Patience. Wow, he got that right. He explained Coopers personality to a T! Though we need to change is habits into a positive, no more tantrums, try to get him to focus around him and not just whats in front otherwise he could end up to be a very troubled boy with a drug problem! Gosh I tell you I was just devastated. Totally felt like a bad mother! I had put it down to Cooper just being very high spirited and focused on just what he wanted! But really when you looked at the bigger picture with what he said, it really made sense. Though as hard as that is!

Travis he said was very clever and very bright and has a very sensitive nature. Again Travis to a T! He is sensitive to the spirit world and see's people! Which we already knew! One of the reason's we still let him sleep in our bed as he is so afraid. Though he told me it was time Travis grew up, back into his own bed, and we had to stop letting him pull on our heart strings! So not an easy thing to do! So this week has been a struggle, though we have had Travis sleeping in his bedroom for half a night, with him falling asleep in his bed! Though with me having to sleep in the top bunk! But hey its a start! He also said because we give into Cooper so often, that Travis feels that Cooper is loved more than him! Travis was bought to this world for his own purpose to learn his life lesson of Self Worth. He needs constant praise and love, if not he could have depression problems in the future. Its like, Oh yeh I can see that now taking a step back.

Really eerie stuff I tell you, and I was quite a mess for the first few days of the week. Though I have taken the positive out of it and moving right alone. It was very deep, very intense and a little intrusive, but at the end of the day I'd rather know! Not sure if any of you beleive in such things, but I do believe in the spiritual side of life and found this quite fascinating. Before I knew it half an hour was up and it was over, I would of really liked to find out a little more about me, what my path in life was, not only to learn practicality and patience but what other life lessons were I to be taught! I also wanted to find out about Grants Mother! Well maybe another time! I have his name, phone number and the address of his store if anyone is interested! Just email me and I will send it over!

Other than that my week has been really basic! Work, Swimming, and more work! Yesterday I spent the day in the yard tidying up the kids area of the back yard, cleaning out the BBQ shed, and weeding the gardens! Was a beautiful day once the sun got out!

Last night we had our first Lighting of the Fire ritual! Every year when we light the fire for the first time, we have a camp out, grab the kids single bed mattresses, and sleep on the loungeroom floor, watch videos, eat chocolate, drink hot chocolate all while the fire is blazing!

Our first fire of the year!

Was so nice, though it is so hard to watch a movie with the kids making so much noise all the time. I ended up sneaking back off to my own bed at 11pm (Travis shortly followed) after Grant woke me snoring, so I left him there. But bloody Daylight Savings, had the kids up at 5am this morning! Nooooooooooooooo! I can feel a nanny nap coming on!

Trav - Campout!

The Boys - Campout

Coop - Camp out!

Anyway hope you all have a lovely weekend! Nice day to scrap today if I get the chance! Grant is off fishing again! So its just me and the boys again!

Love to you all Lisxx

TSE Blind Scrapping!

Well this was a very new concept for me! Blind Scrapping! It is where you are given a set of instructions every 10 minutes and you complete that instruction on your layout before completing the next instruction!


March 28th to March 30th was TSE first ever Blind Scrapping, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it, would definately partake in one again! So different to seeing a sketch or being told to use a certain kit! We actually had 17 scrappers complete the Blind Scrapping at TSE, which is a fantastic turnout for us! I was so proud to see everyones layouts and the interpretations were mind blowing! Thanks Kristine for creating the Blind Scrapping, can't wait until next time!

My entry into the Blind Scrapping

Here are the instructions if you would like to have a go yourself!



STEP 1 – Trim patterned paper #1 approx. 2cm around each side. Distress the edges and ink (if you have some). Position on your page without attaching. Cut a small length of your ribbon and layer under the upper righthand corner of patterned paper #1. Adhere the ribbon and then the patterned paper in place on the cardstock/base paper.

STEP 2 – Add a border around the inside or outside edge of patterned paper #1. Take patterned paper #2 and cut it to fit 30cm long by 10cm wide. Adhere to the lower section of your page.

STEP 3 – Attach your ribbon on the left hand side of the page so that it overlaps patterned paper #2

STEP 4 – Choose a 5x7 or 6x4 photo. You will be attaching your photo to the page making sure that it is layered over the ribbon on the left side of page. Either before or after attaching your photo, frame your photo in some manner. Eg. Doodle a border, use photo corners, distress the edge and ink, rub ons etc.

STEP 5 – Position title above the photo.

STEP 6 - Position journaling on the right hand side of page.

STEP 7 – Add date of photo or date layout was created on bottom right hand side of layout

STEP 8 – Add matching buttons and chosen second and/or third embellishment (it can be whatever you like!) on lower part of page and top right hand corner

If you want to see the other entrants for the Blind Scrapping go the TSE Gallery

A huge congrats to all the winners and an extra impressive congrats to Jane Jones for her entry being snapped up by Scrapbooking Memories to appear in a future edition of SM! Way to go!