Feeling a bit scratchy?

When you have to put up with mean people,

Think of them as sandpaper.

They may scratch you,

Rub you the wrong way

But eventually...

YOU end up smooth & polished
And the sandpaper....?

It'll be worn out & ugly!
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Every office has at least one piece of sandpaper.

"Never loose sight of who You Are,

coz You Are the Best thing God ever Created,

Embrace the gift

I haven't forgotten...

to blog... just been sooooooo busy again.... the weekend was full and then our email/internet problems surfaced again at work on Monday.... but I'm here now so will give you some highlights:

Friday
1. birthday party at Monte Casino Bird Park
2. Picnic Under the Stars at school

Saturday
1. Hobby-X in the morning
2. Spent the afternoon with my parents who had come to spend the day.... we met at Hobby-X

Sunday
1. Church in the morning
2. Did the week's worth of washing
3. Back to Hobby-X in the afternoon to go and exchange my puzzle that was missing a piece.... managed to get some other goodies that I didn't have the cash for on Saturday

Monday
1. Swimming lesson after school
2. Off to Randridge Mall to get Aaron some new school shoes... his lasted him the whole of last year but have now perished on the inside.... unfortunately I couldn't get him a small size so bought him a size 9..... in case you didn't know it... school shoes start at a size 9 but Aaron still takes a 7 or 8 so he will drown a bit in these new shoes till his feet grow, but hopefully they will last him the rest of this year!

Tuesday
1. Bible Study after school
2. Blogging for the school.... catching up on all the happenings of last Friday.... I think it was the busiest day of the school calendar!!!

Oh and in between all that I sewed two new banners for our church. Bought some fabric paint liners on Sunday and so that night while backing up my pc I outlined all the lettering. Will put them up this weekend and then take photos to show you.

Now I feel a bit better that I've blogged and managed to capture in a nutshell what I've been up to. Will hopefully get back to more regular blogging soon.

These guys are so clever

I just love Google... never a dull moment with them... opened my browser today and what did I find?

And then I just had to figure it out and see what it meant... hover over and this is what you get..

So from me too... happy birthday Dr Seuss.

For Helen

I organised through Helen in England to get me some "Thomas and Friends" pc games for Aaron. Well at the same time she bought him a book... belated Christmas present I think she said. Anyway here's Aaron reading "Horton hatches an egg" all by himself!

I haven't been able to keep Aaron off the pc all week... he LOVES his Thomas games.

Photos to show you

Well after a week of promising and saying "I must do it", I eventually did...hehehe... so here are the photos from Kelly's party last Saturday:

The kids trying to wack the pinata... eventually did manage to get it broken (with a bit of human intervention from Glen... Kelly's Dad)

These are the creatures that we got to see.... Owl, Snake, Meerkat, Hedgehog, Bullfrog, Bushbaby, Rabbit, Crocidle and Lemur

The guy walked up and down amongst the kids so that they could pat the animals. They got up close and personal to a few... the meerkat even inspected their teeth!

Kelly and Aaron are good friends... going back to day care days! She has come out of her shell quite a lot and is a sweet little girl... here's the birthday girl blowing out her candles.

In the afternoon I went to scrap with some good friends... and it felt almost like Christmas for me... okay actually belated 40th birthday... both Judi & Gayle passed on to me their birthday presents which the hadn't been able to give me last year. Gayle gave me a new scrap album... sooooooooooo needed a new one, and Judi made me a puzzle box.... LOVE IT. Once home Aaron attempted to put the puzzles together:

It wasn't that easy and I spent most of the evening doing them... six sided cubes each one different.... hope I solved them correctly Judi!

When we arrived at school this morning, the new jungle gyms were up and available... ALL the kids wanted a turn... here's my little monkey on the monkey bars and climbing net.

So good to get these up now... feel slightly more up to date!

I just LOVE blogging

I found this on Celine's blog... such a cute idea. Now leave me a comment as to why you love to blog and you can also help yourself (as I did) to this cute logo.

Why I love to blog:

1. It's a place to air my views on issues (not that I do that too much)

2. I can share my layouts with my friends and family

3. I use it as a journal so that I remember what happened when when I need to scrap my layouts

4. It's tons of fun!

5. I love reading about all my cyber-friends and what they are up to

6. Blogging helps me pass the time at work when I have nothing to do - it's better than Facebook for me!

7. My blog is somewhere where my friends and family can come and find out what we are up to without me having to email them all the time... don't think it's working yet as the family haven't left me any comments (hint hint!)

8. oh and there are lots more reasons but I can't think of them just yet.

Enjoy and please comment.

Busy birth-day

Wow I know of a few people having birthdays today...

Nicole - little girl from church & school

Phumzile - at work

Iris - Aaron's nursery school teacher

So girls.... have a great day and celebrate to your heart's content!

Baking

These are the cookies I baked last night... yes officially put them in the oven and baked them... started making the dough on Saturday morning, the filling and rolling on Sunday and baked last night.

They are called Cinnamon-Swirl Cookies and I got the recipe from Martha Stewart's Cookie a Day newsletter. You can get it here

My obeservations:

- get the correct conversions for the quantities.... ie:

a stick of butter is 125gm... so this recipe needs 250grams (no problem there for me) BUT the 8 ounces of butter works out to 225gm.... so having used the 250gm worked out above, I ended up with a very sticky mess of "dough" and had to add more flour... about another cup. Think if I do make these again I would use the lower butter quanity.

- Don't try to substitute filling after the first batch has run out.... yip I made the delish filling as per the recipe but didn't have enough nuts to make more when I ran out with dough left over, so used cake mix fruit instead... didn't mix the butter and sugar properly (too much in a hurry as usual) and it all melted out when baked... not good!

Did manage to get 60+ cinnamon swirls so only the 28 fruit ones were a bit of a disaster. Yip I got 80 cookies out of this batch... now that is worthwhile!

The cookies do taste yummy, so if you don't mind the delay in baking (making?) they are worth the little bit of effort.

I feel like...

I'm back in the scrap world... yip I got to scrap this weekend... managed to do FIVE layouts... and boy do I feel good about it.... not that I'm "on target" for my "layout a day" by any means, but I definately feel good that I managed to do more than one layout since the last time I scrapped! So here's what I did....





Other news from the weekend.... I took Aaron to a birthday party on Saturday.... will post pics a bit later once I've done the collages.... took WAY toooo many pics like usual! I spent most of Sunday doing load after load of washing and scrapped in between. Also started baking (or at least making) some cookies... sort of ones that need to keep being put back in the fridge for an hour or more between each stage... actually is a pain! Hope to actually BAKE them this afternoon and if they work out well, I'll share the recipe with you.

Off now to go fetch my little guy from school and go to swimming, before heading home to do homework and then the pile of ironing!

TGIF