Seriously, where does the saying, "Hard work never killed anyone!" come from? I am not talking the sort of busy that you get all the time, like being frantic busy at work, or scrap related, I am talking physical hard labour!!! I swear, it could do some serious damage, especially if you ask my poor aging body!
You see this past week, over and above my usual job at the University and meeting scrapping deadlines, not to mention looking after 5 kids, We (Paul the kids and I) went up to the Mother In Laws place and started some serious cleaning up! As fire season will be on us by the end of October, we are frantically trying to burn off as much rubbish and fallen branches to keep the fire risk down. There was a lot of pulling out of saplings that had sprung up all over the place, and dragging of heavy branches and add to that digging up a pile of mulch to get to broken water pipes and my poor body was screaming "no more"!!
As if that wasn't enough, we had a huge dump bin delivered to our house on Friday and we filled it within 5 hours!! We are on a mission! Broken trampolines were pulled down and thrown away, trees branches were cut back and then we attacked the shed! We threw out over 5 boxes full of toys! Ah it felt good. There is only one problem, the bin is chock full and we need another one as we still have not finished cleaning out the shed! It is back breaking heavy work and my body feels "old". It is bruised and battered and aches all over but I am happy as there is a whole lot of decluttering going on! Can't wait until we have finished it all.
So, other than working my patootie off, there has also been two birthdays and a wedding anniversary in this household! Little Mr Ashto baby turned 2!! He is really growing up. If only he would sleep through the night!! I didn't have a flash on my camera for this shot, so it is super grainy and orange!!
Ashton is here with his cousins Maitland and Poppy and his Aunty Natalie. Love that happy look on his face! Don't worry we do know how to count but it was a number 2 candle flanked by two star candles!!! The cupcakes all had little dinosaurs on them, totally cute and all courtesy of a quick trip to the supermarket, since I was working the day of his birthday! Ashtons speach is going ahead in leaps and bounds and he says so much now. Some of his favourite sayings are ..... my bag, my seat, my phone, my car, my Mummy.... are you seeing a pattern of posessive behaviour? At the moment it is cute, I am sure that might change with time if he is still so posessive as he gets older!
Paul and I had our 16th wedding anniversary on the 8th of October. We asked my cousin Kylie to baby sit for us so we could go out for dinner and a movie. For Kylie it provided her with her first ever nappy change!! She is just lucky Mr Ashto boy didn't purge his bowels!! LOL! It was lovley to go out for a really yummy dinner and just have a night out as they are rare around here!
Then on the 13th it was Ethans 8th Birthday! He has been Mr moneybags since then, regularly counting his money in front of us. I love the way kids enjoy counting their treasure! Not sure what he plans to buy with it at this stage, but for now he is happy to just have a good haul of cash!
So as you can see it has been busy, busy, busy here. Kids have gone back to school today and we are one child down for a week as Cameron has gone on his school camp to Melbourne. The poor kid was so excited last night he couldn't sleep and emerged at 11pm complaining he was too excited!! If only he knew how thoroughly stuffed he was going to be by the end of the week!! The one good thing about him being away is the reduction in fighting in the household. The eldest 2 boys sure know how to fight these days, so having a break from one another is a good thing!
Onto scrappy stuff..... I have been creating a bit lately after a short break, but all of it is for future deadlines. I can share this LO that I created for Aussie Scrap Source for a blog post on Technique Tuesday stamps! I mixed it in with some Echo Park papers!
Love the way you can see all the layers here!
I also created some Thankyou cards for my MIL to give out. I wanted to make a few special ones that she could give to people. I was pleased with how they turned out as they were very elegant. I also put some old Chatterbox papers that I have had for a very long time to good use on these, mixed with Prima of course!
Thanks for stopping by and putting up with my irregularity of blog updates! I have good intentions but then find myself busy doing other things! Story of my life!
OM goodness..... so many happy birthday's. Happy Birthday to Mr Ethan, luv Emma and Mr Ashton, - is he really 2????? Hooley Dooley where did that 2 years go ????? So scary.
Happy 16th Wedding Anniversary - well as nice as it could be considering the constant chaos and upheaval you guys have been going through. I hope dinner and the movies was as romantic as when you first met (lets hope there's no baby No. 6 !!!!) he he he.
Gorgeous layout and lovely cards for your MIL. Great to see you posting again. I really must get to sleep.
Steph xo
Posted by: steph devlin | October 17, 2011 at 11:22 PM
Love EVERYTHING.
Posted by: Heidi Mireles | October 18, 2011 at 12:48 AM
I thought he was just born and here he is two already!!! These projects are absolutely gorgeous and I'm pretty sure that I'm currently dying of hard work, LOL.
Posted by: Jing-Jing Nickel | October 18, 2011 at 03:31 AM
Oh my, it sounds like it was party time at your house the past few weeks, LOL! Happy belated birthday to your two boys! And happy anniversary to you and Paul! Glad to hear you got to have a wonderful night out together just being husband and wife instead of mum and dad;)
Your layout is gorgeous! These bright colours and your soft layers totally brighten my day! And what fabulous cards too! I bet your MIL loved them.
Posted by: Romy | October 18, 2011 at 07:44 AM
HI.. oh you sound so busy.. i do hope you don't over do it!! but so glad to see a bit of scrappiness on this post too.. a stunning layout and lots of lovely layers! and happy birthday to your gorgeous boy.. they grow up way too fast!!
Posted by: lizzyc | October 18, 2011 at 05:26 PM
Wow no wonder you're buggered....bet it also feels great though to have lots of stuff GONE:-))) Such a pretty layout (love Vic's Garden) and those cards are stunning Janine...love the design of each one....I bet your MIL will love them.
Posted by: Linda L | October 18, 2011 at 06:13 PM
busy busy busy!! love all the stuff as always - Happy Anniversary and Happy Birthdays too!! :) x
Posted by: Louise Williams | October 19, 2011 at 07:05 PM
Beautiful layout and cards.And master 5 is two now wow that has crept up fast he is so sweet.October in our house is crazy for birthdays too.Congrats on the 16 years as well take care Kerry xx
Posted by: Kerry Murray | October 20, 2011 at 09:39 PM
soo stunning janine.. congrats and happy anniversary!
Posted by: liana suwandi | October 23, 2011 at 04:27 PM