Living my dream

Camping photos

Thought I'd show what I've been up to the last week or so.

While on holiday and walking to the camp kitchen to do the dishes for that meal, I saw in my head the LO I wanted to create about this holiday. I saw lots and lots of photos, joined as a collage, and then our memories of camp on the other side of the LO.

It was very clear in my mind.

So here is a collage of over 80 photos. I've created some slightly larger than the others, but the majority of them are 1" x 1".

 This gives a really good insight into what we got up to. I'm really pleased with the end result, even if it did take me the equivalent of a whole day to do (click on the collage to get a better view).

There are lots of photos in here, that I just LOVE. I know I can be a pain, always having a camera in peoples faces, but when you get home and see this, then its all worth while.

It is 10" x 10" in size and I'm currently going to back it on white Bazill. Then I'll add a few embellishments etc and away we go.

Watch this space for the final look.

T

A conversation with Matt and Sarah

Its not a secret, but I also don't talk much about the fact that I've been married twice. Once while I was younger to my 'childhood sweetheart'. Now to my wonderful, frustrating, amazing husband Andy. Recently it came up while camping. My sister asked if the kids knew we'd both been married before. I said no and a conversation ensued about what the benefits would be of telling them sooner rather than later.

I sat on this conversation in my mind. I have always said the kids will know, but I didn't want to 'spring it on them' out of the blue. Like it was 'an issue'.

I spoke to a friend I have who is a therapist and explained my thoughts and he agreed. He said that naturally the right time will come and it will be a very easy, natural conversation. I went away feeling at peace.

I spoke to Andy about the different conversations I'd had and he agreed. I think talking to Andy was only last night or the night before.

Funnily enough, that 'right time' came today.

We were driving home from Takapuna after buying the kids a tennis racket each (a whole other story!), and I saw a bridal car. I pointed it out to Matt and Sarah (Dan was with Andy at home), and we watched for the bride. Neither of the kids saw her, so Sarah asked:

Sarah: What colour was she wearing Mum?

Me: White.

Sarah: Just like you Mum.

Me: No, I wore a different ....

Sarah: GOLD! That's right you wore gold. But you also had a white dress didn't you? (which is in our dress ups!)

Me: Yes. I did. I've had 2 wedding dresses (thinking to myself. Ok, this is it, wish me luck self). So why do you think I'd have 2 wedding dresses?

Sarah: I don't know.

Me: Would you like to know?

Sarah: Yes.

Me: Because I was married before.

Sarah: To another man?

Matt: Did you stop loving him?

Me: Yes, I was married to someone else and I stopped loving him (Ok, so the break up was way more complicated that that, but we're talking an age appropriate conversation here!).

Sarah: Soooooo, does that mean we have two daddies?

Me: Oh no! You only have one Daddy. Your Daddy and I made you. We love you and look after you and help you learn things.

Sarah: Ok.

Sarah: No, you didn't make us. God did!

Me: Yes, you're right. God did.

Sarah: And he made you too.

Me: Yep, that's right!

Me: So are you guys ok with this, do you have any other questions?

Sarah: So will you stop being married to Daddy?

Me: No. I love your Daddy very much. He is the most wonderful man in the world and is perfect for me.

Sarah & Matt (grinning). Yeah!

I know this is quite a private thing, but I was so pleased with what happened, how it came up, & how the kids & I dealt with it that I wanted it recorded for posterity. I know that this may well be my next LO, or certainly one that I will want to do, so need it all written down so I don't forget.

Thanks for sharing this personal insight into my kids and I.

T

Sarah's scrapping

Just doing a quick post to show my daughters gorgeous creative side. She created this LO 2 days ago (and we've been waiting for it to dry since then!), she chose the photos, she chose the products. She added sea glass found on several beaches.

I think she's very clever!
 

We're back

What a week. We had everything...rain, wind, thunder, lightning....hang on somethings wrong here, we didn't have any sun! Well only for the last day. But the kids had a ball. We got to do lots of fun and new things and it was good to get out of Auckland. Actually its funny I kept on saying to Andy that the weather leading up to camping had been too nice, we were bound to get some bad weather. I just didn't quite expect it to be sooooo bad. And in hindsight, maybe I jinxed it? LOL.

Anyway, I'm busy trying to catch up with things, but thought I'd share my two favourite photos of the trip....

 

Dan, Matt and their cousin Esther. We went for a walk one evening after dinner on the mud flats and the dusk light was lovely. This next one was also taken then....

Dan just started to throw shells in the air. It had such a feeling of freedom to it, and I managed to capture it here. Love this photo.

Ok, gonna get going, but back later.

Have a good one.
 
 

Monday's activities

Today I ran around like a headless chook getting things ready for our annual camping trip. Its been good and I've got a lot of it done and dusted. Yay. Tomorrow we're off. Callum is coming to stay, look after the chooks, Toast (our cat) and of course the garden.

Matt and Sarah were at the "Little Chef's" cooking school. They came home very very happy...

These are the containers filled with all their yummy cooking that we'll take away with us. Tomorrow they have another day there. They are loving it. I love seeing Sarah's chocolatey mouth. So her. They even cooked their own lunches. Tuna bake. Brilliant.

They were extremely excited telling me about the chocolate chip cookies that "grew and grew and grew and all joined together and then we had to cut it up cause it was all joined together". So cool.

This morning before all that, I heard Sarah pronouncing "Ladies & Gentlemen, please welcome the racket band". And this is what I found....

 

You can imagine just how noisy this band was right?! Yeah! Both doors were quickly shut so they could bang to their hearts content.

Later.

Today

Today we went to mini golf. It was soooo funny. Our family must have been the most noisy chaotic one there. Especially when this happened...

Yep, that's Andy laughing in the pond. His ball managed 'somehow' to end up in it and he tried to get it out with the golf stick, that didn't work. So then he tried to get really close and reach in with his arm, and just as he was getting it back, he fell in. Lucky he's tall so he didn't get toooooo wet. And even after that mishap, he still won. He's a pretty good mini golfer.

I spent some of the remaining afternoon finishing off this LO.

Its about how Sarah has finally started wearing another colour other than pink. Its based on the Prima Jan sketch.

I've used packaging from the vines I've used on other LO's as my background, then added lots of other yummy Prima goodness.

And here's a couple of close up's.

 

Looking forward to the new garden programme by the gardening magazine editor. Hmmmm, whats it called? Can't remember, but must go organise kids.

Have a good one.

 

Happy birthday Veronica Jane

My sister Von is having her birthday today. Big happy birthday wishes to her! Still trying to get hold of her so hopefully this will count a little?

Actually writing the title of this post I realised how important the name "Jane" is to me. My daughter and sister's middle name, my best friends name. It plays a large role in the women who are important to me.

So what have we done today?

• Lego
• Photoshoot with Sarah
• Cleaning the boat with uncle Rob
• Have Joshie over (our neighbours grandson).
• Seeing Aunty Sue and Callum
• Waiting and watching Matt sleep. He didn't feel well, but seems perfect now?
• Bottling peaches
• Walking to the dairy for an ice-cream
• Swimming next door

Hang on, back up a minute....

Bottling peaches?!

Yep, I picked some of our peaches and bottled them. I was really nervous about it. I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it. But I googled (gosh I love google) and found out lots of info, from sterilising the jars, to syrup receipes, to well, the works.

I borrowed Granny's Agee's automatic preserver and started. Luckily for me Andy's sister Sue helped me out when she arrived. She was able to alay some of my worries, and I realised it wasn't rocket science. In fact it was darn easy. And now look at what we've got....

Actually, that was just the first batch. The second will be ready to pull out of the perserver any minute. So I'd better go get ready, but boy am I proud of myself.

Now we just have to wait to see how they turn out. Eeeeek.

Later.

Finally a LO to share

Catching up on another birthday LO for the kids...

Hmmmm, it looks a little bit blurry? Must've moved the camera when I took a shot. Using white Bazill, Prima papers, flowers, etc, & Hambly transparencies.

And a couple of close ups:

 
After doing the tiny SCKC LO's this was huge, but feels good to get another done. Now only 3 'behind' for the twins. Yeha! LOL. Oh, and when I say behind, I've only done 'party' pages. None of their actual birthday. Cor blimey.

Kids had another good day, relaxing. Time at home painting a huge big tube the neighbour gave us, then an afternoon at the beach (with Linn). Bliss.

Later.

Southern Cross Kids Camp (SCKC) - THANK YOU!

I just wanted to send a huge big THANK YOU to everyone down the wires. You guys absolutely rock. Yesterday I sent a huge packet of 405 LO's to Anita, then another 78 today (thanks Penny, Sandra, and Lainie).

That's a grand total of 483 LO's.

I then also heard that another parcel which was sent to Anita directly reached her today making 507 LO's that you and I created and passed on to the kids camps in NZ.

Yep, you heard that right 507 little LO's in less than 4 weeks.

I was emailing Dianne about them and she mentioned how she'd done another couple the other night when she was at a loose end. It was enough to keep her creative fingers happy, but when she didn't have any creative 'things' planned. We both thought it was a great idea, and that we might just do one or two here and there (with leftover scraps from LO's even) so that by the end of the year we would have a pile all ready to send.

So here's a thought I'm putting out there. If you would like to keep working towards helping these camps (especially this one right here in NZ), feel free to keep making them over the year. If you don't want to store them, that's cool, feel free to send them on to me and I'll store them here, or pass them on.

Anyway, I wanted to mention all those who have helped out and thank them again:

Lainie

Sandra

Rach

Allie (Aussie)

Angela

Dianne

Michelle

Nancy

Raewyn

Sam x 2

Penny x 2

Trace

Nicki

Janet (Aussie)

(I hope I haven't forgotten anyone? Please let me know as I'd like to do a big shout out for everyone that helped! I also looked for everyones blog details, but was very slack in finding them all, if you have one can you please let me know? Thanks. I know there are some I read regularly, but on bloglines they come under a different name, not the persons name and now I can't find you! Whoops).

Thank you all.

and on today's agenda (photo heavy)

There was lego building,

visiting the gannets at Muriwai,

and a photo taken by Sarah

 Horse painting and riding (Sarah was again very nervous, disolving in tears when it came to starting the lesson, so we decided to have some fun, and not push it. Thus the painting, as you can see by the smile, it was very successful).

 Matt and Dan painting

Matt with his horse 'Blondie'

Sarah on Ella

Dan on Blondie

When we got home, we packaged up all the SCKC LO's and got them off to Anita. To do so, we biked up to the post office, and home again.

Then we finally took some time out of the day, had dinner, relaxed.

It was a fabulous day and I can't recommend the Dune Lakes Lodge highly enough to teach young children and those that are nervous. The style of teaching is called 'natural horsemanship', meaning they teach you to work with the horse. They dealt with Sarah's nerves very well. And the paint was an ingenious way to get her comfortable around Ella and then as she watched Matt lead Blondie around, and ride Blondie, she decided she'd like to try riding Ella. It was magic.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I think we're going to catch up with some of their friends around their/our homes. Will be nice.

Later.
 
  
 
 
 

And on todays itinerary was

Extreme Trampoline. Out to Mt Roskill we went and the twins jumped their little hearts out. Sarah was really REALLY nervous to start and was not keen on joining in, but when she got home, she was so proud to show her Dad what she'd learnt and proclaimed at dinner that trampolining was the best part of her day!

I must admit it was neat to see the nerves fade for her and the confidence grow. Then when she was showing Andy what she could do, she took it a tiny step further and did a full flip landing on her bottom. Very very clever and so proud.

We stopped on the way home at a friends place to drop off some books and she had a ton of monarch caterpillars on her two swan plants, but no leaves, so I offered to bring them home and put them on our tree.

The kids are so good at being careful with small animals/insects. I love how they enjoy learning and watching and being with them.

 
 
 I got more SCKC Lo's today. THANKS so much to Allie. Did I mention I got more on Sat? They came from Janet and Nancy and Michelle. Thanks ladies! We are so close to 400 now. It would be great to break that barrier so I'm hoping for a big mail day tomorrow. Cause they'll all getting bundled off tomorrow.

Ok, must be off. Tired out from netball.

Later.

 

Relaxing Sunday

After a night of up and downs with the kids, the morning dawned clear and bright, with no wind. So we decided to head out on the boat.

We went fishing and had huge success with teeny tiny snappers. We had about 6 hooks on each line and often caught more than one at a time....

Of course we threw the small ones back. And ended up coming home empty handed. Sigh.

But we did stop at Rangitoto for a swim/play and Andy found this cool Kina in a rock pool.

 
 
 It was a great morning and once we were finally home, we decided to let the kids watch some telly, and give them an early dinner. They were shattered after the last few days and were in bed by 5pm. I LOVE IT. LOL.

Hope you've had a good weekend.

T

 

Friends

This is Matt with his two best friends Jack and James. These three just adore hanging out together and this afternoon we had all three families over for a play and dinner, so you can guess lots of mischief was had. I said to Jacks Mum as we were in the kitchen organising something just how grateful I am every time I see the boys screeching around, that they were put in the same classroom and have become so close. I hope they will always remain close, but know if they don't, that they have learnt how to make and be friends in a great way that will stand them in good steed as they grow older.

One of the bonus's of having school age children is getting to know the other kids Mum's and Dad's and becoming friends with them as well. We are truely lucky that we like and have become friends with the parents of several of the kids.

Before this, we went over to another of the kids friends and had a small impromtu birthday party for one of the boys in their class. It was lovely and ended up with a water slide going down a grassy slope and in this beautiful sunny weather was perfect for us Mum's to hang out and watch them all have fun. Again I feel blessed to have such experiences and fun times with such neat kids and families.

Speaking of kids and the joy they bring we were thrilled yesterday to learn of a newborn babe being born to friends of ours. Huge congrats Mike and Airlee. We are absolutely overjoyed at your wonderful news!

And last, recently Sarah has been plagued with thoughts of robbers at night time. Then, just as she and the boys were going to sleep tonight a friend of ours walked past their window and her shadow gave them a fright. They thought it was a robber. Thankfully we could say, no, see its just Jodine. But they were still a little frightened. So on the spot I made up a wee safety protection speech and they seemed quite happy with that. It went something like this:

Hocus pocus fiddle dee dee

There are no robbers that can see, Matt and Sarah, Daniel and James, Andy and Trina,

Are safe from thee.

They thought that was the bees knees. Now I'm not one for magic and potions, so not sure how to incorporate this into our beliefs, but for tonight it did the trick.

Happy Sat to you!

SCKC LO's - 250 and counting

I know, you're probably getting bored with me going on about this, but its just so darn important. And guess what? Right now sitting on my desk are 250 LO's that you guys have helped create! Yep, 250! That is a HUGE amount. And best news is that I know there are still more to come in.

Now I know you might think its too late, but I've been thinking, we could use this last weekend to give it one last shot, get them in the post to me on Monday and I'll get them with time to send. Please have a think about if you could put half an hour aside and put together even 2-3 and get them off to me. Would be GRATEFULLY received.

Ok, so thanks go to:

Trace

Sam (again)

Raewyn (Raewyn did heaps more than this, (in fact they all did) but I was running out of light so just took a few).

 
Penny

 and myself

You guys really rock.

Little bits from around the house

In the last couple of days Dan has dropped his night nappy. Its a big deal for him and he's been up late both nights worrying about wetting his bed. We're trying to deal with that side of it, and will get him up before we got to sleep to ensure he doesn't - for his peace of mind.

But very exciting times for both him and us.

Funny story time....

The other day Andy calls out "I'm going up the road, back soon". Sarah calls back...."Are you going to get some beer Daddy?".

Today while in the supermarket, we head towards the back of the store, as Sarah sees the wine, she asks very consienciously, "Mummy, do you need wine today?".

Now anyone overhearing these conversations would think we were lush's. And the short answer is no, but over these holidays we have enjoyed a few drinks....with neighbours, friends, each other. I'm hoping this won't influence her view of us forever. LOL.

Have a lovely evening.