morning, noon and night....

Evangeline is in the Pirate Ship morning, noon and night...as soon as she gets up in the morning and the moment she gets home from school...she is none too pleased when I make her come inside!

Yesterday morning she beetled straight out there...then she ran across the lawn waving at Daddy's plane (we are in the flight path)
She tried to see it off in the distance....And then started howling she she couldn't see it any more....
a>and cried all the way back to the pirate ship... but then she cheered up with a bit of coaxing!... And started playing again... And had a little friend playing too...
And Morganne is getting some food in her mouth using a spoon...but oh boy what a mess...
Ben is out at sea somewhere off the coast near Exmouth...And me, well I have been busy filling in holes in the lawn (ones I try regularly to sprain my ankle in and have succeeded twice this year already!)and doing a bit more tidying up around the garden...and baking cakes...I hope your week is starting well - Lissy

gone again...

Ben has gone again...he has been home 8 days but has changed ships so is off back to work for another five weeks...and he deserves a Dad of the Year award...this weekend he made this pirate ship for Evangeline's pirate party...I made the sail and our friend Pierre helped out too...but mostly Ben did it all...and E said AAAARG! She is in seventh heaven...I shall try and do some painting this week too...

Ben did this as well as sort out the pool, fix the garden reticulation, lots of gardening and a huge clean up around here of rocks, rubble and junk as we had a huge skip to fill...amazing effort!

So we will be missing him but he will be home for Christmas...yay!

We had a busy weekend with two birthday parties, and some time with Spirit the horse with friends visiting and Grandma visiting too...
Morganne finally warmed up to Ben a few days ago as she is feeling lots better now but no new teeth have appeared...lots of drooling and such so I am sure they will...and she ate outside yesterday while we were making the ship!
Evangeline was very sad this morning as Ben left early while she was asleep and she wanted to give him some more hugs. We phoned him up but she is still pretty sad poor little thin. And so now to a busy week as usual plus all the party preparations - hope you have had a great weekend - Lissy

time...

Time seems to be flying by...busy days and more busy days...I have been doing a lot of gardening trying to tidy things up, weeding and re planting ready for the upcoming birthday parties and plus it will be nice to have some flowers around! Mum helped out too which made a huge difference...plus she knows lots about gardens and helped me work out what to plant...So I am rather pleased with the garden at the moment! Well that was until I went to see a garden with mum last week...oh boy it was huge and totally amazing! I have a large garden by most standards...but this was HUGE...about 1 acre (four old house blocks) and like the Secret Garden...I am inspired to do some more in my garden...I had taken a couple of pics before I found out I wasn't supposed to be taking any photos...The top photo is the vege garden and had the most spectacular artichoke plants...And I loved all the succulents she had in pots around the place


We had an amazingly busy weekend for us....usually we are home and doing nothing! My sister and family were in Perth so Ike came to play on Saturday...E went to mum's with the boys for a sleep over on Saturday night. So Ben and I went out to a restaurant, Padburys in Guildford with M - who grizzled...oh well! Great meal though! Morganne is teething again I think...grizzly, not eating, waking every two hours, runny nose, and so on! We get a week or so of this it seems and then maybe a couple of teeth appear...we are still waiting for this next lot! She only has 6 teeth so we have a lot of bad times with teething ahead!

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at Taylors in Upper Swan with Ben's parents, my sister and kids and mum...M is grizzly even with mum...She cries unless she is with me! ...and she cries even when she is with me ... aaargh! And she has not wanted anything to do with Ben until today! She was briefly happy with Ace...This is my favourite photo which E took...Then Sunday night we all went up to see my aunt and uncle in Darlington for dinner as my cousin and her husband and very cute 18 month old Kate were visiting...and M grizzled!

This week has been very busy too...E went to the Perth Mint on a school excursion on Monday, she had a play day with her best little friend from school yesterday and Ben's mum and dad came over today too...we have speech therapy and horse riding tomorrow and two birthday parties coming up on the weekend...

I got to catch up with Alli briefly yesterday which was great...

Ben got home on Saturday and is home for all of 8 days...as he is starting on a new boat...and goes back to work for another 5 weeks on Monday...so he has been very busy doing jobs like sorting out the pool ready for summer and checking the reticulation though we have had so much rain this week we haven't needed to water...and he is making a pirate boat for E's party...and we have some more cleaning up to do around the place too! Not much of a break but he is keen to work on a different boat and now he will be home for Christmas...he has missed a few in the past...he has missed most of Evangeline's birthdays, and will miss Morganne's first birthday...but it will be nice to have a Christmas together...

Don't you love how M sits to eat! If she is eating...today she did eat some banana and a bit of yoghurt...and she has had some happy non grizzly moments today too...poor little thing...when she is well she is such an easy happy baby...but when she isn't feeling well we sure know! Anyway I hope you are having a great week - Lissy

other layouts...

I really do love scrapping and my approach is just to scrap how I like and for myself...and don't agonise over the details...just go with the flow and get the photos and stories scrapped...and I think it is great to share with others which is why I like teaching too...plus you get to see other peoples interpretations of your work and usually pick up some new ideas too! There is always something new to learn! I certainly do not know it all!

Here are the other layouts I did with each of the Basic Grey kits I used for the retreat classes...I gave out instructions for these as well...I tried to make most of the pages not too girlie...
Ambrosia...Offbeat...
Eva...this one is very unclear sorry...And I still have load of stuff left to do more...I just ran out of time! I really like their new letter stickers...I never used the old ones much...Now I must try and get on and finish my mini albums too...Lissy

busy...

We have had a busy week again...Monday I took Evangeline to a ENT specialist...she has had 5 ear infections this year (and last year too) and spend half the year deaf because of them. This has affected her speech a bit as she cannot hear sounds well and so we have been going to speech therapy...and she has always snored terribly, is a bad sleeper and has mild sleep apnoea...so she is going to get grommets and have her adenoids out at the same time. This should help a lot. We were going to have it done in November but as I will have to stay in hospital with her and as M is not weaned it would be too hard...plus it would pretty much put an end to swimming over the summer as she is not to get water in her ears...that will be hard enough in the bath!...so we will wait until February or March next year when the swimming season is nearly over...

Yesterday I took some promotional photos for a friend for her business Go Baby Hire...a great baby hire service...and I ran around looking for stuff for Evangeline's birthday party.

Today we went to the allergy clinic...Advanced Allergy Elimination...Morganne now has no eczema after her skin being red raw behind her knees...so Evangeline and I are going too...it sounds a very bizarre thing when you read about it or someone tells you but it strangely seems to work! A friend put me onto it after she managed to stop her chronic hay fever...I have a few friend who have now taken their kids and had great results...anyway after that we had swimming lessons which both girls love...

Then we had one of E's school friends to play (she is no longer at our school and E misses her!)
Morganne tried to feed her baby sister...lol...M is one month older but 2.5kg heavier! I have been letting M try and learn to eat with a spoon or fork...she definitely know that you go from the bowl to the mouth...but needs a little practice yet!

Then E had dance...phew...and tomorrow and Friday are busy too...and next week is looking pretty hectic too...but Ben is home in about 5 days - YAY! I hope your week is going well - Lissy

retreat layouts...

Here is a photo of the retreat...Here are my layouts...
Schools In...using Basic Grey Offbeat...with a pocket for reports, certificates etc at the top...and a small one for the class list...
Out & About...one using Basic Grey Eva and the rest using Basic Grey Ambrosia...
I did several bonus layouts for each paper range as well...so shall share these next - Lissy