New family member

At the beginning of last year, Chris said that when we came back from our Europe trip we could get a second dog to add to the family. Well we came back from europe in october, and chris seemed to have forgotten the promise, or quickly changed the subject....

Yesterday we were at a pet shop and they had two beautiful labrador puppies. Chris didnt seem to excited though. So I went shopping with mum. Meanwhile, chris went down and spent a bit more time with the puppies. But he didnt really say much.

Well this morning, chris went to the dump, and wasnt back in 30 minutes, so i rang him up. He was at the pet shop again. Apparently he had though about it all night and decided that the labrador puppy was the perfect addition to our family!

So meet Boq.....


Chris and Boq playing.

Chris is very happy that he now has a "real" dog, apparently Matilda isnt a real dog....

Calendar Swap

I've decided to post my calendar cover and my january entry of the calendar swap Im part of. The swap consists of 12 scrappers. We each do a month in a calendar for each other, abiding by the owners theme. We post of the entries, some one puts them all together and at the end of the year we get our completed calendar back. My theme is mythical creatures. sorry about the quality of the photos.

The calendars are 8"x8"(or 9"x9" - dont panic calendar ladies, I do know the size, it has just slipped my brain right now...). One side is decorative and the other side is for the calendar - which would also be a bit decorated also.... We make our own calendar cover/back....
This is my january entry for my calendar. I mustnt of taken a photo of the calendar side of it...I will post the other ladies entries once they have all been posted out. As i said in another post, we want the calendars to be a surprise the day we get them back!

Holidays almost up!! :(

Student free days start next week. They kind of snuck up on me!! Ive been lazy and hanging around home most of the time. I did get a bit of house work done. Cleaned out the pantry and the linen closet. Threw out old clothes etc. Still so much crap in my house and want to declutter. Any tips please leave them!

I have been scrapping. Though am part of a calendar circle so the pages I have completed cant be shown yet, as the calendar is supposed to be a christmas gift surprise.

So here are two layouts I completed in the last couple of days. Slowly (very slowly) getting to scrap some of my Europe photos. Though I did take close to 2000 photos, so I guess Ill be working on this album for quite a while!

Europe photos slowly getting scrapped!

Our day in venice happened to be th day of our 4th wedding anniversary! It was so beautiful - Italian wine, a gondola, venice and our gondola captain actually serenaded us!
At the top of Mt Stanserhorn, it was actually snowing!! Chris was very excited, he had never been in the snow before! There was a 360 view looking out over mountains and lakes - just breathtaking!!

kick ass new tent

After being washed out at Woodford folk Festival we decided to retire our 2 man tent that I bought when I was single. We werent thinking of buying one today, but we had a look in at K-mart and this one was on sale and we couldnt resisit! Its a 4 person tent with a canopy.

DH putting his scouting skills to work.....

The coolest thing we like about the tent is that it has a solar panel with LED lights inside the tents roof! Ive never seen this and thought it was a great idea. It even came with a little torch that you plug into it and it charges throughout the day... This picture shows the LED lights dangling, they are supposed to be tied along the seams of the roof. you can see the torch in the middle of them..and this is the solar panel. you can see a clear plastic top to the roof, so the panel can get maximum light....

So now we have to go camping again huh?

There will be Woodford folk festival photos posted. Although we really didnt get many, mainly photos of how wet and muddy it all was. ;)

Im no Martha Stewart....

So bright idea Hannah decided that making a gingerbread house would be easy. It most likely would be if you actually had baking experience. A few months ago I posted photos of cookies I tried to make, Ill wait while you go have a look - it will give you some indication of my prowess in the kitchen....

Ok - are you done laughing now? So last night Chris and I got stuck into the recipe. Chris was in charge of mixing the egg/golden syrup and chopping the butter. How he didnt chop up a finger in the process I dont know.... and I was in charge of other stuff. Made the biggest mess possible. Spilt have of the dry ingredient mixture all over the bench top. And spent a good 5 minutes debating the difference between icing sugar and icing mixture. (If any one knows the difference please educate).

The cooking wasnt so bad....It was the assembly that was the downfall. In the end I basically filled in gaps with the icing and stuck a jelly bean where I made a mistake. The end product .....

We also made a little gingerbread house also, which you can see in the background. We are planning on giving the big one to friends of ours. Yes we do like our friends. We cellophaned it up and put lots of ribbon on it....At least they know its home made, because no self respecting bakery would let some thing like this go out in public!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas holidays

Start of the christmas holidays!! It has been a busy year and it has gone so fast.
I have made a to do list for the holidays to do some spring (late) cleaning. I have too much clutter and want to minimise. I started by cleaning out my pantry yesterday - so exciting huh?!?!

So I went shopping instead. I am starting to really dislike christmas. I have only celebrated about 6 christmas' so figured the contempt for the holiday has set in rather early - dont you think?
Reasons im starting to dislike christmas:
1. soooo not like the cheesy christmas special movies/shows
2. present pressure - every one has to have some thing. and it has to be meaningful. and it needs to be bought NOW. and it needs to match the sort of thing they would buy you.....
3. the negotiations for where we will be on the actual day. Mum can only do breakfast - lunch with Chris' parents, dinner with my Aunty....i can see me feeling tired, grumpy and sick at the end of the day....next year im staying home...
4. There being absolutely no significance to the holiday. I feel like a hypocrite. If im going to celebrate it - shouldnt we remember it is marking Jesus' birth!?!

Ok thats my scrooge moment......

So here are some pages I have done using europe photos...


Some trippy photos from amsterdam....
Febo - a fast food vending machine outlet....about one or two people work there and they just put the food into these boxes with a very strong light that keeps the food hot. You decide what you want, put you money in, open the door and take it out.....
Chris and I in venice.....
The Grasshopper in amsterdam...a very big coffeeshop (coffee shops are hash shops..)