the midnight scrapper

december daily 2008 is done, bring on 2009...

I began to panic that I could actually begin this years album before I had finished last years. As slack as I can be, this just did not sit well.

I attended my annual Craft Weekend last week - 3 days of scrapping, good food,lots of laughs, and time catching up with friends - and had this project with me and the determination to just GET IT DONE! (yes I am yelling, December is almost upon us people)

And finish it I did. Yay me (yes I realise that congratulating myself on doing something that I should have finished about 11 months ago is a little sad, but humour me).

And now, here it is...

whew...if you have made it this far, well done. Now I'm off to start 2009's album, let's hope I can show you the results before Easter!
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

birthday celebrations and vampires...

Oscar turned 17 this week and it was an extremely low key celebration. Oscar had decided that he didn't want a party or sleepover and he had also decided to forgo a birthday gift so I could put the moneytowards his Christmas present.

He just doesn't know what that present is LOL so there is that level of worry that he may not have made the right choice. As if!

We had a chilli con carne dinner with Nana & Da, chocolate muffins for dessert (menu chosen by Oscar) and then Byron and I had to skip out because we had another engagement...

 

 Yes, we had tickets for the midnight screening (and tickets to see Twilight as they were screening it first at 9.30pm).

There was screaming.

There was swooning.

There was rapt silence.

There was more screaming.

Not saying that was me;  just a general impression of the "vibe" in the cinema. Ha!

Got home at 3.00am, happy and tired.

Happy Birthday Oscar & Team Edward Forever.

I am probably the last person to discover...

wordle

Of course I have seen examples out there in blog land but I had never stopped to try it out for myself.

Today, all that changed and I am now a wordle makin fool!

This one is already hanging on the wall in  Byron's room - kept the colours neutral because the boys have a few doona covers so we didn't want to be locked into a colour scheme. Just love that this simple artwork sums up Byron's world right now!

Byron and I also decided that this would be the perfect Christmas present for him to give to the family. He is now hard at work on a list of words for each family member and we will print up the results and put them into cheap simple frames.

Byron thinks that the chocolate teaspoons he made last year will be more popular, but I think the family will get a kick out of seeing the words he comes up with for each creation.

family stories...

I'm a little late, now there's a suprise, but not to late to let you know that this months gallery is up at write.click.scrapbook.

Here's my contribution; the story of the matching dresses. Sooooooooooo 60's!

Just in case you can't quite make out all the details, let me help you out...

There are many more of these stunning little outfits from my childhood, and my mother, to this day, is unrepentant, we looked so cute!

And just incase you're not sure...I'm the "older sister" with the freaky too short fringe :)

Now stop laughing and head on over to write.click.scrapbook.
  

you can go over to have a look, but DO NOT get wet...

Yeah right!

 

Sydney Olympic Park and the "can't-stay-away" water features LOL

we got our spooky on...

First up, Byron's spooky party. After a week of very unpredictable weather we had a great day with sunshine and no rain.

Dinner was served first as we waited for the darkness to decend (damn that day light savings that we love every other day LOL) and the tension began to build.

This year Byron and a mate had been building a very elaborate back story about a mad man that lived in the bush and liked to hunt people down with his nail gun (I know, I know. I have boys). They were all set to stage a "Halloween 24" re-enactment when the dark, the scary noises from the bush, and  the hyper craziness bought on by the sugar rush earlier saw them all freak out and head back to the "safety" of the house. Ha!

Screams, dirt, fear, food and laughter...Goody Spooky Times indeed!

A few other photos from the night...

(the cupcakes turned out a treat - so that recipe goes into the folder to keep!

So while all this was happening, Oscar had his own Halloween party to attend. He informed me that he wanted to go as Dexter.

We bought the cheapest shirt they had at Lowes that looked like the one on the DVD cover ($12.00) and we found a (plastic) knife for $5.00 and I fished out my Making Memories red paint, mixed it with a little water and went to town.

A pair of disposable gloves and a quick mock up of an ID badge and we were good to go...

October 31st was done in [spooky] style!

operation christmas child...

I first learnt about this charity project from Mel's blog and thought it would be a good project for the boys and I to organise for Christmas. Operation Christmas Child send shoe boxes filled with gifts to children that live in very poor areas of the world.

The idea is to fill the box with items that include personal care items, educational items, clothing like socks or undies or hats and shirts and a toy or something special.

We decided to put together both boy and girl boxes and each time I did the groceries I threw a couple of items in. Boxes were picked up last week and are now on their way.

If you would like to send a "shoebox" to a child this year, you will need to get to it becaue boxes need to be in by the end of October.

 

Is it wrong that I enjoyed putting the girl boxes together just a little more than the boys ones!!

world masters games: third place...hell yeah!

Just to add to the general craziness around here during the October school holidays, Gary competed in the World Masters Games in Sydney. We arrived home from New Zealand about lunchtime on the Wednesday and Gary tipped out his bag of dirty clothes, packed fresh gear and headed back up to the games.

He was playing indoor volleyball in the 45+ division. The team had not spent a lot of time together before the games and we were very excited when they came second in their pool. Next up he beat out the team his brother was playing in (sorry Rod) and then went on to play off for 3rd. And they did it.

Very exciting indeed. We went up to see him play on the Friday and took a few action shots...

And here they are...winners (3rd place) are grinners!

 

And if you are really good, and put your cotton gloves on, he might just let you touch it!!!!!!

 

Well done Gaz!

And the title of this post is a sort of quote from the movie "Bring it On", only they came in second, but then you would know that if you have watched it 400 times like we have!!

he's home and he had the BEST time ever...

While we were holiday in freezing New Zealand, Oscar was sweating it out in Vietnam on his 11 day history excursion. Nice. I know I sure was excited when I had one night at Jenolan Caves as my senior school excursion back in the day!

I took the day off work to meet him at the airport...

After a little public display of affection (in front of his mates!!!!) we headed home to stories, presents and photos...

 

I was so happy with the great photos he took; he must have listened to my advice: stand still, use natural light and get in close for some detail shots. Ahhh, made his mum proud :)

I am sure we are only hearing half the stories that he has to tell LOL but he is now on a mission to save up and go somewhere else for schoolies next year (OMG - year 12, where did those years go????)


  

nearly time to get our spooky on...

Plans are once again underway for byron's spooky party. After last years party byron declared that he wanted to do it every year because it was so much fun. And it was!

So we have been looking for inspiration...

The $2.00 shop had some little treats...

 

We worked on the invitations...

 

We had a little look around etsy and found these cute cake toppers...

To use on the top of these cupcakes ...

Now we just have to drag down the "spooky" box from the shed and countdown the days to the 31st.

BOO!