Photos from our holiday

I've been promising to upload a few pics from our holidays; so here are the first couple. I'm having some trouble uploading, so I might load up some more tomorrow. The files are all huge, so they need a fair bit of editing to compress them down enough

These pics were taken at Byron Bay - Lydia at the beach (not getting wet hehehehe) and Dane and Andrew looking out across the ocean from Australia's (almost) eastern most point.

One of about a million from Brunswick Heads - Dane had such a wonderful time kite flying on the beach.

These two were taken at Movie World - the kids had the most AMAZING time here. Dane was so so so excited about going on the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster (a ride which, as it turns out, scared the living DAYLIGHTS out of him) and Lydia just wanted to do everything. She was shattered every time we had to tell her she was too little.

I'll have upload pics from the resort tomorrow - my camera is flat and all the pics are on that :(

I've been tagged.

So Karen has tagged me to come up with 7 random things about myself... so here goes...

1. I don't consider myself a good mum. I'm not particularly patient, and quite frankly a lot of kids activities bore me brainless. I wish this wasn't the case, but there it is.
2. I love school. (omg NERD!) I do. I love to learn, I love to share in knowledge, I love to debate... love it all... cept exams YUCK!
3. I eat WAY too much. I just can't seem to stop myself snacking. Like, all day. BAD BAD BAD.
4. I am incredibly opinionated. Sometimes a little arrogant I suppose, but I really feel that people need to consider how what they do affects others a bit more. This includes smokers, parents who couldn't care less about their kids, dangerous drivers... you get the idea.
5. I love the wind in my face - that complete feeling of freedom that comes from riding a horse or standing on the top of a hill with your eyes closed and your arms spread wide, embracing life.
6. I have a shocking inability to say NO. I don't even want to. I want to help EVERYONE. I burn out pretty often.
7. I love pretty things. Hilarious, cos I'm about as rough as they get. I want to live in a pretty home, with pretty things and be a girly girl. I'm not, but I want to be.

Don't know if that actually tells you any more about me; but there you go.

I'm now tagging Fleurie and Manon.... sorry girls hehehehe

A quick hello

Good morning all. It's currently 20 past 6 in the morningn here in Sunny QLD and you'd be amazed by how many people are awake here! I don't have time to post pics right now (omg there are gonna be SOOOO many when we get home) but I did wanna pop in and let everyone know we're having a WONDERFUL time. We spent yesterday at Warner Brothers Movie World and we all had such a great tme there. Ihas this kids section with rides just for little ones which was a blessing with Pickle, cos she aas starting to feel left out until we found that. I think Dane went all any ride he was tall enough for - which the exception of the roller coasters... lol, a boy after my own heart there!
We met up with Liz and her beautiful kids and Jolene and Katie on Friday - Liz and Jolene are exactly as I imagined them and their kids are just too cute! I really didn't realise just how TINY Sabrina is. Dane and Zane hit it off INSTANTLY and were best buddies in a heart beat. Katie played happily at her own thing - that girl is so cute!
The resort is fab; Dane has been so excited about having a Playstation in his room and he even beat Daddy last night (hehehehehe) We've spent a couple of hours in the pools already; with more planned for today. Just relaxed days planned from here on in and we'll be home Monday.
Looking forward to catching up with everything then.
Love n hugs
Dee

All Things Are Possible

As many of you will know we have been facing some pretty heavy finacial burdens of late. My poor DH works hard to provide for his family, but being on salary has meant that no matter how many hours he works there is still no extra money coming in. Every October he comes up for pay review, which generally means an extra $1000 or so each year (basically not much mroe than CPI increase) Next week we are due to leave on holiday to QLD a trip we've been planning for 18 months and saving for that long for. Last month that all came crashing down around us when I had to go back in to hospital for surgery. So we were desperately hoping that this year he might get a bonus, some extra money in his actual October pay packet.
Yesterday God reminded me of His infinite Love for my family. Andrew came home not only with a bonus meaning that we have MORE than enough money to enjoy our holiday; but also enough of a payrise to ensure that I can continue with my studies next year and that the financial burdens which have exhausted us can be lifted from our shoulders. Now I know many of you will be sitting here asking why God would be giving us MONEY? This money; which may seem a small amount in the eyes of some, will pay off all my medical bills and put me in a position to support the children of my sister; who need love right now. The timing of this is absolutely life saving; we can now spend our holiday recovering from a VERY tough couple of years and rediscovering our family. That is the Power of His Love. Not the money; but the peace it gives us. In His Love; All Things are made Possible.

Sketch by ME!

I've finally ventured into the world of sketching lol. I love working from sketches; I find it really focussed me; so when Ally asked me to come up with a challenge for this month at Crafty Collages I knew EXACTLY what to do! So here it is; my first ever publicly released sketch! Ally fixed it up for me in Photoshop; I don't have any software that can do anything like that.

Please give it a go; can't wait to see what everyone comes up with; it's a nice simple one with plenty of room for creativity. If you make sure and include some fabric somewhere on your LO (that's fabric, NOT ribbon) and upload it to the crafties gallery over here you'll be in the running to win this month's prize!

School Holiday Antics

Well the two weeks of school holidays are almost over and most of the holidays I haven't really been up to doing much with Dane. Today, in an effort to make up for a complete lack of attention I took him and his best mate Sami to the Melbourne Museum.

They had an abolutely wonderful time; it's such a great place for kids, and cos I promised Kate I would; here are a few of the pics I took. The dinosaurs were naturally the main feature for the kids, but Dane was really impressed by Phar Lap too. They also have an awesome kids room with hand puppets and a sand table set up with these 'fossils' in them for the kids to 'discover'. It's so cool!

After the museum we headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe for a very late lunch. Love this place; such good value and the kids were just so impressed by all the memorabilia. The kids menus there are designed to be coloured in, so they happily sat with some crayons (yay! still not too big for crayons!) They also got to keep the cups that their drinks came in, which they were pretty stoked with. Then back on the train to head home. I got the coolest pic of Dane on the train, so I really wanted to share it with you. Full credit to these boys; I have no voice at the moment and they were so good.

Nice Matters

Well Liz has once again absolutely made my day. Honestly folks, if you don't know this woman yet, then you are missing a huge part of the greatest things in life. Liz is supportive, encouraging, patient and welcoming to EVERYONE! I have never met anyone so openly accepting of other people in my life, and I thank God every day for bringing her into my life. (Of course, if He could just find it in Himself to convince her to move to Melbourne, I'd be even more thrilled!!!!)

So now you're wondering what this wonderful gal has done? Last week was a shocker for me; so much bad news and I was absolutely miserable. Liz, without knowing any of this, did several things to lift my spirits;

1. She tagged me as a Nice person, just because.

2. She made this gorgeous min album and posted it to me; how divine is this???

3. She posted me a RAK, along with the gorgeous LO she created of my two darling children.

4. She messaged me just because I hadn't spoken to her for a couple of days; just to make sure I was okay.

How could one ask for a better friend than that?

Now to pay forward the lovely compliment that Liz has given me; I'd like to tage the following people as Nice people;

Kate - no blog although her gorgeous little girl has her own site; umm Kate - when's yours coming???

Simone

Shelly

Ally

Kate, Mone and Shel don't have blogs to share yet - get bloggin' girls! But they are gorgeous lovely people who brighten the lives of those around them.

Sorry that this is such a long post; but I do have to add a mummy brag moment! My beautiful baby boy performed in his first school concert on Friday night. he was absolutely petrified and I am so proud of him for conquering his fear and doing it anyway! Well done Dane, you did such a great job! Some pics of my little star!