Wow it was a stinker here in the ACT over the weekend. I think it was everywhere 🙂

Holly’s party was a great success. She is now officially 5 years old! The jumping caslte was great, but the red faces of the kids as they came off suggested that 36 degrees + small comfined space with high energy jumping is probably not a great combination. Nonetheless, it was lots of fun.

Justin scolded me for even suggesting that the party would not have other games, so he raced out on Saturday morning for pass-the-parcel prizes. Here is a pic of the kids holding up what they got…
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Holly’s cake was a great acheivement for me – a Pinata cake. A cake underneath a dome of chocolate. Holly had to smash the chocolate dome (with my Makin’ Memories Hammer) to reveal the cake and smarties and lollies spilled out. Awesome. This is her having a bash at it.
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In the 20 years that I have known Rach, she has never been one for having her photo taken – I know, so gorgeous and yet so shy!!! Here is one of her and I that Justin took that doesn’t have Rach’s hand over the lens, or one of the back of her head, or giving the bird!! LOL 😉 Aren’t we GORGEOUS with that sheen of sweat over our faces from being so dam hot!!!
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I guess the best news of the weekend is that we finally bought a new TV. Our current one has been Black and White/tunnel vision for the past 9 weeks and driving us insane. Justin has been researching the topic of Plasma’s like he has been studying for a major exam and last night pressed the BUY button for one on Ebay. Can’t wait to get a look at it – 2 to 10 working days. Hurry up!

We picked up Meggie’s new “Barbie” glasses today. She was very excited and put them on so proudly. She wore them out of the shop, but was walking so gingerly, like the ground was moving underneath her and she couldn’t get her footing, that we had to take them off till we got home. I remember the same sensation when I wore new glasses. Everything seemed a bit circluar I guess becase of the way the glasses kind of wrap around your face. Anyway, this is her looking so Fabbo in the new specs.
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We are preparing for Holly’s 5th Birthday party tomorrow. Cake is cooking away merrily in the oven, the party loot bags for home time are already done and tomorrow the jumping castle arrives at 10.30am. It is all the rage here to have “Entertainment” at your child’s party, so I gave in to the pressure and ordered a castle. The rest of the party is very low-key, not a pass-the-parcel or musical chairs in sight! Rach and Moi are coming with their kids (well half of their respective children each) as well as 6 hypo 5 year olds from Holly’s preschool. Can’t wait for tomorrow….to be over!! LOL

I also got my January Tarisota collection today in the mail. Yummo – can’t wait to do some scrappin’ . And to top it off Rach gave me a Xyron. I’m in heaven and can’t wait to givve it a go.

Holly and I were discussing the way dinosaurs ate rocks to help digest their food. She was explaining to me that food went down their throats, into their tummy’s and then “into a place, I think it’s called…..the Internet” – she meant the Intestines!!!

Yesterday she asked me if I were going to watch “Mould and the Beautiful”!

I was visiting Rach yesterday and Zara told me that she thought her mum was the best scrapbooker in the world. I’d heard this story from Rach’s blog so I was nodding my head agreeing with her and then she added that she thought I was the second best scrapbooker! Ahhhh, Bless her heart 🙂

Rachie, bless her heart, has tagged me with this list of topics. Here we go………………

Four jobs you have had in your life
1. Shop Assistant – in my uncle’s Shoe Shop. In effect it paid my way through Uni.
2. Waitress – for ‘functions’ at a Big Club in Canberra
3. Audiologist – 7 years at Australian Hearing Services
4. Accounts/Admin Services – for our own business (current) – I’m the MYOB queen!

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over
1. Die Hard
2. Groundhog Day
3. My Best Friend’s Wedding
4. Something about Mary

Four Places You Have Lived
1. With Mum and Dad – Canberra
2. With Flatmates – Sydney
3. With 2 good friends – Canberra
4. With Justin and the kids- Canberra.
Yeah, I’m with you Rach – not one for venturing past the garden gate!!

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch
1. 24
2. Lost
3. Desperate Housewives
4.Spicks and Specks

Four Places You Have Been On Vacation
1. New Zealand
2. Tasmania
3. Alice Springs
4. Margaret River
I Like to suppport Aussie tourist industry (well, not from choice, I’ve just never been able to get O/S, sad)

Four Websites You Visit Daily
1. Blogs of my nearest and dearest
2. Allhomes.com.au – to see if any good houses are for sale
3. St George Internet banking
4. My Little Pony (that one is Holly’s but I have to get it up for her so in effect I am visiting it!)

Four Of Your Favorite Foods
1. Slow Cooked Lamb Shanks
2. Chocolate self saucing pudding
3. Lemon Delicious Pudding
4. condensed milk – straight from the can 🙂

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now
1. Shopping
2. Buying a fancy new car
3. having dinner at a glitzy restaurant
4. getting a massage

Four Bloggers You Are Tagging
Well I can’t tag anyone else as this one has used up my pool of available bloggers, SO I am challenging these 4 people to write a limerick on their blogs about their husbands!!! HEHEHEHEHE (I’ll do it too, just cause I think it is funny)
1. Rachie
2. Moi
3. Linda
4. Regina

Can’t wait to see how well you girls can rhyme!!

The littlest brother got married on Saturday. He’ll always be the baby brother, but being 28 I guess to others he is quite mature!!!

So the entire family gathered in Manly on the weekend to see James marry his totally gorgeous fiancee Sascha. It was very hot, but so wonderful to see my Mum and Dad so happy for their youngest child, and absolutly fantastic to see lots of my aunts, uncles, cousins etc and have a chance to party with them all. This photo is of my parents, brothers and sisters, and from L to R is Me, Dad, Mum, James, Sascha, Lisa, Kate and Matt.

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Now Awhile ago, I posted that Rach had taken me shopping and helped me buy a most fabulous dress. Well I have a confession to make…I took it back! Ahhhhh, I know I know, but I just wasn’t 100% comfortable in it. Anyhoo, in Perth I found THE dress that I had been waiting for. I fell in love with it and just had to get it. So here is a rather bad photo of me in my favourite dress that many were asking to see!!!
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Please disregard me in the photo as I was dancing to “It’s Raining Men” and in the history of mankind there has never been a good photo taken of anyone while dancing!! 🙂

On the way home from the reception, which was at a function centre right on the beach, it was pouring, so here I am with my aunties “absolutely soaking wet”.
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Great night and a great celebration. I was very proud of my brother and I dearly love my new Sister. I hope she feels very welcome in our family.

I also have to say a big “Happy 60th Birthday” to my Dad. Hope you have a great day Dad. Love you lots!

Rach has started her Box Challenge, so I better get cracking and see what I can come up with. and I also have to do the Tag! I’ll get onto that ASAP.

Have a great day:)

I have just had Meg at the mall looking for her new glasses. Why oh why is it that all the shop assistants I came into contact with looked like they were 16 years old and new about as much about the product as a work Expericence kid.

I was in the empty glasses shop for 10 good minutes before I was forced to ask for some help. I wanted their advice about shape, style and colour (Meg has red hair and pink glasses don’t look so hot!), but when the assistant took a pair off the shelf and handed them to Megto put on herself, I had no confidence in her ability to advise me at all. When I was a small child being fitted for glasses, the guy always put them on me, checked their appropriateness and had other suggestions. This kid today looked to me for guidance and to tell you the truth I really didn’t want to buy them there because as the “experts” I sure didn’t geel like I was getting any expertise.

Anyway, we ended up with the Barbie frames, Meggie loves them to bits, and we can pick them up in a week 🙂

I read Moi’s blog entry commenting that if you write controversial topics you will have lots of hits. I certainly feel the pressure to be funny and witty and knowledgeable and topical, and yet that is not why I even started this blog. It was supposed to be about me and my life, a way I could openly express myself and keep my friends and family abreast of what we are doing. Scrapbooking is my hobby and not the be all and end all of my life, so it is not something I want to write about all the time. I rarely visit the forums and websites but that is obviously where all the action is happening!

I thought about this a lot last night, wondering how I could get away from the feelings of inadequacy because I don’t get 10 comments on each entry, don’t get tagged for every thing going around or know lots of blogging people or don’t have particularly much that is rivetting to write about. It is difficult to keep writing for an audience – if I wanted to do that I would have been a journalist, something I am clearly not very good at! I don’t want to feel this way anymore, so it is back to basics for me. Back to my family, back to enjoying my hobby and doing it the way I want (without feeling that I have to make masterpeices out of each LO, or use the latest embellishments and paper) and back to making the most of my friendships and family time. I guess that is like a bunch a New Year Intentions. To find the confidence to be happy within myself and not worry about what I think others might be thinking! I do that all the time – change my behaviour because of what I am percieveing others want me to be. In all probability they are not thinking anything about me at all!! Bad habbit that I really want to break 🙂

So 11 days into this new year I am finding new personal strength. I’m going to make things happen this year that I spent last year dreaming about, and I am going to do it with my head held high.