Liams eyes

Liam had his superclinic appointment this morning to check his eye and see if he needs a new lens. And his eyes are great he is seeing a line more further down the chart than last time, so thats really good news. We were given a new script for his glasses also but were told that we dont need to get it done unless he breaks his glasses as the one he has now is okay and wont do any harm. So he has to continue with wearing his glasses till he is 9years old all the time and then his eyes should be fine that he gets to choose when he needs the glasses. So all in all it was a good visit. Liam had to have drops put into his eyes to dilate the pupils, and I just had to get a photo of Liam the possum. But silly me I forgot to take his sunglasses up with us and when we came out the sun was out and it was far too bright for him. But I had his sun hat in the car so he wore that all the way home hiding under it like in the second photo, I did feel really bad for him. Once home he asked for the curtains to be closed so its a bit like a cave here today,LOL.

My take on the Fortnightly challenge over at SE, really enjoyed doing this one and love the end result.

Friday night challenge

Here is my layout for the Friday night challenge which was to do a school themed page of either yourself or your child. It was a good challenge to get me motivated to scrapb these photos of Steven from Athletics last year. Another simple layout but I do love this one and its not a circle layout....how amazing is that,LOL.

Here are a few of the pages from the Lunchpail tin that I did for my mother-in-law who is over from america at the moment. I'm just showing the ones of my boys as Im not sure that the cousins want to be all over the internet.





The boys arrived home last night and it was great to see them again. They had lots of fun while they were away. I think Steven was happy to be backt he most and kept saying 'Im glad we are home mum' and he was giving lots of cuddles which is so unlike him. They both had a really good sleep when they finally went to sleep and even let me have a sleep in. Liam climbed into my bed at some stage during the night, not sure when but I woke up to him next to me. Not much else has happend other than I had a nice break to recharge my batteries for this last week of holidays which so far is filled with lots of appointments and meetings. Hope everyones enjoying their holidays, we are but also looking forward to the routine of school again.

A few more layouts

A few layouts I did last night. I still love the circle layouts and love this photo of Steven and I do think the layout needs something else but I'm just not sure what and where it needs it. I love the train layout of Liam too and the train felt I got from a swap over at SE. I am trying to get back into doing double layouts because they do look nice in albums when its a double layout.




The boys went away yesterday morning with their dad and wont be back till Saturday 4pm. I just know the week will fly by I have been up most of the night with really bad tooth ache and am off to the dentist tomorrow to get that sorted so will have Thursday at home and then Friday I'm off to visit a friend for the day and share some of my scrapbooking albums with her. She is just getting started and wants to have a look through my albums to get some ideas. I also have a pile of magazines that I will take out for her that she can have. And then Saturday I will spend the day at home getting some more scrapbooking done before the boys come home. Next week I want to take them to the park with a friend and her girls(if the weather allows us too) and then if I'm brave enough to take them the movies by myself. Next Tuesday Liam has a superclinic appointment for his eyes. Its a horrible appointment cause he needs drops put in his eyes to make his pupils dilate. So that is just to check his glasses lens to see if he is needing a new one or not since its now been over a year since he got his glasses.

And on that note I'm going to head off to my scrapbooking room since the weather outside is not very nice, but I don't have kids here so I don't really need an excuse to scrapbook do I.

Friday Night Chanllenge and other bits

Okay here is my take on the Friday night challenge over at SE. It was a very last minute layout for me but I do like the end result and I have had these photos sitting waiting for me to do something with them for ages.

For a nice change the weather was lovely today and not too cold so the boys were out on the trampoline for some time today.

Tonight the boys and I had some visitors so I thought I would take some photos of everyone.
Cody finally fast asleep....aren't they cute when they sleep

Liam who is sleeping in my room tonight so Tanya can sleep in his bedroom with Cody. But Liam like the floor better than the bed and when I went to go and do my Friday night layout there he was asleep on the floor next to my scrapbooking desk,lol.

And Steven sleeping with his fish that we got from the school gala day a few weeks, he takes this to bed with him every night.

And a toothless grin from Steven now that both of his front top teeth are out.

I'm all set for the cold winter nights/days to hit us now with my lovely big pile of wood that the boys helped me to stack. And I'm being good and waiting for the days to get a bit cooler before I start to light fire.

BOM Challenge layouts

Here are a couple of pages that I have been working on for my BOM album over at SE.
All about school

Favourite season-this photo was actually taken in america, New Hampshire when we were over there a few years ago, but I just love the colour in the trees and thought it would be perfect for this layout.

And some other layouts that I have had sitting around so I finally finished them off
Liam and some odd photos I had of him at kindy

And this one I found that I had done a while ago of me which i will add to my BOM album

New stamps

Look what arrived in the mail today, my stamps that I got of good old Trade me-gotta love that place,LOL. I'm hoping the journaling stamps will give me a bit more inspiration to A)Do jounaling a bit more and B)do journaling in my own hand writing instead of using the printer, see how we go with that.

Been a bit of a cold weekend and then I wake up this morning and there is rain and lots of it I guess the walking up to school days have gone now that winter is keen to be here. Its not as cold today with the rain as it was over the weekend. I must get some presents finished this week too for the in-laws who are over form America next Monday they fly in. The boys are spending pretty much the first week of the holiday with their dad. And it will be interesting to see how they react to seeing Nana and Poppa Exelby. From memory the last time Steven saw Poppa was when Liam was born and that was just over 5years ago now. They have both seen Nana since then and Liam was 9months old when we first went over there and then Nana came over when Liam was about 16months old so that was last time they saw Nana.........so it has been awhile. But we have photos of them and talk bout them all the time so they should be fine once they are over their 5 seconds of being shy,LOL.

Friday night challenge

The Friday night challenge over at SE this week was to use brads, paint, chipboard and a border of some sort. The heart is chipboard and painted and the flowers are felt and also painted, the flowers have brads in the middle of them and my swirl border.


Thanks for all the kind comments about tough love with Steven and getting his homework done. Lets hope that he is going to have another good week next week and then next term will just follow on as it has been the last week.

What a week

Yay its Friday finally. The boys have gone off to their dads for the night and I had plans to scrapbook but dont know if I can be bothered now, might just blob on the sofa I think. Steven started the week at school being some what stubbonr refusing to do any work. So had talk with teacher and on Tuesday he has his work form the day that he didnt do and had to do it at home. So it was time for some tough love, we got home and Liam went into my room to watch tv(which they get to do for an hour when they get home from school) and Steven was told no tv till he did his work. Teacher said to get him to do as much as I could ge thim to do but if it was jsut the first question then thats fine. And so the battle begins with Steven not wanting to do the work his reasons being, he didnt have time to do it, he cant remember what to write and then the best for last he didnt want to do it,LOL. Nice try Steven but didnt work, so then he trying to play some games and ask if he could use the computer. Anyway after about 30 minutes of screaming going to his room slaming doors and then finally jsut coming out of his room and sitting down and doing the work it was all done. I must admit this was not fun but th result fo it was good. Wednesday after school I went and talked with his teacher again to see how his day went, she said he did all work that was asked of him and once he did some work he got to read one of the I spy books(which is one of his addictions at the moment)or he could draw a maze he got this time for bout 5 mintues then he had to move on and do enxt lot of work. So we think the having to do extra homework was not fun for him and he had finally decided to work at school. Since Wednesday he has been doing really well at school.

Liam......such a keen learner and so much easier to do homework with. His teacher is really happy with his learning and how keen he is with his spelling and maths. He had today of as he had viist to the dental nurse and had to have his mouth numbed as he had a hole, he was very brave and did so well but sadly he now has fat lip, I think he may have bitten it and now it not looking very nice but went to the chemist and got some cream to put on it.

My take on the fortnightly sketch challenge over at SE.

A weekend of scrapbooking

Today seems to just go on and on. The boys have been really good playing nicely together today. At the moment they are on the sofa looking at the I Spy books trying to find each object first. yesterday I was in Hamilton at my cousins 21st birthday so I didn't get alot of scrapbooking done during the day but had a bit of a late night and finished the rest of my Friday night challenge done for SE, which was to do an of the page project.
Liams mini coaster album, all the pages together.

I really like the end result with the edges sanded and just using a cut out photo and foam tape under the top part of the photo just to give it a bit of a 3D look.



The other of the page project that I have been working on is a tin each for the boys. The idea came from an autism newsletter that I got via email. The basic idea was from ways to cope with your autistic child(but of course the idea is great for any child) and it was something to make you smile on the hard days. So it was that when ever your child said a new word or said something funny write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a shoe box, then when things are really bad or your having a bad day then you can sit down with the shoe box and read all the funny/good things you have written about your child. So I thought I don't really want a shoe box and had these tins from some Maya Road stuff I had got, so I painted them up and put the boys names on them and then made some small cards with a bit of doodling on them inked the edges and put some in each of their tins. When ever the boys say something funny or just something I want to remember I can get their tins out and write it down. I went through my diary as there were a few things in there that I had written down. I hope it all makes sense.


We went over tot he warehouse this morning and I found this box which was less than half price and thought it would be perfect for all my foam stamps to go into, not too sure if I really like the butterflies but it will do for now.


Steven lost a tooth yesterday while he was at his Dad's. I asked Steven if it came out while he was eating he said no I wiggle and wiggle it and it just popped out, LOL.

Steven and school

Had a talk with Steven's teacher this morning as he has not been bringing any homework home for over a week now. So had a good long talk with her and it seems that Steven has become very stubborn at school. He has been refusing to do any work in his exercise books and will only do drawings when giving a piece of newsprint to work on. Even when he gets his two days of teacher aide time he won't do his work. I know he can do it and it annoys me that he is so stubborn and just flat out refuses to do anything. Once he has it in his head that he is not going to do something it is very hard to make him change his mind. So his teacher is going to send some work home with him tonight for his homework if he doesn't get it done in class today. She said she hasn't done this yet because she knows I have enough to deal at home with him at the moment, which I thought was nice of her but I would like to get Steven into doing his work and so if it means a bit more after school work then that is what he will have to do. Both his teacher and I agree that he has alot of knowledge and understanding of things up there in his head its just a matter of getting him to use it and put it on paper or telling use what he knows. Another thing I noticed about Steven when we drive to school in the mornings he is a real chatter box at home and in the car but as soon as we get through those school gates he stops talking, he will only nod or shake his head or give you a smile but he wont talk.....funny I thought.

Stevens latest addiction is I Spy books. Which is great to use as a motivator for him but yesterday I went to the local library and got a couple of these books out for him and he went to bed quite late last night because he wanted to read them but I told him they will still be here in the morning and he can read them when he gets up. So today started at 4am when Steven thought it was a good idea to get up and read the I spy books. I also had Liam climb into my bed at some stage during the night and he gave me a hell of a fright when I rolled over to find him in my bed,LOL. I thought I had gotten him out of this habit of getting into my bed but I guess not. Might have to work on that although its a bit hard if he climbs into my bed and I not notice till the morning. Maybe I need to give his a reward chart for sleeping in his own bed.

A couple of layouts that I started yesterday. I really love how this one turned out the colours and the simple layout. The hearts are not stuck down yet as I quite like the raw chipboard but wonder if red would look better, so I have this layout on my desk waiting for me to decide what I think would look best. I was also going to add some journalling but again I think I prefer the layout as it is.

Okay first the l moved and I didn't notice it till after I had uploaded the photo. I love both of these photos. And when they are together it shows how much Liam really has grown during his time at kindy. I'm yet to add journalling but need more ink for the printer before I can do that. This layout is scraplift from a magazine and when I started doing it I really liked it but I not too sure now, maybe once there is some journalling on it I will like it more. The 1 and words at, and are from the grungeboard that I got the other day. I would like to get some more of this maybe some of the swirls or alphabet, but I notice SE has run out of the swirls of it already.


The finished dolls house with carpet and lino. The teachers loved it and now are thinking they will have to get some new dolls as the other ones look really old now they have a flash new house to live in,LOL. Liam asked me why we were taking own doll house back to kindy,LOL.....I told him it wasn't our doll house and that I was just making it look nicer for the kindy kids. Sorry its not a very good photo.


Right I think I need 30 minutes nap on the sofa and then get started on some baking and more scrapbooking

Life is...

Life is an opportunity, benefit it
Life is beauty, admire it
Life is bliss, taste it
Life is a dream, realize it
Life is a challenge, meet it
Life is a duty, complete it
Life is a game, play it
Life is a promise, fulfull it
Life is a sorrow, overcome it
Life is a song, sing it
Life is a struggle, accept it
Life is a tragedy, confront it
Life is an adventure, dare it
Life is luck, make it
Life is too precious, do not destroy it
Life is life, fight for it