Goodies

These goodies arrived yesterday from Kate at CraftyTart YAY...so I have put all the week of photos in and all the photos up to Wednesday are in there. Off to get some ink next week so I can print out the journalling cards I have done, but still not 100% sure how I'm doing the jounrlalling so no rush for that as long as I keep up to date with it. I feel like I'm getting somewhere with this now that its all in the pages and starting to look like something.

All about Steven

Steven has been a bit funny today and very moody with moods changing without any warning at all. Had his bag packed for his over night stay at carer support house and his yellow hippo(who by the way is called piggy...and do you know how hard it is to remember to call a hippo piggy, I have been growled more than once by Steven). Anyway piggy was sitting on top of his bag as piggy has to go everywhere that Steven goes at the moment. Steven was piggy sitting there by himself and picked him up to take over to sofa to watch TV with him. A few minutes later Steven said that piggy said he wants to watch Steven jump on the tramp, so Steven got this chair for piggy so he could watch him,LOL too cute. So for those of you who have read the book A Friend Like Henry....well our book would be A Friend Like Piggy. For awhile Steven even stopped talking in the afternoons and would only talk to/with piggy it was quite frustrating and I was thinking i might have to get rid of piggy but he has started talking to me again so all is good as long as i remember his name is piggy and not hippo.

Stevens other focus at the moment is the caterpillars and how much they are eating and how big they are getting when they change and waiting for the butterflies to come. I just love this photo of him lying down on the deck watching the caterpillar eat, he said 'its eating lots of food cause he wants to be a beautiful butterfly'. I'm hoping when the butterfly does come out it will be when the boys are home and not at school, or when I'm home at least so I can get photos for them.

WARNING..nail less toe picture follows.....

....LOL, just thought I would give you a warning in case you have sat down to check your blog lines with nice cuppa tea and cake, cause this picture probably put you off eating anything. Anyway while away at his dads Liam's toe nail has finally come of which is great. After months of taping his toe during school time and then at night its good to finally be rid of it. The look of the toe now isn't all that nice I must say but alt least now the new nail has room to grow.

Oh would you look at this mess.....this is the state of the sleep out at the moment. Not good is it although there is a small trail through the middle so you can(believe it or not) get in there. When we moved just over 3 years ago we moved from a big 4 bedroom house, large laundry area, lounge and separate dining area, double garage and nice size section into this small 3 bedroom(well I would say more 2 bedrooms plus an office because the bathroom is bigger than Steven's room, sad ah) house with lounge/kitchen/dining area in total the size of just the lounge at the old house but this place has a sleep out. So anything that didn't fit in the house went straight to the sleep out and there are still boxes there that haven't been unpacked. So how badly do we need all this stuff if it can be in a box for years on end and I don't miss it? Well I have decided that trade me is my friend,LOL and I have managed to have a good fun at the moment with selling stuff on there. So my mission(should I accept it.....LOL) is when the boys go back to school I'm going to get down into that sleep out and get it sorted. At the moment i have a box for trade me items that are listed and a huge box that I need to sort through what I will list and what I will just give away. I have now got some draws down there and I will move all the trade me stuff into these. There are extra toys for the boys that are just too big for the house like the play shopping kitchen you can see in the photo and this will stay in sleep out as the plan is to get the place sorted and set up as extra play area for the boys. I'm guessing this will take a good couple of days but in the long run it will be well worth it and I'm sure the boys will enjoy an extra play area.

Photos

Liam told me he had made breakfast....thoughts of the kitchen being a bombsite went through my head. But what he really meant was that he got the breakfast stuff out ready for me to make the breakfast. It was very nice of him or it was his way of saying can you get out of bed I'm hungry,LOL.

And look what arrived in the post today. I decided that I would be cheaper (and easier) to get all the weeks of for the 365 project printed as photos rather than use my ink and paper. So now I have photos all ready, journalling is up to date on the computer waiting for me to get ink next week and then print them off. So once the pages arrive I will be all set to put everything into them. So tonight I sat down and corner rounded all my photos for the 365 project including the week of ones.......and I have decided there are far to many corners,LOL

Photo shoot at the Exelby's......

......or circus I'm not sure which, lol. For this 365 project there is the front and back page which will just be the 6 photo slot and title page and end page so i thought I would get some nice photos of the boys and I....well easier said than done. Steven at the moment if you ask him to smile for a photo he runs and hides, so i thought oh well lets just make him look like he's happy and having fun. So i handed the camera over to Liam and managed to get hold of Steven and then counted to 3 and pulled his hands away form his face. But as you can see i have no control of his eyes which in most of the photos were closed but that's Steven and this is a record of who we are now ah so it will do. And then at the end of the year i will take more photos of us to add to the back page. I'm really looking forward to getting my pages and being able to put photos and journalling into them rather than having a pile of photos and notes. Anyway I'm off to bed, will be back tomorrow with some photos of a brown bag album I have made.

Its too hot

I cant stand it being so hot. We have all the windows and doors open today just need a nice breeze to go through the house. We will definitely be going for a swim this afternoon.

For those of you doing the 365 project if you visit Becky's blog she has put a link for free download for some of the designs from the kit. So I have already download these and have been busy working on some journalling for the days that have gone by already. Really looking forward to getting the page protectors so I can get the photos and journalling cards put in, then I will feel like I'm getting somewhere with it. So hopefully by the start of next month I will have some layouts to show. A few questions for those of you who are doing this. On your journalling cards are you putting the date and the day of the week in this or just the date? If you are adding the day of the week what are you using for this? Or are you adding your journalling on the computer(like me cause i hate my handwriting and for some day there is a bit of writing I want to add but wont fit it all if I hand write it) and so just adding the date at the top or bottom of your journalling? I have also made a folder on the computer for 365 photos and journalling. And since I either get my photos developed at the chemist or online I will just once a week or fortnight get photos developed, so by having this folder it will be easier to find the photos. As I put the photos into the folder I also name them with the date and day so that when i get then back it will be printed on the back and easy to put them into the page protectors.

So yesterday I have took a couple of photos and not sure which one I will use, but might have to have a play around in photo shop and make two photos the size of one....might see what I can come up with.

Now there is nothing like starting the day with some happy mail....a big thank you to Mandy for the goodies that arrived in my letter box this morning. Liam went and checked the mail and he comes back with package saying "we get mail".....both boys were keen to see what was inside only to say "oh more scrapbooking stuff" once I had opened it,LOL.


And for today's photo I got this one of Steven giving Liam a hug, not often this happens. They were asking each other questions about their new numbers up computer game and Liam got all of his questions right and Steven was so happy with him and gave Liam a hug. Although by the look on Liam's face hes not too excited about this.

todays photo

Okay so I know this is a very boring photo, but this challenge is about day to day life. So what is this photo of well this is 18months worth of legal aid and lawyer letters(plus there is probably just as many in email form which I like better as no trees have to die to get them,LOL....gotta see the funny side of things otherwise life becomes boring and too depressing). So I thought I would add this into this album because this is apart of my life at the moment...and maybe one day soon I will have a photo of the last letter from my lawyer(I cant wait for that day,LOL).

Todays photo

Liam had an appointment at the super clinic for his 6 monthly eye test. His eye is still a bit lazy in that it wont focus on things as they get closer to his face, but as far as his sight goes its great so he has been discharged now. So now I only have to go up every 6 months for Stevens hearing test which is on the 22nd of this month. So i thought i would carry the cmera around with me just in case i wanted to snap a photo of something while im out. So I got a photo of the superclinic building and Liam in the back seat of the car, worried because every time we go they patch his eye again for testing the sight in each eye and he really hates the patching. I dont blame him really for a year he had to have his good eye patched for 4 hours per day to get the bad eye working, but all the effort paid of and his he has great vision in his eye again as before the patching he could hardly see a metre infront of him. I was quite shocked and felt really bad as for a few months before the eye testing they do at kindy he said his eyes were sick and i didnt believe him and thought he was just trying to get some pamol(he loves pamol and most nights he has a sore leg or sore something but it was always at bed time). So sure enough he really did have a sick eye and i felt soo bad for not thinking about his sight.

I love summer

but it was so hot and muggy today and so now I'm looking forward to winter. Summer there is only so many clothes you can take off before you scare people, at least with winter you can always put on another layer,LOL. So after a long hot day the boys and i headed up to the school pool for a swim. I decide to get a key this year so that i can get Liam in the water without having a class full of kids in the pool with him. Already i can see he has gain alot of confidence and is walking around by himself and putting his face under a little bit at a time(I know alot of kids are way beyond these stages but for Liam they are HUGE). We were up at the pool for over an hour and it was so nice, lovely and warm might have to get myself some sunglasses though cause the sun on the water was not so nice. So here is today's picture for my 365 album....Liam crashes after long day big swim and then home for bath and then into bed over an hour after his normal bed time and within 5 minutes he was asleep.

Mum and Tanya

Don't fall over in shock about me posting for the 3rd time in one week will you,LOL.

Well as normal every morning has a routine of getting up turning computer on while that starts up I get the boys and myself breakfast, after breakfast I check my emails. This morning there was a lovely surprise email there for me my old pen pal Jennifer. My first letter I got from her was in 1990 and I still have all the letters which i kept together in a box that I decorated. We wrote to each other for over ten years then started emailing. November 2003 was the last email I got from Jennifer until today. Its so wonderful to be in touch with her again and I look forward to catching up with her about the last few years.


So I have decided that I'm going to do the 365 album this year-thanks MandyB and I have been taking some photos that will fit into the first few days that ihave missed and have a journal to write down notes and bits and pieces so that things are ready for when my protector pages are ready-thanks Kate at CraftyTart so here is one of my photos for this. In the middle of term 4 at school Liam stubbed his toe. He showed me and told me it was sore but he didn't cry and that was that. A week later I noticed the nail was black and not looking that great so took him to the doctors and he had an infection and we were told that the nail would most likely fall off. So it went really black and then it seem to be fine and healing okay. A few days ago however the nail has started to come off and now our nightly routine includes putting this dressing on it so that the nail doesn't get hooked on his sheet and ripped off. Now I'm being nice and just showing the bandaged toe and not bare tow with nail coming off.

Right I'm off now to sit down with a plate of pudding and read through some of these letters from Jennifer. have a good night everyone

Photos

Okay so i know Xmas has come and go and happened last year but here are a few photos from our Xmas day out at my mums place.

Once Steven got this book which is a bit like wheres wally and you have to search for things on each page he was happy to sit by himself for a while.

And Liam who is so good at posing for photos now, lol the joys of having a scrapbooking mum.

The the kids went of with grandad to the beach.

Then once back and with mud and wet clothes the kids all stripped off to their underwear and played under the sprinkler for a little while.


A few days after Xmas we were off to Tauranga for my Grandads 80th birthday. Was a long trip for the kids but they were really good and I took some words search and maze books for the boys to do on the way down and home which kept them happy.
So this is me(Im on the left with the black and white sleeve top) with my sister Tanya and younger brother Phillip and the birthday boy Grandad.

Grandad and his great grandchildren (minus his oldest granddaughter Courtney who was away on holiday).

Lovely photo of my two boys and their cousins Jacqueline and Lucy.

I just love this photo and the big smile Steven can give, he is such a happy boy.

And after a long day we went home and all the kids slept for a big part of the way home.

Still here.....

...so it has been awhile and i was meaning to do one more post for 2008 but didn't get around to it. So not much reading this time just a few photos to share...
I really do love how this layout has come together. it is quite busy for me in that i have used two pattern papers but i think the eye still goes straight to the photos first so its not so busy that the main focus isn't the photos. I'm yet to do the journalling which will be done on tags that will slip behind the photos

At prize giving i got a nice surprise when Liam got a certificate. He has done so well last year at school and was very proud to go up and get his certificate. he also got a video ezy certificate with a voucher for gained water confidence.

This is the album I made for Liam's teacher, who has also left the school which was sad to see her go because she has been a great teacher for the 7months that Liam has had her.


This year we got tickets to go to the Auckland Special Kids Xmas Party form the school. It has been two years since Steven last went and last time he went with his dad so this was the first time i went. What a great day. Steven spend most of his time on the bouncy castles..and was on them for over an hour at one time. Then he got a photo with cookie monster had some lunch and a bit of a sit down watching the performances they had going, then back to the castles before his turn to line up and met Santa and pick some presents. Steven(in red t-shirt) had a ball and although it was very hard to get a good photo of him bouncing i think this one shows that he was enjoying himself.

Well the cake went down a treat, Mrs Frizz no I don't know how old she really is, lol but one of the kids thought she was maybe 43 but i don't know that shes that old. But the good day ended on a bit of a low when Liam's teacher told the class that she was leaving and not teaching at his school next year and she might be moving to Hamilton.......I'm really sad, she is such a great teacher and gives the kids a push when they need it. So the class is having a shared lunch next Tuesday, parents welcome to come, so I might give her her album and lolly/chocolate tree that I have made then. Will see how the week goes.

Whoo hoot Wednesday

Just a short list for me this week even though i know i have missed more than a couple of weeks of doing this.

YAY for getting a good night sleep....Steven was asleep by 9ish(which is great for him at the moment) so that meant i could have an early night and even though at some point in the night Liam climbed into my bed i still managed to get a good night sleep and both the boys slept in till 7.15 this morning....now that's a BIG plus.

Also YAY for the sun being out and there being blue sky today, I have got the sheets out on the line finally.


Liam and i baked a cake last night got his teachers birthday today...he decorated it with green icing and LOTS of 100's and 1000's and then pebbles around the edge and he wanted to put her age on it so I asked him how old he thought she was and he said 22....so 22 went onto the cake....his teacher was over the moon with the cake and the fact that she is only 22,LOL. And they funny thing was that all the kids in the class believed that she was 22 and they were all amazed that she was younger than their parents. Kids are so funny sometimes. So I stayed at school for a bit to get a photo of Liam's class for his teachers mini album that I'm doing so will get those photos developed and then that will be my weekend project. Also very sad that she wont be back next year so the class will be having a shared lunch next week.

photo time

Each year the kids do art work to be made into a calendar (if you choose to) here are the boys artwork they did this year.
First is Stevens....I really think he was having a bad day when he did his as his first year at school and last years artwork had so much more detail than what he has done here. Also his class didn't use pastels and dye which i think looks alot better.

Here's is Liam's artwork.I love how much detail he put on this, when you see his sketch of the picture its just stick figures and some waves to show the water, but this he even put his glasses on him and did spiky hair for himself.

Okay here is the finished inside of Stevens teachers album, I just love the rub on i used on the left hand side, just finished that page of nicely I thought

And a close up on Stevens writing which i got copied and added to the album

And the back page....and i had to have a giggle at what Steven wrote because hes such a Wheres Wally fan and relates everything to that at the moment. So when I saw he added Where am I? to his writing i thought it was very funny.


Well thats all from me, off to get some dinner sorted and then early night for all tonight.

Its been awhile.....

......since my last post and its now 11.25pm Sunday night and I cant sleep so here I am blogging listening to music on you tube. Okay this may turn into a really long boring post so feel free to stop reading now and just look at the photos instead,LOL....you have been warned. Things are so busy and rushed at the moment and yet some things seem to stand still with no change to them at all. I want to move forwards with my life and stop reliving the past and yet there are so many things that remind me of the last year. There were so many things that have happend many I dont often talk about some i dont want to talk about.I have had many weeks now with broken sleep(and yes i know the obys are both sleeping and i should be making the most of it, but its too hot and i have so much going on in my head at the moment)and i think if you lack sleep everything else seems to suffer. Steven has had a few bad days at school where he has been up at 2.30am and not gone back to sleep then tried to get out of going to school becasue he is tired. The teacher had noticed that he shakes his head alot more some days than others(Steven slowly shakes head as if saying no when he is tired or stressed..its like a stress reflief for him or stimming as its called)but most days he seems to cope with being up early a full on day at school and then going to sleep late. I guess it will all catch up with him at some stage.

A few weeks ago Liam got this cerficate in school assembly and hes so funny because the first time he got one he didnt waant to get up infront of the whole school but now he pretty mych runs up to get it and holds it up and then gives me the thumbs up and big smile. He also got antoher one last Friday for having water courage.....YAY for Liam. He is doing so well at school and im very proud of both him and Steven. So I hace been going up to school with Liam during his class swimming time and the water is so lovely, ashame they only have 20 minutes in the water I could stayin there all day which is saying something because Im not much of a water person.

Here is the finshed survival kit for Stevens teacher. I really do love how it looks and almost dont want to give it away. I showed Stevens old ESW(Educational Support Worker) the kit and she asked if Steven would like to go back to kindy for a term so that when he leaves I can make her one,LOL. But I thought what i might do is make her one next year as she is now our carer support person and Steven goes to her house every monday for the night after school.

One of the things on the teachers survival kit list was 'A girft- to remind you that your students are a gift to you and you are a gift to them'....so this is her gift that I have made. Just a fold out Kaisercraft album for her to remember Steven and the great year he had in her class.


So I went up to school and got a class photo and one of just Steven and his teacher and told her I need them for his school scrapbook album...and I have put them into this album to give to her in a weeks time. Also a week ago she showed me some wriiting Steven had done ast school when they were asked to write aobut their year at school he wrote the following (I tired to scan when he had written but blogger wouldnt let me up load it so i will jsut retype it as he has written it)...'In room 6 I like computer time, battleship, easy homework and numbers up. I love Mrs Carpenter because I like you. I get better at writing and handwriting. I play outside is tag with Evan.'
Again I just love that first he is expressing his feelings/emotions about and to someone, and it was funny she was telling me when he handed his book in he asked her not to read it till he was outside playing and i swear when she showed it to me i had tears in my eyes it was just he sweetest thing he has written. And I love Stevens honesty....Im am very sure he goes to school knowing he will get his computer time once he does his school work, he will only willingly do homework if it is easy, if there is any chance he feels he may get the work wrong then we have a fight on our hands with that homework. Numbers up is a computer game that he loves and gets to play when he gets his school work done. He has gotten so much better with his writing, he still struggles but at the start of the year he was hardly writing a sentence that made sense, but now on good days he will write a whole page and it makes sense too. His hand writing has also improved so much in the last 6 months..he is doing so welll and im somewhat scared of what next year will bring. I feel we will be back at square one if he has a different teacher. I will be finding out this week who his teacher is so I have time to say yes I think they will be fine or no way.....LOL i have become very good at voicing my opinion when it comes to Steven and the school and even Liam with the swimming.

Look what new brand the warehouse have got...and these stamp packs were only $5 each which I thought was a great price for clear stamps. The border set were from spotlight and I thought I could use them a bit on cards. The warehouse is getting in some really good scrapbooking stuff now.

A few weeks ago when shopping with mum and my sister tanya this little guy came home with me...I thought he was so cute and just had to bring him home to add to my growing collection of snowmen.

And here are just a few snowmen...I counted 62 here and there are a few more in the main xmas tree as well.....snowmen are my Christmas addiction,LOL.


The boys and I made these little gift bags for their friends. At first Steven said he doesnt have any friends(which made me sad) but then he was trying to write down the whole class so i told him he could have ten giftbags to give to his friends. So off he went with his list of names and cards and started writing. i really thoguht he would have given up after a couple of cards but he kept going and even put his teachers name down on the list. And he was so funny when he handed them out, his teacher had the class sit in a circle and he sat on chair next to her in fornt of the class. She asked him why he was giving something out to everyone and Steven replied with 'I have no idea'(and just imagine him with his hands up in the air when he said this,LOL) his teacher and I just started laughing it was so funny. And so he called out his friends names and they came adn got the bags and he said merry christmas to each of his friends and then he got to his teachers one and let out a little giggle and said there even one for you,LOL..........I tell you this boy makes me laugh so much. He is such a happy carefree child and does amazingly well with all the struggles he has to deal with in every day life.

I have been doing a little bit of creating and finsihed of my advent tree, not sure that I 100% like the brightness of the red numbers and may change them for next year but for now they will do.



PS when reading this remember that it was late at night so im sorry for the mistakes, blogger spell check sint working and im too lazy to go through and proof read.....I hope it all makes sense....nite nite of to be now to see if I can sleep.