If The Shoe Fits

Hello:)

Yes, I've been neglecting my blog again. Not sure if anyone still visits here...lol.

Spring is here in Melbourne. The weather was just gorgeous yesterday so we headed out to Brighton Beach (our first time). The minute our feet touched the sand, Abby started to collect seashells...lol. I didn't really get much photos of her till the end when she was already tired and flustered. The beach huts are so colourful! I can't wait to go back again:)

Abby and I had a great time catching up with some friends over the past week. On Friday before last, we caught up with Ruey, Mich and Vita and all the kids minus Jeromel at Ruey's. We had a great time. Thanks, Ruey for the nice lunch too.  Vita gave me a birthday present that included this cute owl pouch that is just perfect for my lens. Thank you, Vita. I love it.

Last Wednesday, we caught up with Em, Sofi and Clair with the kids at Maccas. We were there for 4 hours! Clair and the kids had to leave a bit earlier. We had a great time and I think the kids did too:) They were running like headless chooks the entire time. They also ate everything there - lunch, babycino and soft serve cones!!!

Have you checked out Fancy Pants Designs new website and blog? The website link is on my sidebar and the blog link is here.  There are challenges being held at the Fancy Pants blog every now so just check it out. You have to be in it to win it:)

No new layouts to share. Here are some that were in the mags lately.

Abby is a bit under the weather. She's got a bit of a cough and runny nose. I might have to keep her from kinder tomorrow. She's a bit sad about that and kept telling me she's well already. The girl loves going to kinder so much!

You asked for it:)

Thank you so much everyone for your kind comments on my photos and for offering your family to be my practice subjects. I might take you up on those offers some day soon:)

Took this one today in the garden after we came back from shopping. She wanted to play dress-up and I saw the perfect opportunity for a photo shoot...lol. We will be going out later this evening and I want to see if I can find a yellow or gold parasol to match this chinese costume I bought from our China trip last year. This costume is not going to fit her for long. They told me this is for 7-9 year olds...yeh right!

I got to say I love shopping with my little girl (OK, big to her but still little me). I always tell her where we are going and what we are getting so she can remind me...lol. She's a great companion most of the time and she never throw tantrums whenever I don't get what she wants. I do get her stuff  but not everytime. I have to remember not to spoil her.

Lately, she really likes to drink babycinno. Everytime I ask her what she wants for lunch if we are out, she would say "Babycinno and....(whatever else)". Most places don't charge for babycinnos when you order coffee anyways. So today, we were out hunting for a picnic basket (which we couldn't find because it's summer stock!), I asked her what she wanted for lunch. She said, "Babycinno and Krispy Kreme". She might have said doughnut, you know, any doughnut,  I can't remember but I wanted Krispy Kreme...lol. I said, "That's not very healthy lunch, darling" and she replied with "Just today, Mummy, just for today." How can I say no to that...LOL.

Since I'm talking about drinks, I might as well talk about her drinking habits (just for my record).
Ever since she was a baby, she never liked drinking water and never drank more than one sip. It is not for my lack of trying. I tried and tried and finally gave in and gave her diluted juice. It's better to drink half diluted juice rather than not drinking anything at all, right? It's not just any juice. It has to be a certain brand and no pulp at all. Yap, our biggest problem is when we travel overseas. Lately, she has totally gone off juices and just want water!!! You don't know how happy that makes me. I always think water is the best. She's a strange one, this girl of mine. She doesn't drink soft drinks (coke etc.). No cordial. None of those pop juices with the disney characters on them.

That's it from me. We have a few playdates this week and next. Hoping for sunshine:) I have to stop proscrastinating. I have quite a few scrapbooking projects to do!!!

Anyone tired...

of seeing Abby's photos on my blog yet? I obviously need some new practice subjects...LOL. If you are near me (East or South East Melbourne) let me know if you are interested in having your kids' photos taken and to be my guinea pig. Abby would appreciate the break from my camera...LOL.

Meanwhile,  more photos of Abby coming...lol.

Abby had been playing with the left over soil we bought for the garden so I bought her a set of Dora gardening tools. Yes, these people think of everything under the sun to make $...LOL. Can you see her painted nails? She's girly but she doesn't mind getting dirt on her and in her fingernails.

She's still loving her drawing easel.


Yes, that is a Dora art smock! If they have a Dora easel, that will probably be a Dora easel but they didn't . I'm sure they will come up with one pretty soon!!!

So, you know Abby is into Dora now. She's into Peppa Pig lately too. If you are not familiar with Peppa Pig, it's on ABC Kids channel in Australia and it's a family of 4 pigs that snorts a lot and rolls on the floor when they laugh. The episodes are short and toddlers and preschoolers can relate to the themes like jumping puddles and birthday parties.

Colin bought Abby this Bratz battery operated toothbrush and (it was on sale...lol) because her old Disney princess one was wearing out. He was really excited about showing it to her the next morning.

This is their conversation.

C: Abby, look what Daddy bought you.
A: But Abby "don't"(doesn't) like Bratz. It's for big big girls only.

To her, she's a BIG girl but not a BIG BIG girl yet...lol.

Finally, some layouts to share. This is for HMITM challenge this week. The challenge is to do the title and/or journaling on the photo and use 4 patterned papers and 7 flowers. I used pretty old paper on here...lol.

Another one I did a while back for Fancy Pants Designs. I played with glitter for this one for the chipboard letters...actual glitter, not Kindy Glitz. It was messy. I had glitter everywhere for days.

Thanks for dropping by:)

Beautiful Day

Thank you so much for all the lovely birthday wishes and your comments on our family photos. I'm just happy we have some decent family photos. I can never find any one to take family photos for us and when I do ask people to take a snapshot for us, it's usually no more than 1 and we all look a bit posed and awkward. With the self-timer, we had fun and the photos turned out exactly the way I envisioned them in my head;)

It was a beautiful sunny day today with a fresh light breeze. Tuesdays are my usual house cleaning day. I did a load of washing, vacuumed, cleaned both bathrooms and the bath, cleaned the windows(but forgot the dirtiest one looking out of the kitchen and hung the washing out. A nice and clean house makes me very happy. We had chocolate pancakes with sliced bananas for lunch. Yummy!

We even had time for some photos out in the garden.

Thanks for dropping by my blog and for your comments. I really do appreciate every one of them even though I can't reply to all of them.

Birthday!

I had the best birthday today and I will have a better one tomorrow...lol. Bet you are confused. My real birthday is tomorrow but we celebrate today because we are usually more relaxed on Saturdays. I don't have anything to complain about...kekeke.

Woke up this morning and we went to Box Hill for a rice porridge brekky and to pick up my cake. Then, it's back home for some photos and eating the cake. I've been meaning to take family photos for a while.

I love how it all turned out. They were all taken on Manual setting on a tripod!

She loved lying down across us like this.

This one cracks me up! I should have gotten her to cover her eyes with her hands too!

Check out Abby's expression. She started to blow even before I was ready! I nearly didn't have a birthday song...LOL.

Colin bought me a bath set (he must think I smell or something). Just kidding, dear! Then, we went to Doncaster to do some more clothes shopping for me and we had TGIF for dinner there. Overall, a great day. Very very happy:)

This layout is for this week's HMITM challenge. It's Joy's birthday tomorrow and it's actually the same day as mine as she is in the US...lol. So, the challenge is 8/4/1975 - 8 attachments, 4 photos. 1 colour, 9 buttons, 7 patterned papers and 5 ribbons/fabric. I think the hardest part was the 1 colour for me!

The photos for this layout were taken in January. If you look closely Abby was still drinking her night time milk in her bottle. Yes, she was way too old to be still using her bottle for milk. It was partly my fault. She drinks milk really fast in her bottle so I couldn't be bothered getting her to swap to a cup for night time. The other reason was this is the last "baby" part that I was reluctant to let go of. When Colin went to Sydney for work in June, she told me after her bath that she wanted her milk in a cup and she said "big girls don't drink milk from bottles, mummy. they use a cup!". I didn't know what to say! I was proud that she was the one that initiated the change but on the other hand, I was feeling sad that my little girl is growing up too fast! Everyday, she tells me she is a big girl and wants to grow up faster by "eating and sleeping properly"(her words). I want to keep her little forever!!!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Don't mess around with her...

but then she ruined her cool image by doing a face like this...

love these new aviator sunnies i got her. wrong outfit but i will probably dress her up in her rock chick shirt when the weather's better and take more photos...lol.

em and christian dropped by today for a chat and play and we went to the mullum mullum reserve for a walk. took some photos there too but none of them turned out good at all! must have messed up the settings in my camera. we wanted the feed the ducks but it was sunny but very windy so the ducks were on the edges of the creek at the other end. only one came to the bridge but wasn't too interested to eat.

that's it from me. bed time for me. colin is working all night in the city tonight. we are having people coming over at 7am to build a carport.

good night:)