Welcome to The Digi Chick Blog Train!

Welcome to my very first blog train! The Digi Chick Designers and CT have come together to share some goodies for you. Yay! Some items are halloween themed, while others are not, catering for those who do, and those who don't like halloween. The links should stay active for about a week, so if you have problems at one site, just pop back later and check again.

For my contribution, I've created a quick page from this fairy layout of my two girls:




Since I have girls, many of the normal halloween kits are too dark for my little ones who love all things pink and girly, so imagine my delight when Quirky Twerp Designs created a girly halloween kit! Sweeet! So, using Trick or Sweet by Quirky Twerp, I grabbed a white paper background from Roben-Marie's White Paper pack, and put together this page in a flash. I also used Twigs and Sprigs (greenery) by Quirky Twerp.

Click on the preview below to download two quickpages (one version with the fairy title, and one version without). Let me know if you have any problems - this is the very first time I've ever offered a freebie, and it took a bit to figure out 4shared. Oh, and I'd love it if you'd leave me a comment to say what you think.






Yay! I hope you like it. Your next stop is Jenn's blog http://jennamy82.blogspot.com

And just in case you get lost, here are the rest of the blog train links:

Tiffany - http://ascrapaway.blogspot.com/
LuAnn - http://livelaughcreate-luann.blogspot.com/
Cheryl - http://cherylisadomesticgoddess.blogspot.com/
Mel - www.littlepaperhouse.com
Kelley - http://www.kelleymickusdesigns.blogspot.com/
Sinead - http://www.slaphappyandscrappy.blogspot.com
Tracy - http://tracykosofsky.blogspot.com
Pam - www.pameladonnis.com
Elise - http://elisespiecesdesigns.blogspot.com
Jill - http://scrappingprincess.com/blog
Jacinda- http://www.digikiwichick.blogspot.com/ you are HERE
Jenn - http://jennamy82.blogspot.com
Kara - www.karaperrien.blogspot.com
Heather - http://bowenyard.blogspot.com
Juli - http://julifreshfish.blogspot.com/
Mari - http://mydigitalartstudio.com/
Julie - http://mycrazylifeasamomandawife.blogspot.com/
Linda - http://www.yamstamps.com/weblog/treat.html
Dani - http://www.danielleengebretson.com/
Cheryl - http://cherylisadomesticgoddess.blogspot.com/
Kelleigh - http://kelleighratzlaff.com/
ViVa - http://vivaartistry.blogspot.com/
The Hybrid Chick - http://www.thehybridchick.com/

New pages and a new blog

Did that get your attention? I decided to bite the bullet and set up a separate blog purely for showcasing my 365 pages. I'll still show my pages here so you won't have to check two blogs, but it just makes it easier for other 365 participants to see them all at once without having to wade through the daily stuff I put on here. My new 365 blog:

http://digikiwichick365.blogspot.com/

I've had a great time with the new kits from The Digi Chick this week. The third layout down ("It's NOT all about the photos" made Gallery Standout at DST too. Oh1 And I've finally worked out how to make the images clickable to my galleries:

365

Brooke's been home sick the last couple of days. High temperatures, headaches, runny nose, and a bit of a cough. She's not overly bad, but enough that she needs to stay home and take it easy, catching up on sleep during the day too.

A day in the sun

Being such a beautiful sunny day today, it demanded we be outdoors, so we took the girls for a bike ride this morning, then to Kariotahi Beach for the afternoon. Brooke and Elisa had a whale of a time in the sand, enjoying every second of it. The water was too cold even for paddling, but they were happy to play in the sand and on the little sand dunes. We had Subway and hot chips for dinner before heading home to hot showers and bed. It was a really lovely day. I love it when we do quality family activities. I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend will entail. DH has to work some of it, and the girls and I will go to church tomorrow, but other than that we'll just wing it.

I have a friend who's daughter is in Brooke's class at school. My friend has started an 8 week course to further her education and get a job as a health assistant, so she is dropping her two kids off at my place every school day morning at 8am in order to get to course on time. The kids all play together till 8.30am then we walk to school. It's no hassle for me since we have to drop Brooke off anyway. Anyway, tonight she came over and dropped off a beautiful bouquet of roses and a home baked fruit cake. I told her there was no need, but she wanted to say thankyou, so tonight I'm munching on the most delicious fruit cake (still warm from the oven) and feeling grateful that I'm in a position to help a friend when they need it.

Here are the layouts I've done since the last post.

Happy Birthday Brooke!

Our sweet little girl had her 6th Birthday party today. (Her actual birthday is on Monday, but she celebrated with friends today). The lead up to her party had her SO excited all week, and her first words every morning would be "Only 3 (or whatever) sleeps now till my party ay Mum!" She wanted to get in on the planning of it too, and helped me make and fill the goodie bags for her friends. This morning she helped set the table, fill the food bowls, sugar the rims of the glasses, and get other little bits and pieces ready for the party. I found out online how to fold the paper napkins into a double fan so they looked kind of like crowns or tiaras, and a pink feather boa down the centre of the table with some lush pink blooms helped give it a really girly touch.

I'm relieved to say the cupcake tower turned out. I couldn't for the life of me get the chocolate to melt though (for painting onto the upside down wafer cone towers), so I just iced them with the same icing as on the cupcakes. Yay for Betty Crocker's frosting in a can! The girls were all very impressed with the end result, and I must admit feeling pretty chuffed myself :)



We didn't plan any organised activities for the girls except pin the tail on the donkey. I found out about a princess version of this game, where you put bright red lipstick on the girls, blindfold them, spin them around, then get them to kiss a picture of a prince. Closest kiss wins. How fun is that! Of course I only found this out at about 11pm last night, and do you think I could find a suitable picture of a prince? Nope. So we went with the traditional donkey game instead. The rest of the time the girls played on the tramp, swings & slide, the bouncy castle and with the bubble machine (these last two hired from the toy library). Brooke got some great presents and had a ball of a time.

After the party she got to have her friend Kelsey stay the night, so they happily entertained each other for the rest of the afternoon, while I scrapped a double pager about her day.

Back to school and party planning

Brooke is happy to be back at school again, though wouldn't have complained about a few more days off. She's had friends over to play most days this week, and is getting very excited about her birthday party this weekend. I've convinced her to have a cupcake tower for her birthday cake. I saw it online and thought it was a cute idea since she wanted a princess theme. You can see the YouTube video of it below. I bought a cute 3 tier cupcake display stand from Spotlight, and bar any major catastrophe, should be able to pull this off without too many problems. (I know, I know....famous last words).



I have started giving Elisa homework each day now, to practise her writing skills. She loves it. It only takes a few minutes, but she concentrates really well on following the lines. It's very basic stuff, but we need to start somewhere, and she is enjoying it. I also allow her a little computer time on the Playhouse Disney site when Brooke is at school. She's still learning to use the computer mouse, but loves trying the activities.

In other news, Brooke learnt how to ride her 2 wheeler bike by herself last week. She'd been pretty fearful of falling, and had not wanted to ride at all lately. That was until her friend Jayde came over to play, showing Brooke she could ride without help. Well, that was it. Brooke decided she could do that too, and asked me to hold the bike while she got started. Soon as she got peddling, I let go and she was off. Still pretty wobbly, but doing it on her own. Over the next 3 days she got steadier and steadier, and very soon she won't need me running beside her at all. Not that I do much now, but it's a security thing I think.

I've managed to do some more layouts, and two more 365 pages, keeping it pretty simple this time. As usual you can see these up close in my Digichick or DST galleries.:

More pages

Ta daaa!

You can view these up close in my Digi Chick or DST galleries.