Museums and Candyland

I went with Elisa on a kindy trip to the Auckland War Memorial Museum on Friday. I hadn't been there in years, and was very impressed with the whole thing. Being preschoolers, they only saw a fraction of the museum, so I'd like to take hubby back and see the rest one day. Brooke would've liked it too. She's always asking to go, so maybe a family outing is in order next month.







I had a go at making a corner bookmark last week, for one of my designers. It was actually pretty easy to do, and I love the end result. I was going to keep it for myself, but ended up letting Brooke give it to her teacher, who was using an old envelope to mark her class reader. Have a look at what the other CT girls did with their bookmarks HERE.



I took Brooke and Elisa to Candyland yesterday. We drive by the turn-off to it every time we go to see Nanny and Papa, and I always meant to stop in and see what it's all about, but never quite got there. GrabOne had a 50% off deal to Candyland last month, so I bought some tickets and bribed the girls that if they brushed their teeth REALLY well for the next month, we'd go to Candyland after Dad's birthday. Best month EVER for brushing teeth, is all I'm gonna say. I will surely do a layout about it soon, but until then here are a couple of pics:



The biggest lollipops in the shop were too big for the girls to hold, so I grabbed a shot of them holding the 3rd largest size. And no, we didn't buy them just incase you're wondering.




They got to dip some peanut butter fudge in chocolate. Elisa didn't even wait for the chocolate to harden, and ate hers in 1.2 seconds flat.



And these were the lollipops they made and got to take home. Still way too big.



After Candyland we went to Nanny and Papa's where the kids played with their cousins for the afternoon. They weren't too pleased to go home 4 hours later, but they enjoyed their day very much. Elisa had a melt down at bedtime, even though it was earlier than usual. Too tired from all the excitement. She woke up happy enough this morning though, and will go for a sleepover at Aunty Yvette's tonight.

Next weekend Brooke will sleepover at Aunty Yvette's on Friday night, then she has a birthay party to go to on Sunday afternoon. Elisa will head back down to Nanny and Papa's on Friday for a few nights. She has been hanging out to sleepover at Nanny's for about 3 weeks now, so she'll enjoy that.

A few layouts and a birthday

It was hubby's birthday yesterday. The girls gave him some lovely presents, and I put together a Hero Box which he thought was just fabulous. I got the idea and the printables from AlphaMom. The first photo is mine, the others are from AlphaMom's site.

Happy iNSD (and a freebie)

For those not in the know, International Scrapbooking Day (iNSD) is a much anticipated event by anyone who scraps. Digital Scrapbook stores have their biggest sales of the year, and there are a ton of products you can grab for a fraction of the price. All my designers have outdone themselves this year, and I'm feeling super lucky that I get to play with their stuff early.

I got to play with Michelle Batton's contribution to the FPD May 2011 Collab. This kit is huge I tell you. The bundle is going to be $6 until the 8th of May and then it will go up to $12 on the 9th and be available through the end of May. Then June it gets broken up and the contributing designers will put them in their individual stores.



I made 2 pages with Michelle's part. Can you tell I gravitate towards purple? LOL.




And as a gift for you, here's a quickpage of the second layout.



You can download it HERE.

I'm going to link you up to Michelle's facebook page, store and blog as well so you can check out the rest of her products.

I was SO close!

One day out. I was only one day out, otherwise you all would've had TWO blog posts in a month! I'm not sure some of you could've handled it though - I've kept posts to the bare minimum for so long the shock would've killed you. So really, I'm thinking of you when I post so infrequently. It's better this way. For me really, but lets pretend it's for you too :D

I have some exciting news to share first. The amazing Kay Miller asked me to be on her CT!! After picking myself up off the floor in shock, I thought about it for oh, about 0.000006 seconds and speed typed a quick YES message before she changed her mind. Kay is one of my scrapping heroes. She is a fantastic designer at After Five Designs (seriously, I drool over her kits), but she is also a super talented layout artist too. Check out her gallery and see what I mean. I'm still pinching myself that she asked ME instead of me begging her. It's a better look really - me grovelling is not what you want to see. Although, come to think of it, I'd do it for chocolate without hesitation................ Anyway, Kay's first kit I got to work with was By the Sea, a collab with Flergs (another uber talented designer).



And here's my layout. I went with a photoless page this time since I'd already scrapped all last years beach pics. Wasn't till I'd finished the layout that I remembered I'd taken new photos of the kids at the beach just last WEEK. Ugh. My memory is shot.



The weeks since my last post have been filled with school holidays. Brooke and Elisa have had the most fabulous time with cousins, friends, neighbours and family. It's a shame school starts back again tomorrow. I finally caught up on the last 2 months of P12, and they explain what we've been up to, so I won't have to repeat myself. Click on the images to see them bigger, or see them up close and with credits in my Oscraps gallery.






I haven't scrapped many layouts in the last couple of weeks, but somehow seem to waste just as many hours on the computer as I ever did. Darn facebook and pintrest. Mojo has been lacking too though. This first layout took me several hours, and 5 kits before I was happy with the outcome. I love how it ended up, but boy it took me 2-3 times longer to do than usual.



And here are the others. I'm trying to make sure I'm in more photos/layouts this year too, as much as I don't like the camera being on me - I'm sure the girls will want to have pics of their mum in their albums now and then:




My inlaws have been here the last few days. I'm so lucky to have a great relationship with them. We love going to visit them in Christchurch, or have them come to us. I always get nervous about cooking when they're here though, because Dawn is such a good cook, and I'm really not. We have our staple meals that I manage not to burn too badly, but when they come we have bigger meals like roasts, and stuff. Now I've cooked roast dinners before (quite happily even), and they've turned out fine. Murphy's Law says I must fail spectaculary when I have an audience however, and this week was no exception. I turned the oven on to the correct temperature, fixed all the trappings for a roast dinner, and put it in the oven for the required 2.5 hrs. Two hours into it (and only 30 mins before it was time to eat) I realised I'd selected Fan ONLY on the dial, and not Fan OVEN. The roast was only just warm. Aaaargh! Spectacular fail. I'm good at those. I quickly got out some crumbed chicken tenders and popped them on the grill, and they were ready in 5 minutes. We had those with the roast veges, and while it was still a nice meal, I felt like a real dork. I cooked up the roast the next day properly, but it turned out to be pretty tough and chewy. Once again I failed because I didn't realise that "Leg of Mutton" is NOT the same as "Leg of Lamb". Mutton is much tougher. :facepalm: I'm about ready to give up cooking altogether.

Tonight I did a beef casserole in the crockpot. It was perfect. Thank goodness. I bet Dawn will go home wondering if I really do feed my family proper food on a regular basis. She could see how much more comfortable I was with 5 minute chicken. LOL.

OK, I've confessed enough embarrassing stuff for one day. I'm going to click on the publish post button so you all can laugh at me and the dumb things I do.

You're welcome.