Christmas Holiday in Brisbane

We arrived on Tuesday, which also happened to be Corrinna & Colin’s 8th wedding anniversary, so our first grandparent role was to babysit whilst they went out to dinner. We had already arranged that before and they were rather looking forward to a meal out on their own. Liam & Isabella are really easy to babysit at night. Liam usually goes to bed around 6:30pm and settles down straight away until the early hours of the morning and Isabella goes at 7/7:30. She has a book read to her, then her monkey clock needs to have his eyes shut (the eyes open at 7:30 and she knows that she cannot get out of bed until the monkey is awake), he then gets a goodnight kiss, a picture of her best friend Noah gets a kiss, I get a kiss and just lay down with her for a minute, then a tuck in and off to sleep she goes.

The children have both grown in the month I since I was here last. Bella now talks non-stop and Liam is crawling all over the place.

Manfred and I went to Brisbane on the train on Friday and then on Friday evening we all went to Movie World to see a “White Christmas” show. Bella had a great time and even Liam thought the colours and music was wonderful.

Patiently waiting in line

Liam waiting for show to start

What a crowd

The wonder of it all

Hanging on tight for the best view

So much to see, where do I look next

Oh WoW

Wide awake in wonder

Train ride with daddy

Me & Daddy

Flying in the Tweetie Cage

Snowy mountain float

Mr Snowman

Tweety Bird

Santa on his sleigh

Santa bunny

One last look........

Long Week

It's the end of a long week. Haven't had time to do any digi scrapping. Have been working almost every day and am not used to it anymore. It's nice for a few days, and the money sure comes in handy, however, am looking forward to going back to normal in a week as our new Office Assistant starts on Monday.

This week my sister, Maria, went into hospital for her first lot of "Chemo". She has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma, which has come as a real shock. My younger brother, John, was diagnosed with this many years ago and he is currently in remission. We are praying that Maria also will have successful treatment and be able to look forward to being cured in the future. In the meantime we know that our future is in God's hands and he will sustain Maria & James, Amanda & Erin in this time of uncertainty.

We also had a celebration in the family this week. Cameron (second oldest grandchild and son of Lee-Anne & Michael) graduated from high school and the ceremony was last night. I was very proud of Cam, he was one of the advanced students and the first to be presented with his graduation certificate. He also received an award in Computing. This is the area he has chosen to study and hopes to enter UWA next year in one of the computing courses. So far his marks have been very good and I am sure he will make the grade.

Digi Scrap - Scripture Challenge

One of my Digi Scrap sites (http://www.scrapbook-elements.com/sbe/) has a weekly Scripture Challenge where the co-ordinator (Rina Kroes) creates a beautiful piece of word art using a bible text. The challenge is to create a scrap page or Scripture card using this word art. I have entered the last two weeks and produced the following pages:

I really enjoyed creating these and will try to do one each week.

Phew!! Not used to this full time working anymore.

This week has been a very hectic one for me. I have been working everyday and probably will do so for another week or so. Normally I do 1 day in Osborne Park at a Shower Screen Wholesaler and then the next day in West Perth at a HR Consulting company. I really enjoy the two days, the work is bookkeeping which is the same wherever you work, but the programs and what is required is quite different. I am in at West Perth the extra days while getting an understanding of the Executive Assistant/Receptionist function in order to be available as back and all to train a new employee. Am also testing the written manuals and updating these where required. Am learning the ins and outs of two more computer programs that relate to Time Billing and Record Management. I just love learning new things and this is very good brain food.

Only thing is that I am rather tired earlier in the evening so am not staying up past midnight as I have been accustomed to doing, and also do not have time for digital scrapbooking until the weekend. Whilst I am enjoying the challenge I realise that I would not want to go back to full time work on a permanent basis, two or three days a week suits me fine.

International Digital Scrapbooking Day

Today was International Digital Scrapbooking Day and I had a great time entering 2 speed scraps and a game of Bingo (which is still going) at Digiridoo Scraps. Learnt a few new techniques in Photoshop and earnt some great prizes along the way. We had to design our own Bingo Card and enter words from a supplied list on all the squares except the centre one. Words are being "called" every 1/2 hour in the Forum and the first person to fill all squares wins. I have 5 squares left to fill in and should be in bed (was there but couldn't sleep, sore throat and lots of coughing) so am up again for a while, so maybe I still have a chance. My card is as follows:
I used a kit called Coffee & Cream created by Wilma from Digiridoo Scraps. I love the vintage look of the papers and elements. I used a font called "Mutlu" which is an old fashioned font where the lower case "s" looks like an "f". This went well with the vintage feel. My first Speed Scrap was fortnuately relatively easy. Following are the instructions given in 10min intervals, then you have an hour to finish the page (2hrs in total):

1. Choose a background paper that is solid or has a very subtle pattern. Textured is fine too. Easy...huh?! You'll have time to grab a snack and a drink before the next instruction is posted!
2. Choose a complementary patterned paper. You'll want to choose one with an all over pattern.
3. Choose a word you want to scrap about...yup, just one word...choose a bold font and cut the word out of the patterned paper making it as big as possible to fill up most of your page.
4. Choose a photo to complement the word you chose. Make it black and white and blend it into the background paper.
5. Choose at least 10 elements to tuck around and/or weave through the word you cut from the patterned paper. Include at least one ribbon or string as part of the ten elements.
6. Add element to highlight the blended photo in some way.
7. That's it! Add drop shadows and journaling (optional).
   

Here is my finished page:


Speed Scrap No 2 was a wee bit harder:

Step 1. Choose one plain paper for your background – texture is fine, shading is fine, but no pattern.
Step 2 – Choose one photo and place it on the left side of the page, top or bottom, your choice. Apply any actions you would like.
Step 3 – Use a frame to frame your photo.
Step 4 – Use at least 5, but no more than 10 strips of paper under your photo – vary the sizes and lengths and use a combination of patterned and plain papers.
Step 5 – Place an element on the top left corner of your frame. Use up to five other elements anywhere else on your page. One of these must be a fastener (ie staple, pin, clip, etc).
Step 6 - Place your title, quote or a sentence or two of journaling in the bottom right corner.
Step7 – Date, add your shadows and upload to the gallery!!!

Here's my Layout:
And it features Isabella again. Will have to go through my pictures and do some pages on my other darling granddaughter, Dannielle, next.

Time for Me

Tonight I actually took time out to do a Scrap Challenge on Digidiroo Scraps. I did the Quote Challenge and this is the result:

This is just one of a heap of pictures I took on the day Corrinna, Colin, Isabella, Liam and I went to Australia Zoo.

Am hoping to get more layouts done over the next few months. I'm going to try to do at least one a week. Now I'll update the walk blog for Manfred & David. Not much to report as I haven't heard anything from them for a few days tho!

Visiting Friends

Manfred & I are visiting friends in NSW for a few days. We arrived on Friday morning after catching the plane at 11pm on Thursday night. I don't like plane travel much at all because I get uncomfortable and my legs and feet start to bother me. Manfred managed to snooze off and on but I stayed awake for the whole journey. We had an hour and a half stop over in Melbourne, for which we were both very thankful. We could stretch our legs, have a decent cup of coffee and a bite to eat. There was a Krispy Kreme donut store just opening and of course I could not walk past it without buying at least one donut.

Noel & Jan (Weeks) kindly picked us up at the airport and have made us very welcome in their home in Heathcote. We are staying with them for the few days we are here. Our visit is not intended to be a busy sight seeing tour, but an opportunity to spend time talking and sharing and seeking God's love in our lives.

We will be here until Wednesday morning at which time Manfred will fly home and I will continue on to Queensland to visit Corrinna, Colin, Isabella & Liam, who moved there earlier this month. Colin is working on a contract in Qld for about 18mths, so the family have moved for that time. They will be moving into a rental home on 20th Oct so I will be staying to help with the move. Mainly to mind the little ones while Connie unpacks. This will be most enjoyable for me. I love Bella & Liam to bits and will really miss seeing them every week. We are so thankful for Skype. It means we can speak to and see each other on a regular basis so we in the west will be able to see them growing up. Liam at 6mths will be changing the most and we want to be able to share some of these changes.

Lee-Anne made a gorgeous gift of home made soy candles in 4 little tins, which she also decorated and a box container to carry them in, plus a beautiful card to give to our hosts. You can see these on her blog using the following link:

http://www.leeannebarry.com/2010/10/08/a-little-bit-of-monochromatic/