Isalian

Alice In Wonderland Birthday Party

So I had this super idea for Isabell's Birthday Party this year - Alice In Wonderland!  I know it has been done heaps, and thats so OK, but I wanted something that was OK for the little boys as well as girls, and I think this will work well! 

As usual I may have gotten a little carried away with the whole adventure of organising an awesome Birthday Part for my darling 8 year old!  But this one just has to be perfect, last year was a disaster - between me not realising there was some other big event on in Rocky that weekend and not getting the invites out early enough - I think we can just write the whole thing off! 

I am going to blog my ideas and progress in the hope that some of the ideas may help others!

Internet:

My wonderful friend "google" has been working overtime, helped along by his buddies "bing" & "Yahoo" - gotta love it when mates help each other out!  There is a weath of information out there and after sifting through a lot I have found these blogs and sites to be most useful:

www.aliceinwonderland.net   - everything from party ideas to every other little detail about the story, characters and author - a virtual wikipedia of Aliceness.

Birthday Party Ideas 4 Kids - They have ideas for all kinds of parties - and a whole section on Alice

Jesica Claire - features amazing photo's of her neice Annabelles party decorations - this is truely inspirational

There are so many more - but I will hook you up with them as I go along!

Hope you enjoy the journey!

Nic

 

 

And the mojo returns

After the better part of 6 months of NOT scrapbooking - yes I know you would never have thought that one as addicted as I could possibly NOT scrap for so long - my Mojo has returned.

I am not sure why or how it came back, but it did!  I sat down on Sunday to make a quick card for someone, and ended up making two OTP projects, 3 cards and 1 small layout!  OK, so the standard is not there just yet, but I think it will come back!

Then yesterday I had to go and get some gear for work to do an updated album of the homes that we build and I walked into Seriously Scrapbooking and was so hooked!  There are soooooo many new products that I haven't seen IRL, and nothing compares to see the colours of all those lovely papers for real!

I met Natalie - totally awesome chick with sooooo much energy - can't wait to go to one of her classes.  They have heaps of great classes coming up and they even have late night crops - which will suit me just fine!  Anyways, I ma very happy to have my Mojo back - Kev is off to Whyalla this Friday to race on Saturday so I am going to clean up my scrapbooking room and get right back into it!

What we all wish for, a simple life ...

Found this great website with an amazing array of resources for "mums" and "moms" everywhere, check it out:

Simple Mom

Have a great day!

Update

Thought I would share a few photo's -
Isabell, Alexis and Lillian at Glenelg

Annette and Kevin camping at Browns Beach on the Yorke Peninsula

 
The insanity that was Christmas morning!

   

What happened to 2009 ?

As the end of the year rapidly approaches, I find myself going through photo's of the year that was to put in our little family newsletter.  Its a great way to re-live all the good stuff that we got up to this year and to see how much the girls have grown up in the last 12 months.

Lillian has grown into a young lady and Isabell has lost more teeth than I can count!  We have livedd, worked, travelled, camped and raced in two different states this year and surprisingly I took less photo's this year than I normally would!  But I think I will fix that in the coming weeks with all the sightseeing we have planned to do when we have visitors! 

I think that this month is just going to fly - being at work everyday, sure takes up a heap of time!!!  Dah!!!  It's so easy to go to work everyday when you like being there - so blessed to work with a great bunch of people - heaps of laughs, interesting work and great environment!!!

Here's a couple of the photo's I came accross last night:

    
 
 
 
 
 
  

Time to start blogging again - I have been VERY slack for ages so thought it was time to get my act together!

Life in Adelaide is hectic to say the least! Working full time and running around after the two little princesses is takes it out of you.

We have settled in nicely and are looking forward to seeing all our visitors over the Christmas break. It will have been a year since the kids saw their grand parents, aunt and cousin, not to mention our friends who will be sharing Christmas with us.

So much to look forward to can't wait!

Only 3 weeks till I am on holidays for two weeks - no doubt it will fly and seem like only a couple of days, we have a list a mile long of things to do while our guests are here! As well as the normal eating and drinking tooo much!

Hope you are all enjoying the gear up to the crazy season!

Photo's of the girls during a recent camping trip down the coast.

Settled in Adelaide

Hi all - just to let you know that we have moved AGAIN and are now located in Adelaide, South Australia - The City of Churches!

It is an amazing place, beautiful buildings, amazing scenery and so COLD!

Going to be a SAHM for the next 5 weeks till the kids and the house are all settled, so once I have my bigpond up and running will be blogging regularly again!

Take care

Nic

Wow a blog award - for me?!

Was over browsing Ali Russells' Blog this morning and guess what I see, an award for me - in fact there were two!  I have often seen thes cute little awards on some of the blogs that I check out on a regular basis and thought how cool that these kind hearted people choose to acknowledge the inspiration that they receive from other bloggers!  How Cool!  So to Ali, thanks chook for this lovely award and the also your VERY kind words!

This is called The Proximity Award. "These blogs believe and invest in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their awards".

&

The Marie Antoinette Blog Award:

 
Now,  as I understand it the rules are: Link to those who award it; Post the award; list 7 other nominees deserving of the award. In all honesty I don't have 7 blogs to award this two as I do not follow that many, so here are the ones that I do follow that I think are deserving!

Keisha Campbell - This globe trotting scrapbooker is always providing amazing inspiration through her very stylish photography and scrapbooking.

Nic Howard - Her "distressed" yet clean and fresh approach to scrapbooking is always welcome, and she writes the funniest things on her blog.

Jo Sinnamon - Without a doubt one of the nicest people on the planet, and almost as bad at blogging as I am!  Thanks for your friendship and support in our new "home town".

and of course

Ali Russell - Not sure exactly how she does it, but she does!  And by does I mean, creates amazing layouts, runs the sensational Embellished Shop as well as being Mum to Luke, Wife to Glenn and Friend to so many!  Thanks Al!

 

 

 

Hi my name is Nicola and I am a terrible blogger, ...

It has been MONTHS since my last post, not that I am sure that anyone actually reads this, but as I put a lot of time into trying to set this up nicely I should at least post on a more regular basis.

So, heres the catch up!

Rockhampton:        We are all settled in nicely to our new "home town" and are slowly meeting people and making friends.  Ali and the crew at Embellished have been really warm and welcoming!

Heidi Swapp:            In December I got to meet one of my scrapbooking IDOLS!  I flew down to Bris Vegas for the weekend and got to attend both the retail and public classes that Heidi held for "Create 08".  She was VERY inspirational and a real geniune NICE PERSON - no "ScrapDiva" activity there.  It was a fantastic weekend as I tagged along with the lovely ladies from Embellished - we had an absolute blast!!!  No kids or hubbies in sight!

Christmas:                After checking Reggie The Wonder Dog into one of the local Doggie Hotels, we boarded the plane(s) Home to Cairns a week before Christmas.  It was soooo nice to be surrounded by our nearest and dearest for nearly 3 whole weeks!  We started our Christmas Day at Mum and Dads, before heading out to my sister's new house (OMG how nice is that) for a very relaxed and delicious "Brunch".  It was really nice as this is the first time that Vicky and her gang have hosted Christmas, she did a sensational job!!  Then we bolted up the Kuranda Range to have lunch with Kevin's Mum, Dad, Sister and Niece - needless to say that when the rest of the Aunties, Uncles and Cousins rocked up for the traditional Christmas Cricket match and Dinner we all looked like rolly-polly's!  But that is what Christmas on the farm is all about!  The girls were thoroughly spoiled and enjoyed every minute of it.  Photo's to follow in the next post!

Cardwell:                    On Boxing Day we headed south to Cardwell and the Port Hinchinbrook where we hired a fantastic Apartment over-looking the ocean and Hinchinbrook Island.  I was one of the best holidays we have had in ages, lots of relaxing by the pool and fishing!  We also got to catch up with friends in Ingham which was just so great for the spirit, nothing like seeing good friends!  It did make us realise just how much we miss this part of the country, it truely is God's Own up there!

Forrest Beach:        New Years Eve we headed off into the hospitable arms of the Poppi Family at their Beach House at Forrest Beach.  This place is a little piece of heaven that I hope never gets over developed and keeps it's "sleepy" little holiday spot feel for years to come!  Again we had a great time with friends and on New Years Day joined the extended Poppi Family and "Noona Poppi's" home for a traditional Italian Feast of Spagehti and Polenta! YUM! 

So as you can see we have been very busy flitting around the country!  I have lost the charger for our camera so have not downloaded any photo's yet, but will do so soon and add them in to the next post.

Happy New Year everyone!

Thank god it is Friday!!!

What a killer week, and next week will be worse.  In between dealing with moving myself, my family and all attached possesions, I am also moving office.  OK, so not exactly moving office, rather - emptying the office and having the buildings taken away!  You see when we got to Ingham an office of demountables was put in place for us, now the job is nearly finished they come and take away the buildings and we leave everything as we found it!  Easily said, lots of work involved obviously.

Last weekend we went 4WD - so funny, haven't done it in ages - found a secluded spot on the beach and fished and played and had a great time, just the 4 of us - I like those days the best!

Isabell and Kevin fishing - typical Father Daughter activity for them.

Lillian, Me and Isabell - trying to get a photo of ourselves, not a huge success, but looks OK none the less!

Next week will see utter chaos here so will be out of the loop for a while!

Take care,

Nic