Wow, how fast does a month go?? I can't believe I haven't blogged for that long until I ran into a friend last night who kinda gave me a shove (thanks for that ;)). To say we have been busy is a total understatement! We had Harrison's 8th birthday on the 11th. He had a party at Zone 3 - 9 boys running around shooting each other with laser guns - YAY!! He had an amazing day! We then had a swimming carnival 4 days after his birthday which was a bugger cause he had to swim against 8 year olds, and although he did well, some of these boys were HUGE. But he did PB's with every race and we are very proud of him, he is doing really well! He is now swimming with the Dolphin squad one day a week, Marlin squad (stroke correction) one day a week and then Club championships were on Friday night, so swim club has now finished until September *wipes brow - thank God!!* He also had a block of swimming lessons through school. Understandably he was exhausted at the end. We have now signed up for soccer. Alistair is coach of Harrison's team and I am manager of Ethan's. Say goodbye to our Saturday's now until September. I wouldn't have it any other way. I think it's important for the kids to be involved with sport.

The other thing we did in Feb was go away with friends to Hastings Point Big4 Caravan Park. OMG!! It was awesome and I can't wait till we get to go back again! Above is a pic of the slides into one of the pools. The other pools were for toddlers and younger kids.

This is the enclosed playground that was across from our 4.5* cabin. On the left of that was a maze mania sort of enclosed area for kids under 12 - supervised on weekends and holidays and on the right is a play centre for the kids (and adults) with table tennis, pin ball machines, pool tables etc. It was great cause they have security cameras in there and it is linked to our tv sets in our cabins, so we could sit in the air con playing Uno and watch the kids on tv LOL!!

This was the balcony of our cabin. Build in BBQ and sink and table and chairs, fantastic!!

This is Harrison ready to swim at the carnival. He's in the blue hat...

My gorgeous friend Tanya has given me this challenge. You need to load the 4th photo from the 4th file in your picture folder and explain a bit about it.

This photo was taken at the Animal Farm we went to last year with Ethan's Kindy. This dog (can't remember her name) was able to bark songs. It was very cute and I just had to take a pic of it.

So now it is my turn to pass it on. Here is all you need to do:Go to the 4th file or folder in your photos and open it up. Go to the 4th photo and post it with this information and 5 new blogging friends!!Here are the 5 ladies that I nominate for this challenge!

Jane http://www.janeettiajones.blogspot.com/

Lisa http://www.livelovecreation.blogspot.com/

Vita http://www.vita.typepad.com/

Brenda http://mydaymyscrapbookingmylife.blogspot.com/

Kat http://www.kathleenglossop.blogspot.com/

I've seen this around the blogs a bit lately, so thought I'd add my experience about my first child

1. Were you married at the time? Yes

2. What were your reactions when you found out you were pregnant? Very excited

3. How old were you? 24

4. How did you find out? I did a pregnancy test at home. The line was very faint so I thought it was negative (and I had some spotting, so thought I couldn't be pregnant, I was getting my period). Then I realised it wasn't my period so went to the doctor and this time the line on the pregnancy test was very bright!

5. Who did you tell first? Hubby of course :)

6. Did you want to find out the sex? I hate surprises, but we decided not to find out.

8. Did you deliver late or on time? Exactly on the due date.

9. Did you have morning sickness? I just felt hung over all day long - like the headache without the party!

10. What did you crave? I craved chocolate milkshakes and foccaccias from Bakers Delight with the mushrooms on top. Also Mexican food.

11. Who/what irritated you the most? Looking back, I wish I knew more about breast feeding. I was told it was natural and easy - well, I DON'T THINK SO!!

12. What was your first child's sex? Boy

13. How many pounds did you gain throughout pregnancy? I did not own a set of scales and I told my ob from the beginning that I wasn't standing on scales unless I started to look really unhealthy :)

14. Did you have any complications during pregnancy? No

15. Where did you give birth? Private hospital.

16. How many hours were you in labor? From the first 'show' to delivery it was 8 hours

17. Who drove you to the hospital? My hubby drove me - it was approx 6.30am on a Sunday morning.

18. Who watched? My hubby, a midwife and the obstetrician were there (although being the weekend it was another ob)

19. Was it natural or c-section? Totally natural.

20. Did you take medication to ease the pain? No pain killers what so ever!

21. How much did your child weigh? 8lbs 6oz

22. Did your child have any complications? He had to have suction because of meconian (sp?)

23. Why did you choose his name? My hubby wanted Ethan, but I just couldn't do it, didn't like it. So, I won in the end and said I wanted to name him Harrison. Obviously I lost out second time around though LOL

24. How old is your first born today? He is 8 next week. How time flies...

Dreamworld

Harrison and Ethan were pretty timid when it came to going on the rides. But when their dad took them on the rollercoaster in Nickelodeon, they were hooked. They went on this ride a couple of times!

I would say the best part of Kaleb's day would have been in the ball area at Nickolodeon. He loved to walk around and pick up all of the balls. At one stage he was helping a teenage boy to pack one of the blasters. It was very cute.

Ethan wasn't too sure about going on the Log Ride, but once he'd done it, all was good. We lined up for about 1 hour ARGH!!!

My two big boys...

Mini Family Trip January 2009

We decided to take some time away from home and work for a few days before the kids went back to school and routine. We spent one night with friends in Toowoomba and then we headed to the Gold Coast for two nights. Here Ali and the kids were playing beach cricket at Main Beach.

This is Kaleb in Queens Park in Toowoomba, having a great time on the playground.

Melissa took the kids over to the fence to feed Goldie some home grown carrots. Kaleb still talks about Goldie, the horse, and she says 'neigh' Very cute LOL

This is the Danelle Box that I have started. It is 12 little albums inside a box - just gorgeous and it's going to be about me! Well, that will be difficult, but I'm looking forward to working on it more. The papers I have used are Sakura Park, Kaisercraft!

This is the inside cover of the box

This is the front cover of the box.

This is a card I have made for a special friend this month. It started as a challenge at The Scrapbook Establishment, to make our own lollipop flowers, and I have done this with cardstock and then inked the circles and distressed the edges and voila, you have a flower. It's only my first one, so I think I can get better as I go.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years and here's cheers to 2009! I don't have any resolutions - I try not to make any because I never seem to keep them. I would still like to keep fit and it would be a bonus if I could lose another say, 5kg. I don't think that's too hard a goal to start with!

Our New Years eve party was pretty big, still recovering actually LOL. I only drank 2 bottles of champagne, but it was the shooters that got me. And of course I had some partners in crime, and I'm happy to say they were all feeling a little under the weather yesterday aswell.

I'm excited about Ethan starting Prep (YAY full time schooling), Ethan starting soccer for his first year (let me tell you, he is very excited about that) and Harrison will be starting Year 3. Kaleb also starts day care one day a week and will also still spend a day at his cousins house and another day with his Nanna and Poppy, while I go to work.

Have a great year everyone!! xx

RIP Romeo

Two days before Christmas my mum found our dog of 11 years beside her car. She thought at first he was sleeping, however, he had died in his sleep. I thank God he died in his sleep and we didn't have to make any decisions or take him to the vet. We knew he hadn't been well, but he had been on anti biotics and he seemed to be getting a little better. Well, he knew his time was up and he died peacefully at home. I'm so grateful for that! I'm also grateful none of the kids found him, that would have been devestating! We called Ali to come home because he is a big dog. He took the two older boys down to say good bye to Romy, to see that he was at peace and no longer in any pain. They were really sad and we had bought tickets on line to go to the movies. I decided we would still do that, to try and make them smile. Poor Kaleb still walks around saying 'woof woof'. I find that really sad, but Scott and Chrissie bought a new puppy 'Sparky' at the beginning of the month, so Í'm hoping he is looking for him. So RIP Romeo, you were a fantastic, loyal dog and we all loved you.

On a happier note, it's happy birthday to my little brother Scott today - so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! We had cake this morning and then I offered to mind their little boy so they could go out together. What a nice sis I am LOL

Only 2 more sleeps to the party of the year - our NEW YEARS EVE party - bring it on!!!!!

Brooke and Ethan in the pool with new toys on Christmas Day.

My Prince Kaleb and I

Superboy Harrison and I

My 4 gorgeous boys

Kaleb with Daddy.

We had a great Christmas Day. The kids were over the moon when they found out there were DS's under the Christmas Tree. Kaleb was happy with whatever he got and was happy to break the plastic toys very quickly. We had a lovely bacon and egg breakfast with my mum and dad and then we had our traditional hot Christmas lunch at around 2pm with mum, dad, Scott, Chrissie and Kaz (with their kids). We had turkey and ham, and roast veges, gravy - yum, yum, ,yum. Then for dessert we had Margaret's home made Christmas cake with custard, brandy butter or ice cream. YUMMO!! Between the 3 girls, we drank 8 (yes eight OMG) bottles of champers. Naughty indeeeeeedddd!!!!! We spent heaps of time in the pool and even managed to watch Mamma Mia (another gift I received :).

I hope everyone had a magical day aswell xx

December 27th

I was soooooo excited when I opened my present from my hubby and he had bought me a new lense for my SLR camera!! I was then shattered when we couldn't get it to work, the firmware wouldn't upload, so I took the camera and the lense back on Saturday and the man fixed it all up for me. We went down the beach in the afternoon to get some yabbies for fishing the next day, and these are the shots I took down there. I love, love, love my new lense, OMG the zoom is amazing and the crispness and quality of the pics are fantastic (for a novice photographer like me). I haven't edited any of these pics.

I was sitting about 50m away when I took this pic of this gorgeous specimen of a man heheheee

Ethan and Will pumping for yabbies

All the boys...

Tis the season to be jolly falalalalalalalala

Christmas morning, the tree was finally brimming with presents LOL The kids had been complaining that Nanna and Pop's tree had more pressies than ours. They were definately impressed on Christmas morning.

I was bored a couple of nights before Christmas as Ali was working at the Carols in Cotton Tree, so I made this LOVE album for my brother to give his new wife Chrissie on Christmas Day. She loved it (phew!)

This is a pic of our kids with Amelia's boys. Six boys together, it sure is BUSY LOL We had our Christmas get together a week or so before Christmas because they were heading to Adelaide for Christmas.

Heidi Swapp class

Here is a sneak peak of one of the calendar pages we did at Heidi Swapp on Saturday.

Heidi Swapp Create 08

So, the day had finally come. I was going to meet Heidi Swapp and 5 other girls I had met online at Scrapbook Shelf. I was really excited about this! Here is a sneak peak at one of the calendar pages we did. It was all so fast paced, but it was amazing and I learnt so many wonderful techniques, mainly inking and using Heidi's masks.
This is Heidi Swapp, an American scrapbooker who is such an inspiration and very, very talented! Plus she has 5 children - I don't know how she does it! Now, she isn't this tall, I have leant down so I was the same height as her LOL. Isn't she gorgeous! And she wasn't well - lots of coughing spasms. I hope she feels better for her Melbourne class on Tuesday.
Here I am with Heidi, Brendy and Tanya. It was so nice to meet these girls as well for the first time. Such a fun day!