Progress report..

NONE.... hehehe... still without connection at work and now the phone lines are down too.... lines are obviously water logged with all the rain of the past two days... who knows WHEN it will all be fixed. We hope soon soon.

Thank goodness I do have a connection at home and so I can browse, blog and email from here..... just not for quite as long though.

Will hopefully update and post pics over the weekend to keep you up to speed. Off to dinner with some girlfriends tonight... night freetime for me.

In case you miss me...

I haven't blogged for a few days now... not sure if too many people will actually notice.... but the one reason is.... I have NO internet at work.... which is when I do most of my surfing and blogging... makes the time go by when I have nothing to do! So now I'm just feeling very frustrated :( and unconnected..... found out this morning that it is actually a Telkom line problem and not our ISP/IT. The company is busy looking into various options to upgrade (???) our network.... changed from super fast adsl to very slow wireless when we moved and so it's not been a happy two months..... sure hope they fix it soon soon. So I reckon I will post from home and do some surfing in the evenings.... but won't be around as much as I am out a bit too.

So please don't miss me too much... I will be back!

Do you remember???

I did history at school for Matric.... barely passed but I did! And I remember learning about the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette.... about the only thing about her that stuck in my head was her saying "Let them eat cake" when there was no bread to be had. Well now there is an artistic award going around which I received curtesy of Desire... thanks my special blog friend.

I have to pass this along to 7 people, who also have to pass it along to 7 people who inspire them. You link to the person who gave you the award and to the people you give it to.

So here's who'se in line to get it now.....

1 Ro - ScrapGirls rocks!!!

2 Helen - keep on beading, you're doing a great job

3 Helen - congrats on making the Little Shop of Sketches design team

4 Stefanie - ditto congrats.

5 Jacki - Can't wait to come scrap with you

6 Candice - I love your blog cupcakes.... so yummy looking

7 Jacqui - you always seem to know when someone is giving something away... love your blog

Now you go do like wise please.... and remember "EAT CAKE"... preferably CHOCOLATE... hehehe

Goodies to win

There are always nice goodies being given away if you comment on someone's blog... and every now and then I really really would like to get my hands on one of them... hence me linking to them here. So this one is from Queen & Co.... check them out and your could also walk off with your own stash.

Kids say the cutest things

Yes they certainly do... and when it's your OWN child it's even better. Last week Aaron was being his usual affectionate self ....you know the story: "I love you Mommy" and all that, and out popped this little gem:

You are beautiful

all the way to the top of the cake.

Well it had me in fits of laughter. I just had to write it down quickly to remember... now must find an appropriate pic and scrap it I think.

We're off to a good start

Aaron's Grade 2 teacher, Mrs Nelson, has a jolly good incentive/encouraging program going in her class... she is giving roving trophies out for different categories:
1. Good behaviour
2. Neat work
3. Kindness to others

Well, now I reckon you've guess it... yip Aaron got awarded this week. He was sooooooooooooooo chuffed to show me his trophy... just had to take photos too to mark this wonderful happening.

The trophy is stuck onto his desk (with prestik!) and will stay there till Friday. Well done my boy and keep it up.

Good behaviour
Neat Work

Kindness to others

I'm sure the kids will go all out now to get a trophy on their desk each week... just adds an extra excitement to the day.

Another award

Yip I no sooner posted my last three from Desire and she sent me another one... hehehe. So for a change I'm going to give this one to some of the blogs that I read/frequent. Go visit them and spread some love around.

1. Meredith at M Orginals... she has the most gorgeous template going for the 365 project

2. Becky at Page Maps... these sketches are ones that I love and will do over and over

3. Stickers 'n Fun... another sketch site that I simply can't do without

4. Liz at Sweet Digital Designs... she has freebies on her site as well as kits that she designs.... love the colours. Anyway Liz is about to pop with her fourth baby and I think needs some definate encouragement... especially after all the drama of the past weekend.

5. The Queen and the Princess... another site with freebies... lovely designs that I think are cute.

awards for excellence...

okay maybe just for friendship and jolly good blogging... but I got some awards again... and all from Desire

Thanks sooooooo much my blog-friend.... greatly appreciate them all.

Now to decide who to pass them on to....

Well I definately think I will have to be creative here and decide that I'm going to give ALL 3 to each of these bloggers, simply because I do not know 15 bloggers that I can personally give them too... oh then again I do read over 50 blogs...hehehe, but now I'm only going to pick 5. So they will go to:

Helen

Stephanie

Sophia

Creative Souls.... Lara & Stephanie

Liezel

Oh what the heck... I'll give an extra special one to Ro too as I feel very honoured that she reads my blog and comments... Thanks Ro.... keep up the amazing job that you do at ScrapGirls.

House Swap

Now don't go get all excited on me now... I'm just putting out feelers at the moment into blogland and hoping that someone who browses my blog now and then might know someone who knows someone who might just want to come from Ontario, Canada to our sunny part of the world next year for the soccer world cup (July 2010) and be willing to house swop.... yip we are looking to gap it out of here when the madness happens and go visit Keith's family in Canada.... so if you can help at all, please comment (with your email address) and I will get back to you.

(Phew that was one heck of a long sentence.... hehehehee)

Just found out....

that SIMPLE SCRAPBOOKS is closing it's doors after the May/June issue.... sad news that another scrap magazine has to do this.... you can read about it on Stacy's blog as well as at Simple Scrapbooks.

I guess I should be THAT surprised having had subscriptions belly up on me before.... first Paperkuts (got transferred to Memory Makers, thank goodness), then Creative Reflections which thankfully got transferred to Time and About ... and I've just heard that they might also go the same route... why oh why did I take a subscription out???

Well guess I'll have to find something else to read then.

Last lot of scrap pages...

I had written a whole blog post of my weekend and the scrapping I had done and was just waiting to get my layouts ready, but seeing as it is now Thursday I don't think I'll post all that stuff... just the many layouts I did... brace yourself:

I had a good weekend scrapping (as you can see) and managed to do 13 pages!!! hehehe. I haven't scrapped since then but reckon I'm still pretty much on target of a page a day... should start keeping a running total. But I have now managed to whittle my 2005 pile down to just 26 outstanding layouts... hope to get some more scrapping done this weekend, inbetween doing washing and play dates.

School pics

Grade 2 has started. Aaron was excited to go yesterday morning but also a bit scared and nervous... but the report back I got was that it was a good day and he likes his new teacher.... yippee. So here's pics from yesterday:

I wish my little guy the most fulfilled year of learning and growing in knowledge... enjoy the adventure!

Oh and for those who were wondering.... we made it with plenty of time to spare... left home at 6:50, got stuck in a small amount of traffic but went our normal back route and missed most of the traffic. Arrived at school around 7:20 with not a tear in site. Got to say Hi to other moms and kids and great old teachers too.

Another birthday wish goes to....

my cousin Liezel....
All the best for your day today... hope you have a great one.

Here's wishing Helen a very...

All the best for the year ahead Helen. Hope it's a successful one with all your little adventures in cyberspace.

School starts...

tomorrow. Back to School for us in the morning.... Grade 2. Will hopefully be able to post pics once I'm at work or later at home... but please .... wish me luck in the traffic..... we don't want to be late (like last year!).

Congrats

go to Jacki..... she reached the 20000 blog visitors mark.... wow I don't think I'll EVER get that many readers.... I'm not nearly as popular or well written as she is. Anyway, I digress..... to celebrate Jacki is doing a RAK... she is giving away butterflies and/or a photo-editting session.... so go check out this post, leave a comment and who know's we all might just win something.

On target

I scrapped both on Wednesday and Thursday... managed to do two pages each day... so am definately on target for this year.

I also worked out how many pages I have outstanding for each year to do...

2002 - 6

2004 - 1

2005 - 38

2006 - 2

2007 - LOTS

2008 - LOTS

2009 - haven't started planning yet but have taken a few pics

I thought that I might try my hand at doing a digital page or two (use some of my freebies that I keep downloading) so thought that the 2004 & 2006 ones I would do digitally.... here's hoping!

I plan to scrap a bit this afternoon too once home from work and then tomorrow I'm going to Theresa to scrap before fetching my friend Judi from the station... she went to her Mom for Christmas by train... soooooooooooo exciting!

Okay, off to do some blog hopping.

ps.... just remember that I also forgot to tell you.... I did some baking yesterday afternoon and also cleaned house... all before rewarding myself with scrap time. After supper Aaron asked me to help him build his bionicle that he got for Christmas from my brother and his family..... weird weird monster thing, but we got it done and this morning before I left for work he was busy playing with it... having fun!

hehehehe

I've just been reading Stacy Julian's post about making calendars and adding silly holidays to it. Well I popped over to see the list... and just for interest checked out 20 November... my birthday... to see what holiday they had... and it is called.... wait for it....

ABSURDITY DAY!!!

hehehehehe... fits right in with my delightfuly bizarre sense of humour!

Been scrapping again

I scrapped with a friend yesterday afternoon... was a very productive afternoon too... I managed to do five layouts and then last night I did another and finished off the journaling. So by the time I went to bed I felt very fulfilled. Here's the results:

So now that is 5 less of my 2005 outstanding layouts done. At this rate I might even get to my goal of 1 layout a day.... let's see I did two on Sunday and 6 yesterday so that makes 7 by the 7th of January... hehehe... quite on track what?! Let's hope it lasts. Happy scrapping.

Giveaways

I saw this on Jacqui's blog and so went to investigate.... this lady is having a birthday and has put together the most awesome giveaway... just add a comment and a link on your blog and you will stand a chance of winning... but you must be quick it expires on 9 Jan.

Christmas/Holiday roundup

Right, now on to some old news and photos. This is what we did over the holidays....

Aaron helped me make table decor.... Father Christmas's for our placenames (I put little chocies inside and a bag of chocies for his sack). He also made a Christmas tree for our centre piece... and I added my quilled tree and Father Christmas off my convention model.

My folks spent Christmas Day with us and also slept over.... left after tea on Boxing Day. We just ate leftovers for supper Christmas night too.

Our menu for the day was:
Gammon
Bean, cucumber and feta salad (not a great one... looked and sounded yum but wasn't!)
Carrot salad
Country potato salad - now this one was nice... no mayonnaise in site!
Dessert was a fresh fruit platter and chocolate sauce or cheese and biscuits (especially for Keith who is not a pudding fan).

Aaron got thoroughly spoilt by Father Christmas with lots of nice goodies. Also got lots of stuff from both Keith and myself. He ended up with four different dvds as well as a new computer game... which has kept him very busy for the rest of the holiday. His highlight was getting a trainset with the engine that made smoke and four different noises (not quite what he had asked for but definately a hit!)

I was very blessed with CHOCOLATE... yip people know me well! Keith and Aaron also gave me a gift voucher for Cum Books (which I spent on Monday... got three nice reads). Keith got some gardening tools and seeds plus a new tea mug.

A tradition that I've started the last few years is having a family photo taken on Christmas Day. Well trying to get us all to look at the camera and behave is a mission...

And then I also decided to throw my folks in the mix too and little guy wanted to be there too, so more fun and games.

But we did eventually succeed:

Took this one with my self time... not to shabby!

We mainly spent the rest of the holiday just pottering around at home. The organising/cleaning up bug seemed to bite me and I got into sorting out some stuff... both in my scrap room as well as Aaron's bedroom.... managed to donate toys and clothes to Cotlands (through a church friend). I am in the process of getting some more shelves for my Scraproom so once those are in I'll show you the cleaned up space.

In amongst all that cleaning, Aaron found my pile of puzzles and convinced me to help him build one.... only 1000 pieces mind you! The most he has ever done is 100!!! And even then he has help. So being the puzzle enthusiast that I am I said sure and away we went. Three days later it was done.

And then the bug had bitten so I decided on 2 Jan to tackle another one... also 1000 pieces. I managed to do the whole puzzle in one day.... Aaron couldn't believe it on Saturday morning when he found the completed puzzle on the table.... the other one took three days and had the same amount of pieces.... yes but this one was soooooooo much easier... just build each bird and away you go!

So now I'm back at work and slowly getting into the new routine of things. From next week school starts so my "normal" travel routine will begin too. But I guess more on that to follow.

Right, I think that is me caught up. Off now to go catch up on my Google Reader blogs and see what you've all been up too!

Scrap Layouts

I told you before Christmas that I had scrapped a lot.... well here are those layouts... be prepared for lots of pics.. hehehe ... I've linked it to my Picasa web album so hope it works.

2008 Scrapbook Layouts

And just when you thought I was finished, I did two more over the weekend. These are both form my 2004 album... only one more page for that year's album to do now.

I'm fast on the way to completing two year's albums... 2006 and 2004... only got three between them to do. Now I must finish 2005, 2007 and 2008... yikes! Oh well I've got a whole year ahead of me I guess.

Happy New Year

It's 2009....

here's to a new year full of potential and adventure. God bless you and yours greatly throughout this year no matter what it holds.