NZ NELSON

Interesting title, eh?  I’ve just recently finished a few things for the Craft Spot and wanted to share.  I am holding an crop up there on Sunday from 10-4 so thought the ladies would enjoy having something interesting to look at

I have had so many ideas in my head lately that I’m starting to scare myself.  There was a day probably over a year ago where I hated doing anything off the page and forget coming up with something on my own!  The easel was something I had been hanging out to do.  I just revamped the girls’ old one which was destined for the rubbish!  Of course I had to get some blackboard paint to recover those areas.  I also had fun going to Mitre 10 and picking out paint for the frame.  Then using stamps to decorate it up!  And I had HEAPS of fun doing the magnets.  I could have gone on forever lol.  Great fun and perfect for gifts

I have been hanging out to do one of these for a long while.  And while I was at the Warehouse last week I saw small clocks marked down to $1.50 so I bought 5 lol.  Figured it couldn’t go too wrong, right???  And it didn’t!!!!  Love love love this clock!  It’s not keeping time but I think that is because a couple of things are getting in the way of the hands.  I’m very happy with this and will definitely be doing more!  I have to now since I have 4 others lol.  For those of you that have altered clocks, do you put the plastic cover back on?  I want to protect it but it also dulls and clouds the work.  Let me know.

And what can ya say about this one?  Love it!  And totally suitable for boy or girl.  The new Wild Asparagus ranges at the shop are just awesome!  I always love their stuff though.  Totally yummy!

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Now on to pirates.  Today is a Book Parade at Kamryn’s school.  So the kids get to dress up like pirates.  Now Kamryn mentioned this to me last week and I was like, what???  A girl as a pirate, how does that work.  So this week my mission was to get things sorted out.  And on Tuesday I did just that.  I bought a pink and white striped top, fish net fingerless gloves, black fingernail polish, beads and black and white dot bandanna.  I was happy with my finds.  I couldn’t believe how many skull and crossbones items I found!  So I took it up to school to share with Kamryn and then she goes ‘you didn’t have to buy stuff, we are making it’.  What????  Again, I know nothing.  So I asked the teacher cause I was so conflicted!  I wish they would just send notices home when they start telling kids things so we know what they are talking about!  Anyway, the teacher said they are welcome to dress up with they have something otherwise they were making patches, swords and hats.  Well I already at it now lol.  So I went ahead.  And on Wednesday I completed everything with black track pants, black long sleeve top, skull & crossbone belt and black shimmery tie.  We tried it on that night!  MY GOSH!  She was sooooooooooooooo cute!  And this morning it was time to get all decked out in her pirate gear!  So here is my little feminine pirate

That’s her best pirate face lol.  She was definitely the styliest pirate at school this morning lol.  So cute!

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Funny of the week:

Kamryn was doing her homework in pen and I said you should be doing it in pencil.  She said everyone else in class uses pen.  I said if everyone else jumped off a bridge would you?  She gave me one of those looks like duh and said ‘uh, yeah’.  LOL, died laughing!  Hugh said at least she was honest lol.

Memory of the week:

When Lauryn was a baby and at the laughing smiling stage of about 6 months.  It was soooooo hard to get her to smile or laugh.  It was near impossible.  Then Kamryn discovered what worked.  One day I was holding Lauryn and Kamryn came over and hit her in the face with a balloon lol.  I was just about to tell Kamryn not to do that and Lauryn just started laughing.  And it wasn’t just a giggle, it was a deep down belly laugh!  And it worked all the time!  And even know she laughs at Kamryn’s stupid things lol.  She thinks she is hilarious lol.

How excited was I today when I got my mail and noticed there was an envelope from my brother?????  And what was inside??????  Many many photos of my niece, Alexa!!!!  It’s taking everything I have not to cry but I love them.  These are the first ones I have seen since her hospital pic back in March.  So I am over the moon that Shaun finally got around to sending them to me.  Here are a couple of my faves:

This is Alyssa and Alexa:

And this is my all time fave:

Sorry if they aren’t fabulous but they are pics of pics.  I am so happy for my little bro’.  He loves kids and to have his own is just awesome!  And she’s soooooooo stinkin’ cute!  MY GOSH!  And she favors Shaun so much.  I can’t see much of Dawn right now.  And I didn’t get any photos of Dawn but wish I had.  I’ve been hanging out for these photos since Shaun said he would send some so I’m extremely happy they are here!!!  Now I can scrap them!  Seeing them, however, makes it extremely hard not to sell up everything and move back.  I would just love to hold and snuggle her and get to know her

Knowledge is power, right?  So the more you learn and try to understand the more power you feel and the stronger you feel in yourself as a human being?  It’s funny how over the years we have taken many steps to make our world a greener place.  Now I know that there is a big argument over whether NZ is really as ‘green’ as it claims to be.  But I think as a country we do pretty good!  Compared to where I come from ‘green’ isn’t even thought about!  I can remember knowing a family that moved to California and them telling us how they had to ’sort’ their trash for recycling.  I was like I’d never do that!  Hehehe, funny how times change!  I do believe in global warming and I do believe that some of what is happen is a result of the same sort of things that have happened for millions of years we just haven’t been privy to it all.  Either way I am happy to try and make a difference where I can.  It infuriates me that our recycling bins for glass and plastic each week is only limited to certain things.  Many things these days are recyclable but the collections only seem to take certain numbered things and only certain types of those numbered things.  We recycle our paper/card, pretty much all paper/card.  We reuse where we can.  We make things go further when we can too.  Kamryn is happy to use my Avon books to make collages.  And more recently we have cut down on our plastic bag consumption.  When I got back from the States I noticed a big push to use reusable bags.  And I’ve been happy to do so.  We have about 5 and that holds my weekly shop.  That is one good thing about these bags, they hold more.  I was a bit perturbed the other day when the supermarket lady rolled her eyes when I handed her my bags.  She doesn’t care for the bags saying they get to heavy and the checkouts aren’t made for using them.  I have no problems lifting them and love that I can fit so much in them but I can see how these reactions would put people off.  There are many more ways I would like to be more ‘green’ but it’s difficult.  We would love to own a hybrid car, we would love to have a house what worked on solar power, we would love to have a compost and vegetable garden and we’d love to invest in forestry that is purposefully grown for paper products.  Things we would hope to acheive in our lifetime.  I just cringe when I think that our future generations will be pointing the fingers at us saying ‘if you had just thought about your consequences we wouldn’t be in this mess’.  And it’s true.  It’s not that hard to do a little something where you can.  I’m certain we aren’t doing as much as some but I’m happy we are doing something.  How about you, are you being green?  Have you thought about your environment lately?  Any tips you can help us to do just that little bit more?

Ever since I was young I can always remember loving banana bread and zucchini bread.  I can remember that for Christmas my dad would get given one from his aunt.  But when I moved in with mom I missed out on zucchini and banana bread both.  And it wasn’t until Jamie and I became friends that I found zucchini bread again!  Her mom made the best and Jamie has given me the recipe and of course I have modified it to my liking.  So I dug out my banana bread recipe and last week while at Fruit World I bought a bunch of old bananas with the intentions of making banana bread.  I finally got around to it last night.  And I must say, this is the easiest recipe ever!  And you aren’t limited to adding things either, add what you like!  It makes a dense bread/cake and you can add many nutritious things too.

Banana Bread

Makes 1 loaf.

Basic Ingredients:

2 cups standard flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter or oil (oil seems cheapest these days!)

3/4 cup brown sugar (not dark)

2 eggs

2 1/3 cups mashed bananas (I used 3-4 very long bananas)

Extras to consider:

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup maraschino cherries

1/2 cup pecans

1/2 cup walnuts

1 cup choc chips

1 shredded carrot

1/2 cup rolled oats

1 can crushed pineapple, drained (unless you use some of the juice to replace some of the oil)

Preheat oven to 170C.  Grease loaf pan (I used cooking spray).  Combine flour, baking soda and salt in bowl.  In separate bowl cream the oil/butter and brown sugar.  Stir in eggs, bananas and any other extras ya like.  Stir until blended.  Next stir in flour mixture, stir to just moist.  Pour in loaf pan. Bake 60-65 minutes when toothpick comes out clean when inserted in center of bread.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove to finish cooking on wire rack.  ***FYI:  I used oil last night and it’s still HIGHLY moist and yummy!  You must remember though that oil will make the cake/bread look dark but it won’t be burnt.  And definitely make sure it’s cooked completely.***

These are sooooooooooo yum and very easy to make!  And you can freeze them as well.  I made one cherry, coconut and pecan one; a banana, carrot, pecan and cinnamon one; and a banana and choc chip one.  Soooooooo yummy!  Really the combinations are up to you and whatever you would like to add.  Pineapple and banana would be yummy too.  Let me know if you make any and which combo you liked

Man, it’s been the longest two weeks of my life lol.  Seriously.  The first week was running around and the second week was spent doing little things like Kamryn going to a craft class, feeding ducks and going to the movies to see Horton Hears a Who.  But it still wasn’t enough for my two.  There was constant bickering and arguing and they just weren’t happy with anything.  So I was happy for Monday to get here.

Kamryn was pretty on top of her homework when we dove into it on Sunday night.  I thought she would maybe forget more than what she actually had.  And today she tells me she moved up a reading group so I’m very proud and happy for her.  It’s been a difficult road for both of us but she prides herself on getting stars next to her words on her lists.  And I think she was finally happy to be back with friends too.

Today was also the start of Lauryn’s first day of public kindy.  She had been going to daycare but things have changed so much there that I was happy to get her into the public kindy.  Plus it’s more convenient for me considering it’s right next to the school.  Lauryn is quite shy around people she doesn’t know.  And doesn’t take direction well from others.  I felt bad leaving her with 40+ kids for the afternoon.  I wasn’t sure how it would all go.  She hasn’t got a clue about her name and she’s not excited about doing the routine of kindy.  She just wants to play.  So when I found her name I was excited to see she had the monkey chubby which I thought was funny considering that is her nickname lol.  But she only complained saying tomorrow she will put her bag in the dog one lol.  And when I asked her to find her name she had no idea what I was talking about and forget getting her to hold a pencil to attempt to write her name.  She wanted none of it.  While she is quite independent she also steps to the beat of her own drum and it’s really hard for me as her parent to rope her in.  I sure hope it’s different with her teachers and it usually is.  I just really want her to be more social and fully enjoy all that she has at kindy and start to enjoy the routine of it all.  After kindy she said she had fun and she played with Tyler (Hannah’s youngest).  I’m not sure that that meant together lol.  I do know that she is looking forward to tomorrow though

And me, I’m looking forward to bed.  Once again I’m burning the midnight oil doing random things and having random things run through my head.  At the moment I am feeling let down by a few things and I’m not sure how to solve or resolve them.  The easiest thing in my mind is to step back but I’m not sure that is what I should be doing.  But I also feel stuck.  Given time things will work out, I’m sure but it doesn’t stop me from obsessing thinking about them.

She saw for all of 7 days!

The week flew by while my cousin, Jess, was here. I sure hope she had a great time and saw a decent amount of NZ or that which you can see in 7 days. I didn’t have much money and fuel costs alone were WAY crazy! But this is kinda break down of what we did:

Sunday and Monday were spent on the beach and exploring the Coast. Monday we even took a dip Monday night we went out to eat at Hola. Tuesday we went to Auckland and went to the museum, Sky Tower, Victoria Park and Newmarket. Wednesday (crap can’t remember) but I know we went out to eat in Manly at the Italian restaurant. Thursday we went out to Muriwai. I’ve never been and loved it! It was awesome to see the difference in an East and West Coast beach first hand! Then on Friday we went up to SheepWorld and the Honey Centre. Then on Saturday we went down to Rotorua and had a deluxe private hot pool. Lovely!!! We couldn’t do much there since it gets dark early and we didn’t stay the night. We stayed at my in-laws and then on Sunday took her to the airport.

So while she was here for a week I think we crammed in enough lol. It’s funny how she adjusted to things as well. The girls usually wake me up for breakfast when they wake up. Well Jess just started heading them off at the pass and getting them up and fed and watching TV until I woke up lol. Of course she went back to bed too lol. Funny though cause I don’t think I was bothered by the girls for about 5 days lol. She made it home safely and still pretty tired which hopefully will be better after the weekend cause hopefully she can catch up on sleep.

Miss ya, Jess, and I’m glad you could come and visit with us and I wish it was longer. *smooches!*

My cousin that is!  She is on her way across the US to LA at the moment.  And she will arrive here in NZ tomorrow BRIGHT and EARLY at 4:45am!  While I’m excited I hope she has a great time here.  She could only manage a week, sucks right?????  That’s all her boss would allow and they just don’t get vacation time there like we get here.  I am no longer in the ‘tourist’ mode since I have lived here for nearly 8 years!  So I’m racking my brain trying to think of things to do.  And I’m not a big Auckland driver.  While I don’t mind using the motorway to go through Auckland, I hate venturing off onto any roads in the city.  But my life still continues while she is here too with Hugh at work and me having 2 kids at home and one going to daycare 3 times a week.  So we will discuss things when she arrives and go from there.  But I’m sure the week will fly by!

And just because (saw it mentioned on another blog):

Brings up memories and thoughts that made me cry and Lauryn asking why I was crying.  Obviously I didn’t have it as bad as this video portrays but it was bad enough for me as a child.

Ok, so I’m going to post my layouts I did for Paper Pesto here.  They have been put on the blog at Paper Pesto as well.  Here they are:

I really had heaps of fun with this kit and was very happy that I got to do pictures that were sitting around for a while.  Like I said prior I was a bit worried about the kit since the papers were very sophisticated!  But once I started things just happened!  I loved the doily shocking enough lol.  But the white on it had to go lol. My favorite is ‘Old World Beauty’.  That was the second one I did out of this lot and really didn’t think I could follow on from such a great layout lol.  I think the only one I’m still unsure about is the ‘Cow Love’ one.  Only because I think I was intimidated by the photo and didn’t want to ruin it so I kinda froze.  I might have to go back and add more to that one.  I’m not sure yet.  And not surprisingly at all, the kit has sold out!  I was shocked it went so fast!  I have one more kit to do with Paper Pesto and my DT stint with them is over :(  I’m kinda sad but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done.

We headed to Hamilton for the weekend for Balloons Over Waikato.  We headed down Thursday afternoon and stayed with the outlaws inlaws on Thursday and Friday night.  Friday morning we awoke to the site of 4 hot air balloons over their house.  The girls were fascinated!  We attended the Night Glow at the University on Saturday night but it wasn’t all I expected it to be.  We parked at my inlaws at Tramway Road and caught a bus at Fifth Ave.  The bus was standing room only which I suppose was ok.  But the traffic was crazy!  We heard on the radio there was over 30,000 people there!  We stood in a huge crowd while the Night Glow started but we couldn’t see much and it was rather loud on the kids’ ears.  So we decided to head over to the rides.  While we were standing in line for rides the fireworks started!  The above photo is the look on Kamryn’s face while watching the fireworks.  Michelle took this picture, I love it ;)  Great work, Michelle, now I will need a print lol.  Hugh didn’t get such good shots lol.  You would think after me scrapbooking for nearly 5 years he would see what kind of photos I like taken but apparently not.  I’m kinda bummed that I didn’t actually get to see the look on their faces but man I think Kamryn’s says it all!  So after rides and fireworks we headed back to where our bus was.  HA!  What a joke, man!  The line was huge and out of the three lines ours was the shortest but that didn’t say much.  So after we stood there for 10 minutes doing nothing we decided to hoof it all the way back to Tramway Road.  No joke!  We walked the 40/45 minutes it took to get back and in that time only 2 of our buses had gone by.  We reckon we would have still been waiting in line had we not decided to walk.  Kamryn walked the entire way and only said she was going to fall asleep twice so I gave her two bananas and she was good lol.  Poor Hugh had to carry Lauryn the whole way cause she was asleep.  I was most impressed with myself because I was not puffed when we got there nor was a soar the next day!  My fitness level must be back lol.  Once back at Tramway Road we headed back to Michelle and Brendon’s for the night.  We had Mexican when we got back, something we planned prior to us coming down.  Man, I was starving by 9:30 lol.  I don’t think the weekend went as smoothly as I would have liked it to.  I know it all completely went by too quickly and I would have liked a little more ‘fun time’.  Hopefully next time I’m down it won’t be too crazy!

Ah, I can now show sneak peeks for Paper Pesto’s April kit! Wow, this kit blew my mind on many levels! The papers are so sophisticated I felt I would have a problem with them. But not such! I felt the papers lent themselves to black and white photos. Which was great for me cause while I love black and white photos I don’t scrap them much cause I love my color ones! And the gold rubons aren’t really gold lol. I shy away from gold cause I have this bad image in my head of gaudy gold and I don’t even buy gold rubons for that reason! But I was pleasantly surprised by these! They are gorgeous and so easy to use! Anyway, I don’t want to make this a long post but here are my peeks. I’m not sure if mine leave you with wanting more lol.

So does this make you want to rush out and get a kit???? Well you should! It’s very yummy and I’m happy I got the opportunity to use this kit! Want to buy the kit, look here ——> High Tea in the Parlour. Want to see all the layouts in the gallery, look here —–> Paper Pesto Blog or Paper Pesto Gallery.

Crikey, what is it with 5/6 year old girls!!!  Everything is a HUGE ordeal!  It wouldn’t be so bad if Kamryn could see it’s seriously OTT.  It’s her behavior, her actions and her words!  I’m hoping something gives soon!  Yesterday was drama class for her.  She missed last week because of a high fever.  The week before that she said Tracey told her she needs to be ‘using her voice’.  And I really thought that week off and she would be back to it!  Yeah right!  She said the whole hour she was there.  So I was just completely honest with her and let her know that we have paid for her to be there and that mean she had to participate and not sit cause she could sit at home for free.  I told her that I knew she enjoyed Pippins more but she still had to do drama.  I told her she only had two more weeks and she didn’t have to go any more if she didn’t want to.  So she decided to finish out the last thing they did.  Tracey told me she just isn’t getting involved and she has tried to get her to do things but it’s just not working.  But since I have paid for the rest of the term she will see it out.  I know she loves Pippins and loves the creative side of that.  OH well, it was worth a try on the drama and she may come back to it, who knows!

Thanks for the comments on my last post.  I won’t be disappearing from updating this thing but I’ve had to look at what’s achievable and getting back to message boards and reading/commenting on a hundred blogs just isn’t achievable for me at the moment.  It takes too much time for me.  I had a GREAT desire to get back to a few message boards I was on when I left.  I really want to be part of that again but things just aren’t fitting together.  And instead of neglecting/ignoring what is actually going on in my life to spend some time with cyber friends, I really need to focus on ‘real life’.  And that’s my focus.  Eventually all the other stuff will come back once things have calmed down for me.  But I don’t handle stress well and while I like being busy I reckon there is a thing as being too busy.  So just hang in there with me and keep reading

I think it’s easy to fall into a life on the net and withdraw from real life. I think the ‘love’ and ‘connections’ you feel with those online can be intense because it’s nothing that takes much work. You don’t see these people in real life. A few do but ya know what I mean here. I have met some wonderful people online then eventually in real life, heck I met my husband online! But saying these people are wonderful is easy because it’s my perception of them as I see them online. There are many I would like to meet in real life but will take what I can get here. But having said that you never know what the ‘face to face’ meeting will be like. And I’m not about being fake like I see sooooooo many being. It’s fine to have blogs, message boards, myspace, etc. but I think it gets a bit much. It gets too involved and before long you find yourself saying ‘oh I need to read so and so’s blog’ or ‘I need to make sure I check out the message board so no one forgets me’. It gets too much for me. I can’t keep up. Sometimes I try and sometimes I wonder why? My real life is what needs work not my cyber life. Spending time online does that. It takes away from real life and before you know it real life and cyber life just blend and mesh. Not that they can’t but when cyber life is overtaking real life and you don’t know the difference then there are issues. I need real friendships and people that I can touch, talk to on a personal level and feel like I’m just as important to them as they are to me. And of course we can’t be friends with everyone regardless of what some believe. Again it’s easy to be ‘friends’ online but again I would doubt the friends title would apply to everyone in real life. Sometimes the internet has been my key to getting to know people or feeling like I fit in somewhere.  And many many times it’s been a wonderful outlet for support from others.  But at this stage in my life I’m feeling the need for something more that is beyond the computer screen in front of me! So while I have a list of people on my little blogroll over there and a few I would most definitely love to meet in real life, my world doesn’t revolve around this list nor will it ever. And just because I am typing this don’t think you aren’t important or special to me cause you are (you all know who you are lol). But for now my real life is taking over and my ‘cyber buddies’ will just have to understand. I’m not disappearing but rather reorganizing all my eggs lol. Gotta go, real life is calling

Well I am now ready to share what I was working on. First I need to give a little back info so you can follow along lol. For just over 2 years I have worked at The Craft Spot doing crops on Friday nights. I’ve also made the odd sample here and there. Now that they have moved to near the Whangaparaoa Plaza, Katrina has and is fixing up it’s image. Not an easy task when you have two men that own a scrapbook/bead store! Anyway, when I got back from my trip they were completely moved but I’m still able to hop back into my crop slot. I need more to come though, not sure Friday is a primo spot for crops but I do have my regulars Also Katrina and I decided she would give me a box of stuff she wants to showcase or promote in the store and I could make samples.

There’s something extremely fun about getting a kit or box of things and trying to put something together from it. That’s why I liked my DT work, simply because you never know what it will contain, how it will look or what ideas will hit you once you see it! With the store it’s slightly different to a DT kit only because I really have to stick to what’s in the box or you get people coming in and asking for a certain product that we may not carry. So that is even more difficult! Cause most DTs I’ve been on, you can use some of your other stuff but you have to keep it to a minimum. So keeping that in mind I think I have created some wonderful pieces from what Katrina gave me. And here is what I did:

These boxes have always been in the back of my mind since Hugh has them die cut at work. And I just went for it. I don’t have any boy pics (really really need to get some boy stock photos lol) so thought I would make it just a general boy box. And obviously the girl one is Lauryn as a baby. And all sides of the box are covered. It shows two options with the box, boy/girl and photos/no photos. Love ‘em!

The above is the first layout I have done in over 6 months, seriously. It was really hard getting started and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Simple but pretty to the point and I think it throws enough different things on there to give the customer something to look at. Just love that photo of Kamryn!

This one is so cute and love love love the papers!!! Again pics of Lauryn. So glad I got all those printed So I’ve made a start and it was a great refresher for when I get my Paper Pesto kit this week!

Wow, this little book was heaps of fun!!! I traced and cut the numbers from the front cover and then used the numbers on the pages. This would be perfect for a gift and heaps of room for photos on the other side of the page. I love how it turned out and definitely think it would suit for Father’s Day or a male’s birthday. Obviously you could do the same for a female one but I have plenty of the boy papers left lol. And I think adding the washers just completely adds to the whole masculine effect! I had heaps of fun doing this book and I’ve been equally happy at how well the inspiration has been flowing!

And these were just for fun. I’m such a simple card maker lol. But I was trying to see how many words I could come up with out of the letters I had left and these were two, I have others lol. But I like the idea of ‘all occasion’ cards which you don’t see many off. They are generally geared towards holidays, birthdays or specifically themed ie friends, baby, etc. So that was just a bit of final fun!

So there ya have it! My big leap back into scrapdom! And I’ll have sneak peeks of my Paper Pesto projects soon too

Ah, it has been a most fabulous weekend!  Hugh had 3 days off work and it was awesome.  We both realized that for the last two Easters we have been in Hamilton so it was most refreshing staying home this year.

*Saturday we went in search of the Easter Bunny at the Plaza but only found the Easter chick!  Then we headed into Orewa for the library’s book sale.  Then we thought we would check out the stalls at the market.  Lauryn got told off by a man cause she was attempting to pick up a HUGE shell lol.  Oh well, maybe she will learn since she doesn’t listen to us about not touching things!  Then Saturday night after dinner we walked to the local dairy for ice creams and then for a stroll on the beach!  Was so nice!

*Saturday night we did baskets and hid eggs.  Was funny hiding eggs in the dark lol.  And then on Easter morning the girls woke up to this:

Then the girls got to hunt eggs.  This started off with Lauryn getting mad and crying saying ‘Pookie was getting them all’ after Kamryn only grabbed 3!  So so so tired of this!  Anyway, after things calmed down they were most happy to see how many eggs they had.  Here are a few more pics from the day:

And then after too much Easter candy we went down to the beach in the afternoon for an awesome swim!  I’m a bit ashamed to admit but this is the first time the girls have gotten to swim at the beach this year.  We just haven’t had the time or good weather to go.  And they loved it!  Although Lauryn gets cold really quickly.  Hugh says she just needs more fat on her body lol, I agree!  So here are pics from our beach day!  Most didn’t turn out to well cause I think the settings on my camera have been tampered with so need to fix them!

And this is the structure we were working on after our dip in the ocean.  We had to decorate it in seaweed so we were each taking turns getting it from the water.  And in turn we ended up with our first habitant, Crabby.  Well that is what the girls named him lol.  He was this little tiny crab that Lauryn wanted to take home with us lol.

*And then Monday rolled around and we had another relaxing day.  And it was humid too so after Lauryn’s nap we headed to the beach at 4:30.  Man it was awesome!  I wore my bathers so I could get in and have a nice float!  Again Lauryn got cold after 5 minutes so Hugh and I took turns getting in.  And in the end, Lauryn and Hugh went home while Kamryn and I stayed and floated around in the waves.  Good good fun!  It was such an awesome day!

*Not to mention all of the above but I also got several scrapbooking things done too!  I’m hanging out for the April Paper Pesto kit to arrive now.  I had to practice so I could get into the swing of things again.  And today is a day off school for Kamryn so we are again taking it easy!  It’s been such a wonderful break and I wish it could last longer.  Ah, but all good things have to come to an end.  However, this weekend has been really healthy and very uplifting for our family and has just felt great!

Thanks yesterday for all the comments.  Seriously a thousand thoughts were going through my head at the time especially when Kamryn wasn’t in the classroom.  Yes, I am very tired and completely worn out.  I’m hoping the Easter holiday will be good for me to just relax.  OH well, all is good and she is completely safe

*With Easter being on the horizon, I’ve gotten most things sorted out.  I did all the chocolate buying last week so no need to worry about that.  But there are still eggs to fill and hide.  And leaving baskets out for the Easter Bunny.  I love the holidays no matter what they are but I’m partial to the big ones like Easter, Halloween and Christmas.  I love baking and seeing how happy it makes people.  For the Gala last week at Kamryn’s school I made birds nest cupcakes and bunny cookies.  They were soooooo cute!  And I had an idea for K’s teacher too.  So I made her up a basket.  I painted it, made a cake and cut it to fit in the basket, put some chocolate pops, bunnies and other treats on top.  Then I tied a bow around it.  Too too cute!  Here’s the pic:

Sorry the pic isn’t so great.  I also made some egg cookies for the kids.  They were going to look like Easter eggs with some piping detail but I really couldn’t be bothered and figured the time and effort might be wasted on a bunch of 5 year olds lol.  Here’s a pic of the cookies:

I’m looking forward to Sunday.  Both girls will be able to fully enjoy our egg hunt which is going to be egg-citing!!!

*And finally I want to leave this post with a few funnies from Lauryn:

-While we were in the States there was a cartoon called Maggie and the Ferocious Beast.  It was a really cute cartoon.  Obviously it isn’t here in NZ.  Yesterday in the car, Lauryn all of a sudden said ‘Maggie and Roast Beef in Nowhere Land’.  Hehehe, it took me a while to understand what she meant but I got it ;)  Sooooooo funny!!!

-And when I was having the big clean of my scrap room she kept calling it ‘Mommy’s crap room’ lol.

-And finally thanks to mom’s cat, now when I have to hock up a loogie lol my daughter reckons I am ‘coughing up a fur ball’ lol.  It’s funny and ya gotta love the humor that exudes that child!