Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well bloggers its been a while, so much happening, hence the lack of blogging.

My gorgeous baby girl Ella is now 14 months old and about to have her 2nd Christmas, this will be a little different to last year. Last year I had to wake her up and she snoozed on her bouncer while I opened her presents. This year I am pretty sure she will be doing the waking and if today is any indication, she will be opening her own pressies.

Today whilst I was wrapping the last few gifts I allowed her the rare opportunity to hang in the room with the Christmas tree and all the presents. She toddled around playing with rolls of paper, no harm I thought, then she picked 1 of her own presents out of her sack, again no harm I thought, well within a few seconds I hear the tearing of paper and she had thankfully got the boring parcel of new bibs and not toys, so she was bored with the contents of that 1. 2 baubles ripped off the tree and a strand of beads later she was removed from the room with hysteria that only watcing the Wiggles could repair.

So in the last few months we have also had an Epic Farmyard themed first birthday party, about 50-60 people an abundance of food, my first birthday cake I have made in a very very long time and a fabulous day had by all, especially the birthday girl.

Jamie and I have also lost over 20kgs each and are still going and are doing our best to fit in some excercise to keep the weight coming off.

Lots more happening but I won't bore you all with a big long post, will just try try try to do more little updates for you all.

So to finish off I would like to Wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a super happy new year for 2011 and I will leave you with these cute pics taken by my friend Kim Arnold for Christmas.

Naughty Naughty

Well I broke my own promise about blogging more regularly but I think I have a few good excuses.

Since last post I have sold my Mortgage Choice Franchise and started re-organising my work days to fit in a new job and helping out with the old.

I am staying on with Mortgage Choice doing loans for family and friends and keeping all my qualifications and accreditations current, so yes anyone can still call me for a loan. But given that I am a contractor with the new owner I can work my own hours from home or the office or where ever I may be at the time and not being the owner is a lot less stressful. I have noticed wrinkles disappearing over the last few months.

I have also started working with Jamie's company Southern Commercial Divers, working with MIL an FIL and hubby can be challenging at times. Love them all to bits but working with relatives is another story. There are some benefits, MIL makes me cups of T and lunches when I am there. We have been challenged to get all the company records up to scratch to get the company Quality Assurance certified and finally on Friday it came through.

My baby is growing so fast, she is 9.5 months old now and I am getting some ideas together for her 1st birthday party. She is a very good crawler now and is pulling herself up on everything and walking around the furniture. She has 2 adorable teeth on the bottom. Although over the last month she has been a little sick with an Inflamed Throat and is currently finishing her second round of anti-biotics, she has had 2 good nights uninterupted sleep so lets hope it stays like that and she gets back sleeping through the night. Here is a pic of my baby last week playing at the park with her friends.

I have been doing a bit of scrapping and I am currently working on an Off-The-Page project, something I very very rarely do, so will post it up when finished.

I haven't had time to photograph my layouts lately so will try and do that tomorrow and post some up for all to see.

Well I am off to get organised for a Midnight Crop at Scrapbooking Delights, til next time.

Layouts from Sanctuary Point getaway

Here are a few of the 11 the layouts I completed last weekend at Sanctuary Point. This first 1 is my favourite, I love this picture of Ella sleeping in the car, she is so peaceful.

More Blogging - my commitment to you

I have made a commitment to blog more often, I think I should be able to manage once a week, part of my reason is I have just applied for my first scrapbooking Design Team at Storyboard Kits run by my friend Lisa Warren, I don't expect any favours but I hope my layouts are good enough. I want to apply for more DT stuff so updating my blog more regularly I think might help.

I am currently at my in-laws holiday house with a bunch of friends having a mini Scrap retreat, it is a fab location on the lake at Sanctuary Point, I am the only 1 awake currently and am about to head up the shops for some fresh bread for breaky. Some of us finished up at 2am and I was up at 7am, where is their dedication, 5 hours is plenty of sleep at a retreat.

I have completed 3 layouts so far including a double layout of the Pink Concert (finally). I am currently working on 2 Easter layouts both 90% complete but had to put them aside last night before bed because I think I lost my mojo, hopefully things will look clearer this morning.

I will share with you the last message I got from my darling husband before he went to bed:
"You know what I was thinking today, I want to grow old with you"

It brought a tear to my eye. XXX

Giving online stores a bad name

Never ever buy anything from this online store, I bought 2 pairs of maternity PJ's in August last year, returned them on 1 Sept and have been trying to call and email them ever since to see how my refund was going, https://www.dangerouscurves.com.au/default.aspx They advised me today that they never received the parcel back and that they had blocked my emails because I was becoming annoying. Can you believe that.

I told the stupid bitch if she had have taken 2 mins to reply to my email or a message in Oct last year to say the parcel hadn't been received it would have saved us all a headache. I also mentioned that a bit of customer service wouldn't go astray. She said they were short staffed, I said what for the last 6 months. As a business owner myself if I ever didn't have time to reply to an email I would leave it in my inbox until I had 5 mins to deal with it, not block it.

She said people claim refunds for items they never even ordered. It took for me to go to Dept of Fair trading on her ass for her to even answer the phone and consider that maybe I was telling the truth.

Put a link on your blog to this Post to spread the word, this woman is an idiot.

New Creativity

Last night I had some great friends Cass and Kim come over for what was supposed to be scrapbooking, but turned into just being crafty in general, I did 1 layout in between gossiping and having a good laugh.

Here is the 1 I did last night for the Scrapbooking Delights April sketch challenge on Facebook.

Then today my little angel had a couple of big sleeps over 1 hr each time so the second time she had a nap I jumped at the chance to do another layout.

Here is 1 I did from an Inspired Blueprints sketch.

Will hopefully I will get a few more done tonight, watch this space.

Bargains

Hi all out there in Blogland, check out this site for all your Scrapbooking bargains.

http://scrappybargains.blogspot.com/

Check it out all 1 off stuff at rock bottom prices.

Retreat Review

Well I have just gotten back from a Scrapgirls Retreat at Castlereagh (Penrith). My first night and weekend away from Ella. First things first I got through 15 layouts and 6 pages for Ella's mini 8x8 album. 2 of my pages were chosen as winning layouts. 1 was their kit challenge and the other was a 45 minute challenge, where you get 10 mins to prepare what photos and papers etc you are going to use and then 45 mins to do the layout and I must say some of my best work under pressure, it really helps to have a cute subject and good photos (both my winning layouts had photos by Kim Arnold).

My mission was to not spend any money in the store at the Retreat and use all the product new and old that I already had in my stash, for that reason I took heaps of stuff with me. I succeeded (mostly) I was only tempted by $0.50 American Craft pens and bought 8 of those for a total shop spend of $4 plus a few cans of coke etc for $6, so only $10 out of pocket. I was happy with that.

Daddy and Ella had a great bonding weekend, baby was well fed, clothed, clean and happy, house like a bomb had hit, despite the cleaning lady coming Friday. But it didn't really matter, the chance to get away to scrap for 3 days and 2 nights is worth coming home to baby bottles, baby food and toys everywhere and clothes still on the line. Daddy is sitting next to me saying how tired he is. I missed them both like crazy, thank goodness for mobile phones and MMS pics arriving all weekend.

Well here are a few of my layouts that I did over the weekend, not photographed all that well but I guess you get the idea.

This was my "Winning" 45 min Challenge layout.

This was my winning layout from the Challenge Kit we received.

These 2 layouts above and below are for the Scrapbooking Delights facebook Sketch Challenge

So it appears that I am keeping my once a month Blogging routine, so until next month, bye.

Once a month Blogger

Well as I have been a bit slack, pre-occupied, busy, you name it, it appears that I might become a once a month blogger.

So much has happened and February is always a busy month for us.

I am back into full swing with work doing 3 days a week in the office with miss Ella in Childcare and then 2 days a week fielding calls and emails from home whilst taking Ella to swimming, library, shopping or whatever other event we have planned on our 2 days off. Weekends we try and get in some quality family time whilst doing the mundane chores like the never ending lawnmowing, washing and tidying up as well as socialising.

Valentines day was Ella's Christening, we ventured up to the Church in Camden where we were married and then back to our place for a roast meal, it was a lovely day although I was a little stressed out getting the food organised, sorting Ella out and making sure we got some good photos and trying to get her to have a little bit of sleep. It all worked out in the end even with the rain. The kids didn't seem to mind the wet weather and the day ended with a super soaker fight with my nephew Isaac and the kids next door, it was amusing to watch. A big thanks to all my friends and family for their help with the day and all the beautiful presents she got.

My little angel looked beautiful in her little Christening dress.

So until next month..........

ABC's of Me

Totally copied this from Lisa's blog who coppied it from Cassie's blog...feel free to copy and paste.

ABC's of me

A - Age: 36
B - Bed size: King, yeah baby
C - Chore you hate: Putting clothes away
D - Dog's name: don't have 1 yet
E - Essential start your day item: Deodorant
F - Favorite color: Fuschia
G - Gold or Silver: gotta be Gold
H - Height: 168cm
I - Instruments you play(ed): Keyboard with the follow the lights, I was rockin'
J - Job title: Mortgage Broker
K - Kid(s): Ella 12 weeks 5 days old
M - Mum's name: Lynne or Barbie because my dad's name is Ken and they have the real life big ass Barbie bus lol.
N - Nicknames: Rach, Rachy Roo, F*ckin Legend (well that was a 1 time Hens night thing)
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: false alarm apendix
P - Pet Peeve: Husbands bad hearing and having to repeat myself.
Q - Quote from a movie: I feel the need ......... the need for Speed
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: Brother - Jamie
T - Time you wake up: when Ella wakes up anytime from 4.44-7.11 at the moment.
U - Underwear: Very comfortable nanna knickers and gutsuckers depending on the outfit.
V - Vegetable you dislike: do you want the list, but surprisingly I actually like brussel sprouts.
W - Ways you drink your coffee: I don't drink it at all, hot chocolate or iced chocolate are my social choice.
X-rays you've had: spine and foot today and plenty of others before today.
Y - Yummy food you make: Date and walnut loaf
Z - Zoo favorite : Monkey

Some more layouts

Well a new year and a new scrapbook subject and the bad summer TV have done a lot for my layout production, here are a couple I have done over the last few nights. I am trying to use a mix of old and new product to clean out my old stuff. The first is an Inspired Blueprints sketch using the She's Savvy December kit from Scrapbook Savvy. 2nd is another IB Sketch and the 3rd is using old stuff from a sketch that I can't remember where I found. My photography of the layouts does not really do them much justice.

Happy New Year

What a year 2009 has been, a rollercoaster of change all for the better. Here has what has happened in my world

* Found out I was pregnant.
* Endured the 9 months of bearing a child (there was some whinging involved).
* Gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Ella.
* I grew more in love with my husband every day.
* Had my first extended time off work (3 months) since I was 16.
* Enjoyed many friends company new and old.
* Got fatter (I think it comes with the territory of being pregnant)
* Spent too much money, oh well its only money.

But overall had a great year. I can only imagine what 2010 will bring.

Happy New Year everyone.

Here are a couple of layouts I did recently.