A Creative Life

My sweet little girl is at times, not so sweet!  She has managed to create a bit of havoc in our house this week, which includes causing a trip to the womens and childrens hospital for her poor brother!  It started out as any other day, but then the sweet assasin struck just before I was going to leave to drop the kids to school.  I got out of the shower and was greeted by screams from Ethan, and I could hear Paul telling Kaitlyn off for hitting Ethan.  I had no time to worry about it, the problem had been dealt with so I dropped the kids to school.  When I got there, Ethan was holding his eye, I didnt take too much notice, I just thought he was still trying to get all the attention he possibly could.

I stopped thinking he was after attention when the school rang me, and I had to go and pick up the little lad.  Off to the doctors we went and with the addition of some coloured drops in Ethans eye, we could see a large scratch right across the eye!  Now I was feeling very sorry for the little lad. We were also advised that he needed to be seen by an eye specialist and were referred back to the Womens and Childrens hospital.  After several hours of waiting the next day, we  finally saw a doctor and this time when the drops were applied, guess what, no more scratch!  The eye had healed itself within 24 hours!  I was amazed, but very happy that no major damage had been done.

She doesn't look that mean here!  But dont be fooled by her innocently cheeky appearance, she is now officially an eye scratcher!  Along with quite a little whinger, highly dummy dependant and cant live without her "waffle blanket".  This little miss has also decided that she wants to be toilet trained.  Difficult timing for me as she always needs to go when I am feeding and settling Ashton, but she is doing a great job so far and if I am vigilant in reminding her she rarely has an accident.  On the up side it will save me a fortune on nappies when she is fully trained so I am very happy about that.

Now little mister Ashton has been stacking on the weight still.  He is 7 weeks old today and I weighed him on Friday and the little chap is now over 5kg.  It is amazing to think that it took 9 months for this little guy to gain 3kg, but in just 7 weeks he has gained 2kg!  He has changed so much since he was born and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they grow. 

Look at those chubby little cheeks!  Yes, I did finally get a couple more pics taken. I thought it was time to try and get a couple of me holding him.  I would still love to get a full family picture, but the two oldest boys were having a sleep over at a friends house!

  This picture just cracks me up!  Between the cheekiness of Ethan and the classic Kaitlyn look, I just find myself smiling at it.  The kids certainly have some character!

Now, changing the subject to scrapping related stuff.... I was assigned a project through Aussie Scrap Source and those that know me found it rather amusing!  You see, I really am not a fan of Christmas and all the commercialism of it and the actual day is just stressful with all the running around to different families for breakfast, lunch and tea.  Now to scrap Christmas pages is even lower on my list of enjoyable activities!  Now couple that with an acrylic album (always challenging) in the shape of a Christmas tree (what the??) and I honestly thought I had gone to scrapping hell! Well, despite elevated stress levels, I was albe to complete the project and here it is:

 

I also had a layout up on the prima blog this week.

I created this layout months ago, sometimes it takes a while to b shown on the Prma blog. TFL.

I've Been Blasted!

It has been almost 12 years since the last time I was completely poo blasted by a baby!  The first time, Lachlan was a baby, I was in white pants at a friends place and I scored a lap full of mustard seed looking excrement!  It was an experience I never wished to repeat!!  It seemed like I would avoid such a mishap ever again, but then along came Ashton, the poo blaster extrodinaire! 

There I was sitting by the inlaws pool, holding Mr Innocent Ashton, when all of a sudden a load farting noise eminated from that cute innocent baby and I was suddenly experiencing a warm sensation on my lap. NOT a good feeling at all and one glance down confirmed my worst fear...  I had been poo blasted all over my lap!  It was a stinking hot day so I let Lachlan turn the tap on me to wash off the evidence of the mishap!!    This is one of the joys of parenthood I could do without!!

I have even managed to do a couple of scrapbooking projects this week.  A few cards and a guest book for my friend Hilary's wedding! I have some ideas in my head for LO's but still not enough time to get them done.  I w ill share some of these projects closer to Christmas.

I can share a LO that I created for Prima, another one of my pregnancy Layouts.

 

And here is a textural shot of all those flowers.

 

I really love working away at floral clusters.  I love getting just the right mix of flower colours and sizes to give a flowing harmonious blend.  I just adore primas vines as they are great as the basis of a cluster and can be cut into sections to add flexibility to the flow of the arrangement.  I think I could just about add a floral cluster to all my layouts but I really need to do other things at times! LOL!!

I also had this layout up on the Prima blog this week, one of Miss K with her baby brother.  I had to document the "my Dolly" incident on a scrapbooking page!

 

I desperately need to take some more pictures of my baby boy but it hasn't happened just yet!  More stuff on my to do list! Eeeek! I have had him to the doctors several times as he has continually got a gungy eye.  At first I thought he had conjunctivitis but it was only ever in one eye and 2 different types of antibiotics have failed to fix it, so it appears to be a blocked tear duct.  Hopefully it can right itself soon, but it looks like I have to take him to a specialist.  Poor baby!

I also received a blog award from Kathie but I will have to get to it another post as I am being called away by the infant!  Till next post.... TFL.

Busy is an Understatement

Who would of thought life could be so insanely busy!!  I guess that just goes with the territory of having 5 kids and one being a newborn and another a 2 year old!  Amidst all the chaos there have been a couple of priceless moments, like Kaitlyn trying to breastfeed her doll!  Paul was even able to capture this on his iphone, so I must pester him to give me a copy of the file to share here as it was one of the cutest things to witness!  I was getting tea ready and peeked around the corner to check if Ashton was still asleep and there she was, on my feeding chair, top pulled up with a dolly held close to her, I just chuckled so much at the sight!!

Now, the other funny incident, really was not so funny at the time, but again, a priceless incident, this time involving Ethan.  At first I was so shocked to see this dark bruise on his chin when I picked him up from school.  I immediately asked him what happened....Ethan: "So and so (name removed to protect the innocent) punched me in the face.  I was so taken back!  My goodness how can a reception child, a 6 yo be capable of such a punch and why on earth had the school not called me.  I asked Ethan for more details and he said the boy wanted his donut that I packed for him for recess.  I was so appalled by this I knew we had to speak to the principal and find out what could be put in place to ensure this didnt happpen again.  Well, the following day Paul spoke to the deputy principal and got the REAL story!!!  My goodness, I discovered I have quite the master liar under my roof!!  Aparently there were a few of them playing chase and Ethan ran into a pole!!!  Quite different to the story my son was reporting!  I was so shocked that he would lie so elaborately.  Needless to say he had a very stern talking to.  But now in hindsight, when I am not totally embarrassed by his actions I can have quite the chuckle over it!  Mind you, he had better not try it on again as he might think it was worth it as he definately got a lot of attention out of the incident.

To make life fun this week, I was trying very hard to get my scrapbooking deadlines up to date and a certain infant was doing his best to make it difficult.  I did get one day where he snoozed the day away and I was able to complete a mini album and some cards, so once again I am up to date and it is such a good feeling!  My problem is that i have a couple of creative ideas and since that day, the little fella has decided that sleeping without being held is a no go zone!!  In fact only now as I type this post has he slept during the day without being held, but I was holding him for 45 minutes before I put him down! 

Now while he was sleeping I snapped these couple of pics to show just how much he is filling out. 

He has gained almost 1.5kg since he was born.  He even sports a baby double chin and his thighs are well and truly filling out now!  I even managed to get a couple of smiles out of him this week!  I look at these pics of him and I swear it could be Ethan as a baby!  Sometimes I also see a lot of Lachlan as a baby in him as well, especially those lovely lips!

I have also had a couple of LO's up on the Color Combos Galore site in the last few weeks.  When I first saw the colours, I inwardly groaned as I am not a girl who enjoys working with earthy tones, but I still accepted the challenge and created these 2 layouts.

 

 

When I printed out these colours they were a little different to what they look like on the screen but you get the idea.

We are heading into a record breaking week here in Adelaide if the temperature forcasts are correct!  A heat wave in November!  We have not even got to Summer yet and they are predicting a week of temperatures over 35 degrees celcius!!  That is just plain cruel in my opinion!  It will be the hottest week on record for November if the forecast comes to fruition!  Lets hope they were wrong, there are some records I am happy not to see set!

Just to finish on... if you could see my little girl right now, sitting on the chair with me, trying to put on Ashtons tiny 0000 shorts!  Seriously too funny for words!  TFL!

I Survived [just]

Well 7 days straight of Paul working nights and I managed to survive!  I have to confess to not a lot of sleep, in fact most nights I could only get about 3 hours sleep, so I wont say I was very good company!  But we all came out the other end alive!! Ashton doesnt believe in sleeping more than 3 hours at a time, often only 2 hours before his hunger clock awakes him!

Tomorrow a nurse is coming for a home visit for his 4 week check up!  I think they took pity on me having 5 kids and arranged a home visit rather than me having to go to the clinic!  Now who am I to complain!!  I will be very interested in how much weight he has put on.  He is now developing a double chin and little baby rolls of fat on his legs, so I am guessing he has put on a bit of weight.  The last time he was weighed he was just under 2 weeks old and he was only marginally above his birth weight, but now that he is over his jaundice he is gaining weight rapidly, well I think he is by how he looks!

I havent taken any pics this week, all too hard due to the lack of sleep issues I was having and often I find photo shoots a little stressful as children and babies are rarely co-operative and I didnt think it would be wise to put them through me getting very frustrated with them!

In fact all last week was about making sure life was kept as simple as possible.  I let the housework take a break, other than doing the dishes and a few loads of washing, but the vacuuming was allowed to wait until this week, as well as the bathrooms!!  I have also been so very lucky to have the ladies from church bring me meals all last week!  It couldnt have been timed better as it was one less thing I had to think about each day and the kids have loved the variety!!  Even better, 2 more weeks of this luxury to go!  I could not thank these wonderful ladies for all their generosity enough right now.

Scrapbooking has taken a bit of a break this week as well, but I have some projects I need to do, so I really have to get back into the swing of things, but right now it is easier to not think about it too much.  I did have a layout for the Prima BAP go up on their site.  It was a double LO sketch and I have to confess that I followed the sketch pretty closely as I just wanted to get it done!  It really is a great way to get LO's done when you are feeling time poor.

 

I had a funny conversation with Cameron this week.  We were driving home from school and he tells me that he wants us to have another baby!  I say, arent you sick of having brothers and a sister yet?  Cam: "No, I love having a baby brother"  Me:  "Are you going to have lots of kids when you are an adult?" Cam: "Yes" Me: "Do you know how much hard work it is having so many children? Do you realise it is you kids that make me so busy and stressed out?  Do you really want to have all this?"  Cam: "It will be fine Mum, I will get my wife to do all the work!!!"   Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!  What are we doing wrong??  How can I be creating such a sexist little monster and Lachlan has chirped in at times with similarly sexist comments in the past!!!  I seriously hope that Cam was just trying to stir me up, but sometimes things said in jest often have a hint of truth to them.

IF i DIDN'T SEE IT I WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!   Ashton rolled over from his tummy to his back!!!  He has only just turned 4 weeks old!!  What the????  He could hold his head up from the moment he was born and both Paul and I have been very careful when he is on the change table as he is very wriggly and can get from his back to his side, but tonight I had him on his tummy due to him being very unsettled and he rolled from his tummy to his back, 5 times!!  Yep, I kept thinking it was a fluke but by the 5th time I had to concede this little boy is a very early roller!  TFL,