I topped my English class

in year twelve, but you wouldn't know it....

This page, which employed far more technical applications that I usually would (ie stitching AND the use of stickers) I photographed, more than once, put away in its book, and then looked at it AGAIN the next day before I noticed the glaring, rather obvious error.

Don't worry, the C has been added to the word BEACH, with a little fast reorganising and shuffling along, and now all is right with the world (and can you believe, I have actually seen pages published in a magazine like this? I know errors are errors but I would never submit a page (although I never have done so ever) with an error like that, and if I were an editor, I wouldn't accept it! 

Anyhow, after talking scrapping with my sister in law recently, she mentioned that I should actually use some of the layouts  that I bookmark in the scrapbooking magazine I get (and pass along to her) for inspiration from time to time (I think she was trying to say get out of my rut!)

So, I tried that idea on for size...this was the layout I chose, I liked the row of squares along the bottom...

And as you can see, that was about where any similarity to the magazine layout ended!

Anyhow, pop over to Simple Aussie Girls tomorrow to see some more of what I have been up to!

This I have to do...

I asked daughter #2 these questions, as she is the one that gives answers straight off the tongue with not a lot of thought, the consequences are often hilarious or thought provoking.

I wasn't wrong, here are the results.

1. CLEAN UP!

2. when we don't be naughty!

3. when we ARE being naughty!

4. she tickles me

5. I dunno?! I wasn't born then!

6. thirty -one (bless you my child!)

7. ummmm, about three metres?

8. go on the computer (I used to read a book instead!)

9. does her own stuff

10. a horse rider! (? I guess, to them, I am good, but really am far from it!)

11. telling us what to do!  hahahahahahahahahahahahah - so why don't they listen to me!

12. making money hhohohohohoohhoh , her father will find this SO FUNNY!

13. mostly laundry oh lordy, this is ceasing to become funny!

14. ice cream well after the last few answers I certainly feel the need, however I would have said crumbed steak and gravy myself!

15. when you got on your horse by yourself   oh, she is a funny one....I have a VERY tall horse and very short legs, and normally try and find a nice 4 gallon drum or log or husband to help me get on....

16. that is a silly one agreed

17. go riding on the horses  a common theme I note, we have been riding a lot lately

18. we like animals

19. i am little and you are big

20. cause she hugs me

21. shopping in Townsville or down the creek. :-)

 

Someone else ask their child these questions too, please!

just to make you smile

needed around here, after a week of summer colds going through the family, hitting me, of course, the hardest.

We have a cat AND a dog that think along the same lines, and seem quite indignant when relocated.

Now, excuse me whilst I go and sniffle into some toilet paper (luckily I don't buy the truly awful stuff!) as we are out of tissues. I've sneezed so violently so many times today there are parts of me sore that you wouldn't think necessarily be affected by sneezing, but I guess that's the side affects of three kids/three caesareans!  (TMI?!) I'm hoping the sneezing means I am on the mend, or perhaps I have been doubly afflicted and have hay fever as well?!!

Enjoy the sleeping kitties!

strange things have appeared

You may already know, but I do like to do a little ebay shopping. Oh the freedom, shopping in ones pj's and getting a ripping bargain at the same time, being able to purchase an item that would otherwise be very difficult to get ones hands on, living in the sticks.

Recently, The Husband has also become a little ebay convert, asking me to come and find him a cordless drill battery, and then what seemed to be a frightfully expensive (but a great bargain price, according to The Husband, who has gone on to tell me how much money he has saved with each and every use) drill sharpening machine/contraption.

It seems that he has gone into some solo ebay ventures, as imagine my surprise when I went into my Watch List and found THIS:

(and fancy! free pick up from Canberra! I'll just pay pal it and pop over and get it) Not something that I would normally go searching for on ebay myself. Me thinks that someone might need his own ebay account.

This is what MY watch list looks like, unsullied by Cat machinery and tools.

Far more important and essential items to have on a Watch List. (And substantially less expensive!)

Me also thinks enough of rainy days giving husbands time to ebay search! Back to work I say! Leave me in peace to ebay shop alone (and so I might be able to work out how I could justify making a new 600D camera a taxable deduction!)

contented

from the clothesline, beside my oh so rustic fence and laundry, I spied these little fellows the other day.

contently lying about in the grass, were my six funny little orphaned calves, who just poke about and eat grass and look very interested every time a gate into the garden is left open, indeed look more than interested. Its more like a sprint and lets get into the garden sort of interested.

Nice life to have though? don't they look so comfortable.

Meanwhile, there has been some of this going on: (and I bet you don't need three guesses to work out who begged me take a photo of his brilliant and clever idea ;-)

and some of this, but lets not mention ages or numbers over forty, or the fact that "someone" has, in more recent times, confessed to some difficulty reading the small print and labels on bottles. Snicker.

(and I did warn if he did not behave during the photo taking process, that the results would be published for you dear readers to view and leave cheeky comments about. So please, don't hold back!)

it goes without saying, CZ Rocks

I've just finished the mini-class hosted by simple scrapping guru Cathy Zielkse, Ten Tips for Better Type and while I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to fully listen to the videos and make any pages using the class, I DID finally manage to do this one assignment, which was dead easy seeing as she gave detailed instructions!

Cathy advises that justified type can be bad, and prefers to align left or right. In this case I've stuck with the traditional align left, but oh, I itch to justify the text so the text area lines up with the photo areas above it.

Type, for title and journaling, is Museo Slab (a free font) which I think is probably the closest to the horrendously expensive Archer that Cathy uses. I've had it for awhile, and use it a lot.

Anyhow, do pop over to Simple Aussie Girls for more great pages, I am sharing another divided protector page there on Wednesday; also we've started doing Saturday Sketches, where we take turns in sharing a sketch or something that inspires a page layout (like a magazine page)

boys and their toys

Doesn't matter how old they are...

if it has wheels and makes a lot of noise, then they are like pigs in mud.

Long a collector of all sorts of mechanical crap, The Husband, without my knowledge (or approval) swapped one bit of machinery for two smaller bits....two smaller NOISY bits that have the kids thrilled and their mother not so much.

Although I do think the oldest kid might be getting a bit too leggy for this noisy toy.

Of course, as its HIS idea, it will be up to him to maintain, supervise and control the allocation of riding time.

On the bright side, its one way of forcing their father to spend more time with the kids, with numbers 2 and 3 shadowing his every move yesterday, fetching any tool he might need, to sweeten him into letting them ride the noisy beasts sooner rather than later.

And if you can stand it....here is a little video that I put together of the action, complete with the 6 ft 2 tall husband having a lap on the little bike. This sort of footage is just screaming to be shared! ;-)

Needless to say, the horsepower of the four legged, breathing type, have been a little neglected the last couple of days. Don't worry, I've visited them myself, and told them that I still love them, even if the kids don't!

monet I am not

do you recall my excitement about a week ago, over the fact that my water lily plant was going to flower?

Well, it did...

I can fully understand the desire to paint a water colour of lillies, it seems like a living water colour itself doesn't it, the colours being so soft and muted, but bright and glorious at the same time.

Unfortunatley, the business of the few days that I mentioned in the last post meant that I only got to see the lily in all its glory just the one day...but I am so pleased I did see it!

fitting a lot in

I could do seperate blog posts to cover the past few days....but honestly, I can't be bothered!

Let us start with our small schools swimming carnival, where the three one teacher schools in our district, plus the local distance ed kids, get together. Its lots of fun.

Thats my second girl practising her diving stance, and the boy mentally preparing himself for his big race. Or checking out his three pack :-)

It was a glorious day, the water was beautiful, the kids swam ALL of their races, and let me tell you, their mother would struggle to do one lap of the 33m pool, let alone the six the grade two/three and up kids did. And then another one or two for fun in a relay.

Its hard to get a good photo of them swimming.  The girls started off well, using correct stroke and breathing, but limited training and lessons (just two) meant their fitness levels were pretty poor. This is the biggest girl, starting to run out of puff in a freestyle lap. But I tell you one thing, EVERY child on the day finished their race, they might have had to pull up and hold the side for a few moments, but they plugged on and finished. Such great sports.

Two kids came home very proud:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The preppie swimming 3 out of 4 of his (half lap) races completely unaided (backstroke not having been introduced to him yet) giving him the required points to get age champion; and by default of being the only girl in her age group, the big girl got age champ as well (but still having to swim every race in order to get the trophy). The middle kid still happy with her stash of ribbons in seconds and thirds, having a future Olympian swimmer in her age group (which was quite swell, 2004 must have been a good year out here!)

Anyhow, more adventures followed:

A Landcare Junior Adventure/Exploration morning:

the highlight of the day meeting a blue tongue lizard which the presenters found on the road (un squashed, thankfully) and brought along to show the kids.

The same day, after returning from landcare, shipped the girlies off to grannies, and put ourselves in the truck.....

(which is very tiring) and hit the road for the 15,000th dentist visit for the boy. Maybe I exaggerate, its only the third, but the city looses its thrill after three visits with not much time in between. And this:

is much different

to this!

So, there you have it, what we have fitted in over the past few days! 

love these

divided page protectors....posted today over at Simple Aussie Girls. Do pop in over there and see some very inspirational pages from the past week!

last Sunday

we decided to go and check out the locals favourite fishing/camping hole (different to our Special Secret Fishing Spot), downstream from our favourite swimming spot.  The rain from the previous days would mean that the water would be roaring over the falls, and we hadn't ever seen this before.

The water was rushing over the causeway not far from the water fall. Kids were entranced.

and had to be removed from the edge of the faster flowing water on more than one occasion!

  with the arrival of the rest of the touring party, we proceeded a little further along the way to check out the falls.

From the top, we couldn't really see the big part of the falls, but we could certainly HEAR it, so armed with fishing rods, scampered down the goat track below falls for some nature appreciation and an attempt at fishing.

yep, down there, where you can see the water....

    Not Niagra by any means, but in perspective, the creek itself was pretty full,  the second tier of water would normally have another six foot drop when not so full. Still, a special spot in our part of the world.

my attempt at getting a stellar family photo didn't turn out so well. stinkers. they just wanted to go fishing....

although all we caught was each others lines and snags. Or until we had decided the fish would need goggles to see the bait and the water looked better for swimming in...suddenly the keenest fisherwoman actually DID catch a fish!

To say she was excited was an understatement!

After that, a swim was the order of the day, in the gentle waters near the edge.

And slightly sunkissed and wearied from our morning of excitement, we went home carrying our one fish, which dad prepared and cooked for the fish-catcher, who declared it DE-LISH-OUS! (although Dad wasn't as complimentary, it being a fairly ordinary sort of eating fish)

I think we should have more Sundays like this...

simple and good

I lay no claims to domestic godess-try, in either the cooking or cleaning stakes, but I manage to adequately cater for and keep alive my little bunch of  hooligans.  My cooking tends to the simple and easy, and here I have a recipe that ticks those boxes and more, and has many licking their fingers and coming back for more.  I think its been around for awhile, but this was passed along from my auntie, who lives up in the cane growing country of Port Douglas, where there are many a good Italian (and non Italian!) cook.

Sour Cream and Apple Slice

Base

3 tablespoons butter or marg

1 cup of coconut

1 packet homebrand vanilla cake mix

Melt butter (you may need more, I find that 3 tabs is a bit too dry for me) and pour into combined coconut and cake mix in bowl. Mix throughly and press into LINED slice pan. Bake moderate over for 10 minutes.

I may have used a tad too much butter, but it doesn't matter. Butter is good :-)

Next, whilst the base is cooling, assemble the rest of your ingredienst

1 LARGE tin pie apple (bigger than what I used, I had to use two) I've also been told tinned peach and the like are also good.

1 tub of sour cream

dessert spoon sugar (brown is brilliant, however any will do)

cinnamon

Spread the apple evenly over the top of the pastry base, and sprinkle over some sugar.

Stir up your sour cream in its container, and then plomp on top of the apple and spread all over. Don't be stingy ;-) although a full container in this sized tray might be a bit much. Sprinkle over cinnamon to your liking, and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the cream is set nicely. Cool for awhile in the tray, then lift carefully out using the excess baking paper, place on bench or cutting board and slice with a large, heavy knife.. Feel free to eat the dodgy corner pieces as you go :-)

Refrigerate once sliced. Not sure how long this will last in the fridge, as its never gotten past two days here, and I've rarely brought any back from a function that I have made it for. It is also a good one to make in a huge baking dish if catering for a big crowd, just increase the base ingredients to fill the tray and topping accordingly.

And even better, the ingredients can easily be kept in the pantry cupboard and freezer (the sour cream) so no need to run around madly when presented with an invitation to something the night before. This one is a winner for smokos AND desserts.

No thanks needed :-) Enjoy!

don't faint

but I did some scrapbooking! very simple stuff....

This page is also featured over at Simple Aussie Girls today, as this week we relaunched after the summer holidays. And, if you are a scrapper, there is a great giveaway happening over there today as well.

I should have bought some gumboots

its that time of the year that gumboots really would make life easier, and given that my last pair wore out, not from overuse, but rather perished from LACK of use, I usually make do with plastic croc like shoes. Although they have a tendency to get left behind in the mud, which is quite amusing for any audience.

On Australia Day, we celebrated, with heavy clouds overhead, by trucking cattle and running them through the yards. Normally a quick and easy process, but after around 2" of rain, and drizzly showers passing by, it became quite an 'adventure'.

Note the wide legged stance, essential for remaining upright and stable in somewhat challenging conditions. Very shortly after this photo, the pretence of wearing useful footwear was abandoned and I went barefoot. Mud is supposedly good for the complexion and heaven knows my heels can use all of the help they can get. Gumboots at this point would have been very handy.

 

The old dears were quite pleased to be out of the truck and on firm ground. Albeit muddy. (please do note blonde headed child hanging out the truck window, being very useful in encouragement of cows moving from the back of the truck. Father was very cheerful (not) about this assistance (or lack thereof, cows don't seem to like little dog like yips from blonde headed children!)

Fathers country wide may all have the same problems. I do recall being roused upon more than once in my own childhood for being in the way/making silly noises/breathing at the wrong time when dealing with cows.

Very shortly after this I was given one of "those" looks from the husband, who seemed to be in an unusually sunny disposition (snort)  given the conditions and that he was covered in mud, poo and pee from one particularly spiteful (or clever?) old girl. So I scampered away, shut the gate on these cows, put my phone/camera away, and then we worked them through the race at the very top of the photo above, attending to ear tags and recording weights.

After that, when we were dismissed from the yards, and we went to check out the creek, hoping to see waves of water rushing by.

Hmm, not so much a wave as a quite gentle trickle.

Didn't stop them though from doing their best "not getting wet" attempts! 

And after this, we took ourselves and our muddy feet and clothing home. We've had funner Australia Days, but the kids didn't seem to mind....

thank goodness

they are done.

Curse those curvey rounded letters.

 I intended to have the wonky stitched look all along.

And you might notice that I simplified the process somewhat by the time I started on #3, with much dragging of heels and sighing, with a when-is-mine-going-to-be-done little girl looking over my shoulder.

  My MIL made me some terribly comfortable maternity pants out of that purple star fabric, when I was pregnant with Angus? or maybe Georgie? I chose the fabric...what can I say, I have no defence over the fashion choices I made at that time. I think it was influenced by the Country Belle catalogue, which featured heavily on floral and patterned fabrics for skirts and capri pants. I guess it didn't look too bad, teamed with a lavender linen maternity blouse I had. You certainly wouldn't have missed me that is for sure! Luckily, I have no photographic proof of this little fashion adventure...I admit that there are only three photos of me pregnant with ANY child, that I know of in existence (all taken on someone else's camera)  I am a bit sad about that now.

Anyhow, I digress, the bags are finished and off to school tomorrow they go!