birthday girl!

my gorgeous girl turned 8 on saturday...man i can't believe it..... my little miracle child is 8 god help me!!! we had a really nice day together starting with a couple of pressies from ethan and ebony to open.... anytime now honey...rip that paper!!!

she loved her gorgeous jewellery.....a bracelet from ebony and a butterfly necklace from ethan....following all that we had a mad hatter's tea party with some friends from school....

we made the girls goodie bags from some tulie and tissue paper then added some tags decorated with flowers and thickers.....

the boys got brown paper bags that i added some MLS "away we go" paper and stickers too...nothing fancy but i didn't think the boys would really worry about what their bags looked like....LOL!

we made flower cupcakes.................

and butterfly cupcakes............they were so yummy...and the kids loved them!!!

we made tea cup bickies but without handles cause i couldn't get any life savers anywhere!!

gorgeous Penny made chantelle a mad hatter hat birthday cake.....it was awesome and everyone LOVED it!!! it was great and oh so yummy!!!! thanks honey you really, really made her day!!

we added a few candles from grammie then .......

Montana helped chantelle cut the cake.....montana was so cute when we told her to help chantelle cut it...."oh really can i??" then she told her she had to touch the bottom and kiss a boy...lucky for her dad was on hand...hehehehe...he wasn't letting any one else get it!!!pmsl!!!!

everyone had a great day but most importantly my girl did!!!

Meeting Krissy and easter stuff

the kids were SO excited to meet Krissy last weekend while she was visiting for my scrap retreat....Ebony became krissy's shadow and is missing her already....saying "i really, really want krissy to visit again or maybe we could visit her mummy???" i don't think she quite grasps how far away queensland is but hey she can dream can't she...LOL....thanks for copeing with your admirers krissy!! "MWAH" easter time brings parades and picnics this year.....the kids made their hats with daddy last weekend while i was on retreat..i got the shock of my life and had to totally eat crow but it was so worth it!!!!.i LOVE them and yes i am totally bias!!! PMSL.... they made top hats, covered them in egg patterned paper...they painted foam eggs and added them to the edges of the hats brim...on the top they put beaded eggs around the edges then finished them off with little bunnies at the front of the hats....so here are a couple of quick pics.... Eb in her hat.....then

singing "hip, hop candy rock" at her picnic concert....then they...

sang and signed "i can sing a rainbow".....

Ethan in his easter hat just before the parade..... my shy little chantelle getting ready to show her stuff at the parade too!!!

they all had a ball and the biggest bonus as far as i am concerned is that they had some fun with their dad!!

a real mixed bag!

lots has been happening around here and it feels like ages since i have blogged about anything so i thought i would start here on the kids blog first!
the other week after my scrap class the kids asked to scrap too...after the girls left they decided who they were...each pretending to be one of the girls who had been at my class that day...here are their creations..hehehehe you can't really see it in this photo but ebony has cut out flowers and butterflies from another piece of the same paper and mounted them on the patterned paper before adding her ribbon...

ethie had fun with some monstrosities papers and just added a couple of strips of monsters and arrows to his paper base page.....he loves adding titles and always costs me thickers....anyone would think he had been hanging around aunty kate and her addiction to thickers had rub off on him....he always finds them the cheeky bugger!!! hehehehe...

chantelle silhouetted her photo, cut out a PP boarder and added a little journal spot for embellishment...god they had fun ...i love letting them scrap together when my patience can handle it that is!!LOL :)

the other day at the big end of year assembly at school my gorgeous boy (not that i am bais.... much..hehe) received the "outstanding acedemic achievement " award at school...it is a big deal and we are so so very proud of him.... this photo is him receiving the certificate from Mr Winters (his class teacher)...there is also a gorgeous medallion that goes with the award but they weren't there on the day so i was given it yesterday at school.....i still have to get a photo of it yet!! he was so excited to receive his award..he kept hugging it...oh and he kept trying to get back up on stage cause he wanted to talk on the microphone!!! hehehe

here is ethan with his gorgeous friend Corey who we will miss so much next year...he is a big high school boy now!!...good luck corey i know you will do awesome at high school..."Mwah"

we have finally put up the christmas tree....it is looking a little sad...i can't find the tree lights and it is driving me nuts...it so needs the lights!! oh well i'll just have to buy more if merv doesn't get off his butt soon and find where he put them!!! arrrrrr...men!!!!!!

the three decorators posing with their creation...they are very happy with it and for me that's what counts!!

tocal homestead!

last thursday yr one went to Tocal homestead to learn all about...to use chantelle's words...what it was like in the old days....i went along to help out....it was a really, really hot day but we all had a great day....it was lots of fun and interesting...even a old duck like me learnt heaps...hehehehe...we got to do allsorts of different activities and learnt heaps about captain thunderbolt.......here is just a few of the 100 pics (whoops, hehehehehe) i took that day! the homestead itself....god i fell in love with this place...it is so beautiful inside and out.. and oh so cool which we really loved that day....gotta love good old fashioned high ceilings!!! hehehehe...

one of many pics from inside the homestead....this one in the lounge area is of mim telling us about the heating bricks hidden under the foot stools in winter for warmth.....

the kids got to dress up in period costume which they loved...chantelle dressed in what was labelled as a maids dress

we got a tour through the kitchen and we learnt about all kinds of cool suff....this pic is of julie telling us all about the cream separator......you know separating the cream from the milk to get it ready to make our butter for breakky.....the kids didn't like the idea of how much they would have had to do before getting to eat breakfast...they like today where they just get up and eat!!! hehehehehehe..... we also got to check out some blacksmith work as well ...dave was great!

Dubbo time!!!

my gorgeous man was extremely lucky to be able to go on a trip with his class to Dubbo last week...his teachers are absolutely Awesome for organising this amazing trip...worth their weight in gold as the old expression goes.....ethie had an awesome time and they said he was extremely well behaved which made us really, really happy......A HUGE thanks to all the teachers involved for giving our kids a wonderful time and heaps of fun memories!!! oh and thanks for the dvd so we got to see how much fun they did have!!! we love it and have watched it heaps already!!! hehehehe.....

also huge thanks to Sandie (the gorgeous maddie's mum who also went on the trip) for taking some great pics while away and copying them off for me...there are heaps more but here are just a few of ethan and then some the animals they saw at the zoo..... god this cheesy posed grin cracks me up....i swear one day his little mouth will crack from the effort...hehehehehe

kicking back with a little morning tea and a laugh with gorgeous miss maddie!! my boy definately has a soft spot for maddie..... it is so cute!!!

how awesome is this shot...i can't wait to scrap it!!!...playing at maccas after dinner the first night....dinner the second night was at a five star restuarant....how spoilt were they!!

yep looks about right to me...thrown in the stocks at the old dubbo jail......

i think you will recogise the animals for yourselves without me!! hehehehe......

ebony turns four!!

my beautiful ebony turned 4 on sunday ...god how time flies!! here are just a couple of pics from the day! pressie time of course... my little pony ponyville sundae cafe proved very popular ...she loved her puzzles and play school dvd's from sissy and ethie too....

then came the cake....i made it and even had a go at piping for the first time....it wasn't too bad i guess but she loved it and that what counts... a huge thanks to Kristy and Kat who didn't mind interupting their class to help us celebrate...thanks to kristy for taking pics for me too! the cake was definately yummy yummy!!!

i hope you had a great day my beautiful girl even if you weren't 100%...

we will be heading off to the drive in to see "G force" this weekend for eb's birthday as she wasn't up to going out last weekend....we are so exited cause it looks so funny!!!

a crafty weekend!

this weekend we had abit of crafty fun and i had to share a couple of piccies with you....after cooking chocolate cupcakes we made some masksand brown paper bag puppets...it was great fun to watch them have so much fun with something so very simple........anyway..

first up we have ebony roaring with her lion puppet then chantelle made a bunny puppet

and ethan with his lion mask