My best friends

Sweet Shoppe Gallery

Melissa and Dianna. These two women mean the world to me. We met while serving in the military over 15 years ago. I was an Army Medic, Melissa was an Army Storeperson, and Dianna was an Airforce medic. We lived in each others pockets for years, and considered each other family without a second thought. We accept each other for who we were, warts and all, and I don't know what I would have done without them. Postings, marriages and babies eventually spread us around the world, but we are still close. It can be months between phone calls, but we pick up the same as if we just talked yesterday. I miss them though. Life gets in the way sometimes, and it's been 4 years since we were last together. What I wouldn't give for a girls weekend with them again...

Jesus and Jumpy food

(15 October 2008)
Brooke was jumping around on my bed, doing forward rolls. All of a sudden she fell flat on her bottom, onto the floor. She must've done a forward roll right off the edge of the bed. She was crying, I was laughing my head off, and trying to give her cuddles at the same time. I asked her why she did that. Her immediate reply? "Jesus made me do it".

(26 October 2008)
While attempting to brush Brooke's hair, I commented how knotty it was, and that she probably had food stuck in her hair again. To which she replied: "I don't bend my head down and stick my hair in the food Mum, it just jumps up at me. You feed me jumpy food!"

25 October 2008

I know, I know, original title huh. I'm obviously not in my best witty form today ;) I was supposed to have some more photos from Brooke's birthday today, but haven't actually managed to do that yet. Her party was on Saturday, but her actual birthday was Sunday. After opening more presents on Sunday morning, we left the biggest for last, and took her outside to see the new trampoline. She was stoked. Gave this little half-embarrassed, shy "whaaaat? For meeeee?". Then proceeded to jump to her hearts delight. The tramp is actually for Brooke AND Elisa's birthday presents, since Elisa's birthday is at the end of November. Elisa doesn't quite have the knack of jumping with both feet off the ground yet, so she prefers running around the tramp, giving us a heart attack whenever she goes too fast and almost off the edge. It was a good purchase though, and the girls love it, using it at least a dozen times a day.

Yesterday Brooke decided she wanted a new Polly doll. Her old one was dirty, ragged and worn, and stitches were missing. I got a new Polly from it's hiding place in the scraproom, and hid it in my dressing gown. I then asked Brooke for old Polly, turned around and pretended to fix the doll. After a minute I said "All done", turned back around and gave Brooke the new Polly, all bright, shiny and new. She was astounded. "What did you DO Mum?! Was she inside OUT??". ROFL, she totally didn't realise it was a different Polly. I told her this was her last Polly (we're onto number 3 now). When this one wears out, that's it.

And just last night she cracked me up again. Now keep in mind we live in the NORTH Island of New Zealand:

Mum: "What jammies are you going to wear tonight?"
Brooke: "Well it's supposed to go down to 6 degrees tonight! So I better wear my winter jammies." (Said after hearing the weather report on the news about the temperature in the SOUTH Island).

I've managed to do another couple of layouts too:

Brooke turns 5

I should be excited, but I've really been dreading my baby turning 5. It's just one step closer to her being all grown up, and I'm not ready for that. Brooke however has been as excited as popcorn in a hot pan. For months. We've been counting down to her birthday for 3 months now, and seriously, the kid doesn't forget a thing.

After much deliberation Brooke decided she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake themed party, to be held at Lollipops Playland. After listing every friend she knows, we finally narrowed the invite list down to 12, and I got busy making some invitations. I love how they turned out:


The next item on the agenda was finding the right cake. We found a photo of one online that we just loved, but the only cake decorators that could do it for us wanted about $500 for it. Ummm....I don't think so. We eventually settled on a Strawberry Torte cake from the Cheesecake shop, with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake and friends on the top. It tasted fantastic on the day, but I have to say I was disappointed with how the picture went all bumpy, but by the time I picked it up on the way to the party, it was too late to do anything about it. Brooke didn't notice though, and happily ate a whole slice.


The kids all had a blast at Lollipops. They played for an hour, then came to the party room for food, drink and presents, before going out to play some more. Brooke felt special in her birthday chair at the top of the table (which Elisa commandered the minute Brooke vacated), and she seemed to have a great time with her cousins and friends.


All in all a very successful party, with no cleaning up for me to do. Gotta love that. Thanks to my Dad for being the photographer, and to everyone for the wonderful presents Brooke got. There's more to blog about, but I'll do that in the next post.

12 Days of Heaven

I have more photos to scrap yet of our time down south, but here's the first page using Sya's Completely Clustered Template set:


And here's the 2nd LO I did with the template set.

You can see them up close in my Scrapmatters, Digishoptalk and Elemental Scraps Galleries.

Sya's Blueprints

When I got back from holiday, I had a message waiting for me at DigiShopTalk from Sya, asking if I wanted to be on her Creative Team. I was so surprised because I'd not actually applied for the position! She'd seen my layouts and took a chance to see if I wanted to work with her templates and kits. I love working with templates, and already have a few sets of Sya's templates, so of course I said YES!!

The first two items I chose to work with were the Completely Cornered Templates and the Family Matters Kit from Sya's shop at Scrapmatters:


How gorgeous is this kit!! I just love it. Here are the first two layouts I've done:


You can find them in my Scrapmatters and DST galleries if you want a closer look. I'm going to use Sya's Completely Clustered Templates for all the Farm photos I took in Christchurch. Woohoo! I'll try to get some done in the next couple of days and post the pics for you to see.

Farms, Funnies and Families

You've missed me these past couple of weeks haven't you? Go on, you know you have. You've been checking the blog thinking the world must've stopped because I haven't been posting as usual. LOL. Well rest your wee hearts now - I'm home again.

The girls and I went down to Christchurch for the school holidays to spend time with the In-laws. DH had to work, so we went without him. (If we waited till he could come too, we'd never go). Now I have to tell you I feel pretty blessed to have the In-laws that I do. They are wonderfully loving and supportive, and the girls just love them to pieces, as do we all. They have a small farm with a few cows, sheep and a whole lot of chickens, which our citified girls love to help feed. Well mainly Brooke - Elisa was happy to observe from the pram. Poppa made sure he had a baby lamb for Brooke to bottle feed, and also timed the hatching of some chicks while we were there too. (Brooke thinks Poppa "makes" the animals just for her, and I guess she's right in a sense). We stayed with them for nearly 2 weeks, and had such a wonderful time. I so need to get back to the gym after all that lovely home-cooked food now.

Brooke helped bottle feed the lamb 3 times a day.

Elisa in the trolley with the chicken mash. She loved this.

The girls playing in the chicken mash like it's a sandpit.

Brooke giving the chickens some water.

We were lucky to be able to visit DH's Nana and Grandad 3 times while we were there. I couldn't believe it when both girls voluntarily gave them a cuddle and kiss. I had to scrap that. Usually they're too shy, or too scared to go anywhere near Nana and Grandad. Nana has been unwell, but still managed to celebrate her 91st birthday on the 5th of October.



We had a wee tea party for Brooke's 5th Birthday down there too. Although her birthday isn't actually until the 19th, she still wanted to do something with Nana and Poppa. They invited a neigbour's little girl as well, also named Brooke. The two Brooke's are only a couple of months apart in age, are the same height and have the same hair colour. They very quickly became fast friends, and played wonderfully together for the next couple of days. We also managed to fit in some ice skating, visits to playgrounds, and the movies.

The day before we flew back home, DH met up with us in Christchurch. He has been away working for the last 6 weeks, and the girls were just over the MOON to see him again. Brooke in particular has missed him a lot, more so in the last fortnight. Whenever she missed him she would come to me for substitute cuddles and reassurance, and it seemed I was getting more and more cuddles as the days went by.

From the moment he came in the door, the girls were stuck to him like glue. I seriously only managed a quick kiss hello before I was literally dragged away so the girls could get closer. It was so cute. They both sat right on top of him, as close as they could get, and didn't want to move for anything. I don't think I even existed to them for a while there :) It wasn't until the girls were in bed later that night that I was even able to sit next to DH myself.

The next day we flew home, and DH arrived a day later. Then it was reunion time all over again. All of a sudden I'm obsolete again because they want Daddy to help them with anything and everything. Yaay! LOL.

So, we're one very happy family right now, enjoying just being together. And DH has several weeks leave owing him which he plans to take straight away, so that's even better. Perfect timing for us because we're about to buy a new house, rent out the one we're in now, and start Brooke at school this month.

Speaking of the little monkey, I have a little funny to share. It was the morning DH was arriving home. Brooke had just got out of bed and was sitting on my lap having cuddles. The conversation went something like this:

Brooke: "Mummy, I love you more than the sun, the moon and the stars"
Me: "I love you that much too honey"
Brooke: "I love Daddy more than the sun, the moon and the stars too"
Me: "Aw, that's nice honey, Daddy loves you that much too"
Brooke: "But I'm not so sure about Elisa"
Me: (laughing)"You're not?"
Brooke: "No, I'm still thinking about that one"

Hehehehe