Heres the monkey I've been knitting for the last few weeks...all finished except I'm going to knit him a wee scarf for the winter! He's lovely, by no means perfect, one legs slightly longer than the other, his head is a bit wonky rofl but thats what makes him extra loveable I think and the boys seem to really like him and have been carting him about all day....knitting him up was fun, it was the stitching him together which took ages but I'm the same with layouts... sticking everything down at the end is my least favourite bit!

Ok, so Queen and Co you need to do something about your packaging....now I'm not talking about the gimmicky but sort of cute makeup bottles used to hold your delightful beads and brads etc.....I'm talking stuff that matters here like child proof caps!

This is why...see left.... concentrating very...very hard(I know this due to the degree of bottom lip stickyoutness) on picking up each individual tiny beadiful bead that he shook out of the bottle after expertly whipping the lid off before I could dive across the room in slow motion and putting it back in the said gimmicky, cutesy bottle....along with a ton of carpet fluff and dog hairs....my cutesy little bottle full of sparkly beads now looks a little like the old bottle of lip gloss thats been lurking in the bottom of your handbag for 2 years.

Yes my helper was 'helping' me tidy my scrapping mess today....because the big boys are staying at Nana and Grandads for a few nights I thought it would be very cruisy just him and I....but guess what? He's got no-one to play with now silly and has to play with me mwah ha ha!!

Ah well I would never use all those beads in a billion years anyway and the carpet looks very pretty when the light catches them!

Feathers wouldn't melt in my mouth.....its ok Bert we forgive you!

After taking Berts mugshot I couldn't resist a few pics of the garden.....

The lupins look so pretty in the morning sunlight, love different textures between plant and rock, pink flavour from the Japanese garden, cornflowers busting out in the wildflower patch...and my poor tomato plants which are kind enough to have huge tomatos on them despite the lack of care I give them!!

Man, blogger isn't playing today and I can't seem to move my pics around into the right order...will fix it all up later...

Oh yeah don't forget to check out the first Dare for the year over at the NZ Dares blog tomorrow!

blog ya later

...A poo of a day today....turns out our lovely Bert (Jack Russell who we rescued from the pound at the end of last year) is a chicken killer and killed 6 of Dads lovely chooks when we visited them today... the kids went over to collect feathers and he had gone with them, so they saw it (double poo!) and came running back for help....he's currently in the dog house outside for the night until I feel up to making peace with him tomorrow....destined to be a town dog for the rest of his life...no more visits to the farm for him of course!

Don't even feel like knitting...thats how bad I feel!

heres to a better day tomorrow...

It would seem I have been bitten.....by the knitting bug! After ending my post last time with....'so does anyone knit?'....I came across about a kajillion knitting blogs, then I sussed out the knitting section at the library and brought home a cool book called 'Stitch n Bitch, the knitters handbook...the essential guide for chicks with sticks' and with subtitles like 'it takes balls to knit....and skeins and hanks' I knew knitting had moved on from the Granny pasttime or halfdone, holey, out of shape scarves lurking in my childhood memories!

Had a bit of a practice session with a past expert knitter...aka Mum to get me over the casting on hurdle and I was away....

Anyway here is my first knitting creation....the pattern called it a 'techno-cozy'...it can fit a mobile phone or an ipod (pity I don't have one lol!) but I think its cute just as a little belt bag to pop a bit of money or whatever in...just realised....my sony cybershot fits....now thats handy!!

Oh well I think its cool and love the look of the chunky knit and bright colours....now where was that hottie cover pattern.....

Well Summer called on us today! Hoo...blimmin....ray!! After the four seasons in one day weather we've been having lately I did a little happy dance inside to see that beautiful clear blue sky!!

So happy in fact I relented on my little stance against paddling pools and fired one into the trolley at the supermarket this morning...best $20 bucks I've spent in ages....kept the boys in continual hurtling action...all at the tops of their voices for the best part of the afternoon lol...yes I pity our neighbours...but hey I got to sit in the sun on the grass, keeping my eye on them and the other on my book...oh yes it was good and nothing like fresh air, sunshine and water to get kids tumbling into bed that evening!


Is it a whale...is it a turtle.....noooooo its a paddling pool!


Always time for a spot of mowing too!

Speaking of books....my backorder of Elsie Flannigan's 52 challenges arrived today...yay! had totally forgotten about it so it was happy dance time again for me this morning...two in one day! ....still wallowing in it...the book that is, not the happy dancing...its good.

Ok now I know its Summer but I was searching for a gift for a relative in the midst of winter in the UK and came across these....what scrapper wouldn't like one of these to snuggle up to while scrapping on a chilly winters day....did you check out the cozy toes too...cute! Anybody knit?

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and survived the frustration of all those darned twisted wire bits that hold toys captive in their boxes!! at the risk of sounding ancient...they didn't need all that in my day!!! lol!

Had a fun xmas day at our place hanging out with my Mum and Dad and enjoying a relaxing walk round the lake after lunch...

Looking forward to the New Year now...have our bottle of champagne fraise ( had to try it of course!!) chilling ready to share with my partner in crime on our back deck under the stars...

have flashed up the blog a wee bit with the new settings on blogger, looks better....even had fun playing with a new pic of me...not that you can see all the fancy bits cause its so blinkin small rofl!! here it is ...




If you have littlies to entertain over the holidays check out this cool kids activity site for fun things to do...I've got my eye on making one of those sock monkey's....for no reason whatsoever except its CUTE and I want one and maybe even get the boys making themselves one too!

Have a good NY's and stay safe!

A big MERRY CHRISTMAS to those who take the time to read my little slice of blogdom!

Some pics from today...berries and cherries...sweet juicy summer fruits = christmas to me and I had fun introducing the boys to the delights of chocolate truffle making or reindeer poo...hilarious to small boys...thanks Rae lol!

Things I remember from childhood christmas food....Mums huge hams complete with pineapple rings and cloves which would last for weeks after and the homemade chocolate truffles and strawberries doused in icing sugar...these were such a treat!! No roasts or ham these days...tomorrow we will be dining on barbequed chilli and lime prawns...and basil pesto chicken with cherry tomatos roasted in foil on the barbie...followed by mums wonderful rasberry marshmallow pud!

Announcement to those who took down the Kiwi cocktail recipe I blogged the other day...add lemonade too!!!! Sorry lol!!! forgot this bit...not sure your cocktail will be so fabulous without this ingredient.....!

We cleaned the house from top to bottom this afo...probably not everybodies idea of fun on Christmas Eve....but it feels sooooo goood knowing we have a headstart on the mess that will ensue tomorrow lol!

If you have checked out the NZdare site recently you may have seen I have been asked to be a contributer....what a cool christmas suprise that was...thanks a bunch Lianne and the Kiwi dare girls...looking forward to adding my inspiration to the melting pot! Check out Lesley and Liannes totally gorgeous christmas layouts....

I mentioned to Jim last night how cool it was for kids of this day and age of digital cameras to have all their achievements recorded and he replied 'yep imagine Joseph showing his girlfriend his childhood pics...'heres me picking my nose, me scratching my bum, me hiding from mum so she dosn't photograph me....' rofl .....anyway here he is at last nights evening assembly nearly finished his first year at school, receiving the class certificate for fantastic work in all subjects while his very proud Mum and Dad watched from the sidelines....and took photos!

Here are my first pages for Janines twelve days of christmas challenge. As you can see it is all about the Christmas tree...I have used an envelope on the left side which is for holding cards with written memories on them...I have started with some childhood christmas tree memories from myself and DH and plan on adding thoughts from the boys about what their favourite thing is about our christmas tree this year...on the other side in a pocket are the star decorations I made for the boys which I will give to them on Christmas Eve to hang on the tree! So cool to see this little book shaping up....onto favourite Christmas recipes next!

Talking about trees...I guess you could call me a tree hugger...I love them, they seem so strong and serene....my idea of Heaven is to sit in the shade of a beautiful tree and watch the world go by...my worst moment last year was watching my
beautiful Japenese Acer being ripped
out when added the extension to the
house...I have since aquired TWO new maples in my Japenese garden to make up for it lol!
and I just love the glory of the Pohutakawa during Summer trips to the coromandel.....anyway the point is when we moved into our house 7 years ago we planted an olive tree and have watched it grow and its trunk grow thick and strong...the ticket said it would mature and set fruit in 7 years and every year it would blossom and the tiny spikes of flowers would fall off....only this year they havn't fallen! I am so excited we are going to have olives this year!! I have no idea when to pick them let alone how to preserve them so need to do some research!

Two weeks until Christmas so we put the tree up in the weekend much to the boys delight and yay, Samuel although intrigued hasn't destroyed it like we thought he might! He gently touches the lights but thats it...

... and he has got a new face....all of a sudden out of the blue....it is the funniest thing I have ever seen and it never fails to make me laugh out loud...it starts off with him jutting out his bottom jaw in a real staunch way then all of a sudden he pushes his lips out...will have to try and catch it on camera...

Had a good night out for Jims christmas work do and spent most of Saturday recovering....thank goodness nights out are few and far between these days lol!

Hopefully we have some weather like today on the 25th...a breath of Summer...Jim and I have concocted a scrummy Kiwi Christmas Cocktail to have pre-lunch this year....

a tall glass with ice
a slosh of gin
a good dollop of feijoa smoothie (found amongst the fresh juices at Countdown)
and a dash of kiwifruit juice (found next to the keri and justjuice juices at Countdown)
Mix well

Delish! Should get Mum and Dad and Nana Jean in the christmas spirit mwah ha ha!

A packed week ahead with Kindy Christmas party, Athletics Christmas party and Josephs evening School Assembly and Playcentre Christmas party on Sunday....just party, party party this time of the year lol! Jims little red car will be transporting Mrs Claus which should be a camera moment....

Ok so here is what was keeping me from folding the washing mountain this afo ha ha!! These are christmas decorations to be included in a pocket on the christmas tree page for my boys to hang on the tree and they'll go back in when the tree is taken down.

This is the current state of my (and my poor husbands!) bedroom floor at the minute after such creative effort...I've made such a mess on my desk I had to abandon ship and move to the floor mwah ha ha!!


This is Patrick and Samuel at playcentre today....what a hardcase pair!!

Hooray I'm out of the starting blocks at last with Janines twelve days of christmas daily challenges based around the NZ version of the twelve days of christmas verse...although strictly speaking I havn't done day one yet lol!

Being the sort of person I am I always have to start at the very beginning and have created a cover and inside page first!!...now onto my first page!! Found it too exhausting trying to sort out and find!! actual photos so decided to create a sort of 'Merry Christmas' handbook for the boys which will be like a guide to creating magic at Christmas time....watch this space for more...

My favourite photo from the weekend...Nana and P doing it! Patrick's favourite thing at the moment is Athletics on Wednesday afternoons and they do all sorts of things like obstacle courses and games. So yesterday he decided he was going to design an obstacle course for everyone... with the help of Grandad providing sticks and gumboots and other things to jump he did! So we worked off our lunch with a few laps of his obstacle course...love that photo, fluffy slippers and all!!

And on the scrapping front another layout for the UK trip album yippee, not far off finishing!

We made sushi in the weekend, complete with the pickled pink ginger and a dab of wasabi(just a dab no more otherwise it'd blow your head off)...YUMMO!!! and so easy!! Our dream trip is still Japan!!

The kids were watching Bad Jelly the Witch yesterday, I love that story, brings back memories of snuggling up in bed 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning listening to Spike Milligan reading Bad Jelly on the radio! The video version is very cool though and the boys loved it.

I am feeling very smug because somehow I am on top of the christmas shopping...have just been gathering things up here and there over the last couple of months...woohoo!! Still racking my brain on how we can manage a christmas tree this year with young Samuel wrecking everything in sight...in the nicest, cutest possible way of course....Jims suggestion....hang it from the ceiling...might just have to as well!!!

NZ dare time again!! man two weeks just went like that!

Didn't want to miss being part of the international (US, UK, Oz and NZ) combined dare so after struggling with this one for a bit, here is the end result (raced home from the kids athletics with 10 minutes to spare to upload in a hurry!).

This is me and my old sheepskin rug friend Ruggy who was thoroughly loved to the end...he was a small sad scrap of leather by the time I finally said goodbye around 10 years old lol!

The dare required you to scrap a childhood memory, cover your whole background cs , put your title on the photo, add a touch of paint ( I used white paint on the scallop edges).

Must go and see what everyone else has done for this!

For the last couple of weeks I have been thinking of making an advent calendar for the boys this year...but my wonderful MIL has bet me to it and sent the most gorgeous fabric calendar with pockets and all the goodies to go in as well!! The boys are going to LOVE it! Havn't got a pic of it yet...will do soon.

Pucker up Baby! Some serious candle blowing going on here....Happy 4th birthday Patrick!

We have had all had a lovely relaxed day, pressies and bike riding this morning then lunch out at the local for huuugge burgers and lots of chips and pink lemonade with Nana and Granddad....no mess, no fuss.

In fact Jim and I were even totally relaxed creating the sponge bob cake last night...we are getting good at this birthday thing or have we simply realised kids do not look for perfection, they are too busy enjoying the moment.



Anyway on the way home Patrick announced this was 'best birthday EVER'!!...we did good Jim!!

A layout for the metal swap at SE. Congrats to the new
DT over there and well done to those who entered...I just don't know how you find the time lol!!

If you've got the Basic Grey Gypsy collection papers check out www.poppyink.com/documents/gallery.html
....can take a little bit to load if you are on dial up...but be patient...its worth it! Some fantastic inspiration to be had!

Well we are learning about all of Berts little quirks all the time...we have noticed every now and then he will pick up a random item, sometimes my slipper or a shoe or even the tv remote and take it somewhere to sit and guard it...he dosn't chew them just likes to sit and 'own' them for a bit.

This afternoon the clouds were looking ominous so I thought we'd take the car to pick Joseph up from school but uh oh no keys to be found! after 5 minutes frantic searching we had to zoom on foot to school to make it in time for the bell....I promised the kids $2 for their piggy banks if they found them when we got home....lots of searching later still no kids and I upped the price to $5 lol!! I started to think I was going mad as I retraced every step I had taken from garage after Kindy pick up to the hallway where I thought I had dropped them onto the floor next to P's kindy bag and a bag of groceries, looked in all the normal places and in all the not so normal places like the fridge and Samuels cot!

Nothing... vanished into thin air...until I noticed Bert quietly disappearing out the door with a party blower one of the kids had just been playing with and a big fat penny dropped! After a quick search outside I found them by the back steps....silly hound! Oh well least I know now where to look when things go missing

A wet Labour day...as mum to three boys I have started to fear the sound of rain on the roof on a weekend morning!! It always cracks me up how we extended our house for more space but we seem to still ALL end up in the same room rofl!!

Typically we put some good sounds on,


made a heap of colourful playdough which kept the boys amused for a good length of time,


Jim carried on nailing the timber on the new deck regardless of the rain...complete with his little assistant Samuel still in his pjs! He just loves helping Dad and the look on his face when he got to go in the ute to get more wood, just him and not the big boys, he really felt cool you could just tell!



I did some scrapping and some baking,



the dogs (yes we have a new doggy friend for Harry, called Bert adopted from the pound and he is just lovely!) looked for cats out the window and waited hopefully for a break in the weather for a walk


and Mum and Dad came for tea....all in all in was a good day despite the rain! Last time I have an Irish coffee though, I swear I hardly slept all night...darn caffeine! I knew I should have stuck to my green tea.... I couldn't stop planning layouts in my head....or maybe I need to drink more of it lol!!!

The layout I did 'In good company' was motivated by Ilka's challenge at SBO to make your own paper....started off by staring at my cs for a good length of time...as you do...got some green and blue paint out and dabbed some on....stared some more by which time the paint dried and it was all looking a little sad until I picked up my black zig and doodled stars and circles and spirals all over the place then glued on little squares of red to give it a lift....quite liking it by now...but the hardest bit I found was the second part of the challenge to then use bought pattern paper on the layout also! Lo and behold nothing I had seemed to work with it so I went minimal and used strips of some dotty Cherry Arte and KI memories between the journaling.

Still havn't used my new Autumn Leaves stamps....got the stars and hearts....next layout.....!!

Bert has a new nickname already...'Dirty Bertie' as in that cool kids book where the kid does all the gross things and the adults all say 'thats dirty Bertie'!! In his short time with us so far he has rolled ecstactically on a dead fish during a walk round the lake, fished a dirty nappy out of the rubbish...and held on with jaws of steel as we tried to prise it off him, and today out at the farm he found the stinkiest, pooiest mud patch he could find and covered his lovely white fur with it....under all that cute, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth fur is one disgusting mutt rofl....I swore I even saw Harry turn his nose up in disgust...but he is such a lovely fella and he is here to stay...will just have to buy in bulk dog shampoo...!!

My... what a big one! lol! This Oriental? poppy must have got mixed up in my punnet of Californian poppies and finally burst out of its huge bud this morning in full glory! Its bigger than my hand!

I'm still here... thanks Ilka :-)...just cogging along! Spending more time in the garden now that Spring is here and Samuel is always two steps in front of me and keeping me on my toes lol!

Scrapping wise I have just sent off a box to Scrapbook Creations with a layout I submitted and another they then asked me to create to go with it and a few words as well for their Quick and Easy page...hopefully it should be in issue 40! Thanks to Kelly (Memoryfairy) at Scrapbook Essentials for her submission challenges which motivated me to submit in the first place! Havn't done anything else!! Just quietly recharging my scrapping mojo at the moment...and the garden is the perfect place!

Jims Mum and Dad are visiting from the UK again this year which is great so we have been busy planning a weeks getaway with them and my Mum and Dad up North in March...found a wonderful bach on the beach in Tutukaka which looks like heaven for both adults and kids....all booked! theres nothing nicer then having a holiday to look forward to!! check out www.seaviewbach.co.nz