More party photos and some scrapping!!

Two more birthdays to report on.
Ollie had his party last Sunday and it was a gorgeous afternoon. They have such a great big backyard, Jack loves it. He loves the kids Jeep that Ollie has too, thankfully for me Tricia got Jason to put it away because it's a bit tiring after awhile jogging along beside a little Jeep trying to steer from the outside. Sorry Jason but Jack blames you for it being put away, I've heard about it about half a dozen times now.
Check out Ollie's cool crocodile cake. Such a boyish cake I thought with the big croc with a little one in it's mouth. Ollie and his family blowing out the candles. Sofie with half a croc hanging out of her mouth. They were yummy!!Then this afternoon we went over to the new park to have some cake for Lauren's birthday. Here she is showing me that she's 3. She looked so cute today with her gorgeous little jacket on. All the kids really are growing up and starting to look like little boys and girls.Here's Jack holding Hayley on the hammock ride. He was very good and held her very gently. I was surprised although he does go up and try to tickle the babies some times.And here's Jack with his happy face on. Grandma Joy came over to the park with us too this afternoon and she pushed Jack on the swings and things. Unfortunately he only wore the smiley face for half of the afternoon. The other half of the afternoon was full of tears and tantrums. He's very stubborn (no idea where he gets that from) and he's not the best of sharers but I guess 3 year olds can't really be expected to share well. Little Charlotte was playing with his tricycle while Jack was having a turn on Lauren's scooter. When he saw her on it you could see him getting angry as he was walking up and he must have been talking to Daddy about it because I heard Daddy tell him to be polite. So he stomps up to Charlotte and yells at her "Excuse me, that's my tricycle." It was so funny.
He also fell asleep on the way home tonight so he slept from about 6 to almost 11 and now he won't go back to sleep. It's currently 1.30 in the morning!! I'm about to fall asleep myself.
I finally did some scrapping. I'm involved in a photo swap on EB and I've done some LO's for that which I can't show yet but I also did LO for myself and one for my friend Erica of the beautfiul photo of her and her girls. Well I'm about to pass out so I'm going to sign off now.
Cheers
Jody

Slack blogger checking in (insert sheepish smiley here) :P

Well I can't believe it's been so long between posts. How slack am I?! I have no excuse really. Life hasn't been all that exciting and our internet is capped or whatever you say so it's slow. But anyhoo, here's an update of what's happening...

On Saturday we headed out to Moura for Nicola's "home" birthday party. It was a great drive out there even though we missed our turn. We were driving along and I said to Owen, "I think we're meant to have turned before now" so we pull out the map and check the phone book (the GPS was stupidly at home in Owen's ute) and yes we had missed it. Only by about 5 minutes drive though luckily. I must have had a sixth sense. We've only been out there once before and we took a different route this time. Anyhoo...

It was a great party. Lot's of room for the kids to run around. Girl parties are so pretty. Lots of pink and purple. It was a princess themed party and there was a crown decorating station, kiss the frog game, pinata, the normal yummy food and party games. The kids got to see some little baby chicks and some sheep which was very exciting. Jack just loves animals. Michelle did an absolutely fantastic job making a princess castle cake, it was very ornate and beautiful, unfortunately my photos of it were crappy though. The boys even got to do a little tour of the cotton fields then we had some dinner before heading off home. Here's a few photos.

Jack the Dorito addict. Not that I blame him though. I love Doritos!!

This was one of the many wacky facial expressions Jack was doing while trying very very very hard to bust the pinata. Makes me giggle just looking at it.

Jack in front of a cotton plant out in the fields.Jack and Jared in front of a HUGE bale of cotton.Jack and Daddy climbing up onto the cotton picker.Jack and Daddy going for a ride in the cotton picker with Greg.I havn't really been up to anything much else. I've done a bit of scrapping but I can't show it yet. I've done 3 LO's for a photo swap through EB and another LO that is a gift for a friend so once they've reached their respective recipients I'll post some pictures. It's been just forever since I scrapbooked and I'm really excited to get back into it. I just seem to have been preoccupied with other things or busy with Jack and havn't been doing much scrapping for awhile. I have however still been gathering my supplies which I can't wait to use. How cool are foam thickers!? I LOVE 'em.

I've also been making a photo DVD for my Grandparents upcoming anniversary celebration so that's been taking awhile, editing all the photos and things. It's looking good though. I know they're going to love it.

I made the dogs some new beds since Poppy shredded their old one. They're just poly stuffed rectangular cushions but they look cute. Making their new beds and cleaning out their kennel got me a bit inspired the other day too so Jack and I ended up spending a good 3/4 hours tidying up outside (not the Jack was much help though). I'm hoping that when Owen is off Thurday and Friday we might be able to get in and really clean it up a bit. Our yard has been so neglected over the last couple of years. The garden needs a good prune and tidy up and we have weeds galore out the back so hopefully we should be able to make a big dent in it this week. I also moved our BBQ up onto the patio. It has also been sitting out in the yard neglected so I'm looking forward to a few upcoming BBQ dinners like beef and vege kebabs and ribs on the barbie.

I'm also very seriously contemplating starting as a Body Shop Home consultant. I'm pretty keen to do it because I love their products and apparently the party plan works really well in our area. I'd like to be able to bring in a bit of money for our household and I think it might work in well with our lifestyle as well as be something I enjoy doing. The thing that's holding me back is I'm not sure whether I'm 'brave' enough. I do sales at work of course but the thought of standing up in front of 15-20 people and talking is a wee bit daunting. I really think I'm going to do it though. C'mon, someone talk me into it!! :P

Well that's about it. I promise not to leave it so long between posts.

Cheers.

More bithday parties!!

Well it sure is a busy birthday month for us. We had Nicola's party on Saturday and Charlotte's party today. Unfortunately I was sick so I didn't get to go to Charlotte's party but Jack and Owen went and got heaps of photos for me.

Nicola's party was on Saturday morning. Her birthday is actually this week coming but she lives on a farm so this was her town party. They had the coolest blow up pool. At one end was two big seahorses that sprayed out water onto the little slide, then there was a rainbow over the top and a big elephant with a hoop at the end. The party was held at her uncle and aunties house which is just a gorgeous house. It's and older house that's been renovated. The whole wall of the dining room which is at the front of the house is all glass and the opposite wall in the room is a concertina door that leads out onto the most gorgeous deck. It's a great house. They also have a big avocado tree in the backyard so I got to take home half a dozen of the biggest ever avocados I've ever seen. Michelle made the yummiest cheese thing. It was a wheel of camembert that had the base and side wrapped in puff pastry and it was topped with cranberry sauce and baked in the over. Yummo!! It was a great party.

Here's the birthday girl blowing out her candles.Jack posing in the poolLauren with a frangipani in her hair.

And a grotty faced Jack with his lollypop.

And here's some photos from Charlotte's birthday party today.

Here's the gorgeous birthday girl getting ready to blow out her candles.Here' my boys playing duck, duck, goose. Owen selected their outfits today. Don't they look cute all matching like that.Here's my beautiful friend Tricia walking her little cutie Sofie.

And here's little Hayley Bear having a play in the sandpit.Ok, well I keep falling asleep in between sentences so I'm off to bed.

Ciao

Jack's 'Toy Story' Birthday Party!!

So today was Jack's 3rd birthday party!! We chose a Toy Story them for his party. It's one of his favourite movies and I wanted to get him some sort of play characters for his birthday this year and I thought it would be a great theme.
For the invitations I made a copy of an invitation I'd seen on eBay that looked like a theme park entry ticket. I can't find the link for the eBay seller so I'll show my version but I just want to make it known that it's not my design idea, don't wanna get sued or anything.
We held the party at the kid's playground at the Botanical Gardens so of course Jack wanted to go and play on the swings and things but he was such a good boy staying at the table with me setting up while Daddy went back and forth to the car. Then when Grandma Jean came he ran over and escorted her to the table. It was so sweet. So to go with the theme I did cupcakes topped with stars in Buzz Lightyear colours and sherrif badges. The other toy story themed food I did was chocolate crackles topped with a couple of little green dinosaur toppers to represent Rex. The rest of the spread was just your regular party food, kabana & cheese, dip & crackers, tortilla rolls, fairy bread, you know...the usual stuff.We played pass the parcel...Then we played pin the badge on the sherrif. I blew up a toy story poster to child size. I wasn't sure whether this age group, 3 year olds, would be up for it but they all played so that was great.We had a pinata which I bought on special from Spotlight. I took a good 20 minutes to crack it though and in the end it was Tricia, Dave & Pete that got it open. I nearly ran a perforator over it.Here's the kids scrambling for the lollies. I made the cow print vests for the boys and little neck scarves for the girls and I also made little sheriff badges for all the kids which I xyron'd to make into stickers.For the cake I just made a basic vanilla cake recipe but flavoured it with coconut essence. I actually made copha icing for the first time ever which turned out great. It's just like butter icing but you use room temperature copha and a teaspoon of cream of tartar instead of butter to make a really white icing. It keeps a great consistancy. I was really surprised. I bought a printed cake decoration from Spotlight for $4 which I though was a bargain, and then just circled the outside with the coloured stars. I also coloured some coconut for around the outside of the cake.
And for the second year running I forgot to take a bloody knife to cut the cake...so we used a spoon. LOL. It was a bit messy but it got plated and that the important thing.
We had a really nice afternoon. The weather was just fantastic and there were hardly any bugs, the mosquitos just started to come in late afternoon. We missed out on our planned party space but it worked out pretty well. We've got such a fantastic family and a great group of friends. I love spending time with them.
Jack had a great time. We even went and fed the fairy bread crusts to the birds and turtles. The sunset over the lagoon was just gorgeous this afternoon.
So that's it! Birthday over for another year. Our little man is growing up!!

Hayley Bear's Birthday

Little Hayley Bear celebrated her first birthday with a cutie little tea party on Saturday afternoon. Her Mum, Erica, made the cutest little teacup biscuits. They were a tic toc biscuit topped with a marshmallow, a freckle on top and then a half a fruit tingle for the handle. They were just adorable.
The kids had a ball playing together especially on the trampoline. Jack just LOVES the trampoline.Beautiful little Charlotte...Jack's hand-free cake eating method... Just Jack...
It was a great afternoon.

My baby is 3 today!!

Can you believe it!! 3 already. He'll be going to school in no time.

You should have seen his little face light up when he saw his gifts on the table this morning. It was adorable. We've been telling him for a week that his birthday was coming up and yesterday morning he woke me up trying to pull up my eyelids telling me it was his birthday. JG (Jack's grandad) came over this morning and before he'd even gotten through the door Jack was asking him if he had presents. Cheeky little bugger.

We're having his party on Sunday afternoon and he has daycare tomorrow so I'm going to make a small cake for today, a cake to send to daycare tomorrow and then I'll make his actual cake on Sunday for his party, whew, I'll be all baked out.

There are a few birthday's today...little Hayley bear, my cousin-in-law Steve, our friend Magda and two of the EB scrappy kids as well, Arkaydia and Coban. Coban and Jack were even born the same year and only 10 minutes apart.

Well I'm off to watch Jimmy Neutron apparently.