Creating

I have been having some fun creating some layouts recently. Somehow I find it easier to sit down & listen to Dr Phil & scrap rather than saying I'll scrap tonight. The pressure must come off me & I just sit & putter around with the layouts while watching Dr Phil. Of course Dr Phil is usually not on or is a repeat through the school holidays so this habit may not last for long.

Determination is actually one that I completed at ScrapCamp. I have been looking at it wondering if I should add something but have decided to let well enough alone & leave it as is. This is the journalling.

You got that bike for your 4th birthday & you had great fun riding it around the block with its training wheels on. You got to a stage when even though there was training wheels on, you didn’t really use them.
Dad & I decided on April 8 2005 that the time had come to take those training wheels off. When you saw what had been done to your bike you threw it on the ground & burst into tears & said that it can’t be ridden, that we had broken it. You were very angry with us even though we had said we were taking those wheels off before we did it. We let you be & waited for Saturday to roll around.
On Saturday dad took you for some practice rides down the driveway & to your great surprise you could ride your bike. It only took a week of practicing & then you were away, nothing could stop you!
I took you to a BMX track on 29 May 2005 to let you see what you really could do on your bike. You loved it & came back home & told James that he won’t be able to go to the BMX track until he could ride a bike with only 2 wheels.
With a little determination Brent, you can do anything, including riding a bike on only two wheels.

I am also dabbling in digital layouts using my PSE4. I'm really thrilled with this layout. It's the first digital layout I have completed without having any directions on how to do it.

Then there is the calendar page for February that I completed a couple of nights ago. It's simple but to the point. Hopefully if I keep the other calendar pages like this I'll be able to catch up & maybe even go back & do last year's ones.

I have also finished another one today but I haven't scanned it in yet so that'll have to be yet another blog entry on another day.

Brent's report

Yet another fantastic report came home with Brent last week. Medbury are trying a different reporting system this year. Not only are there going to be effort cards & a report but there is also going to be a "progress book". It will be very interesting to get all three different aspects of Brent's work. We know he puts in a lot of effort & that he is doing quite well but we don't truely know how well he is progressing. We end up getting all three reporting tools near the beginning of next term & we then have a meeting with the teacher & Brent to discuss how he is doing & setting some goals for him.

An effort card is due to come home tomorrow so that will be intersting to read too.


PS: If it is hard to read the 2 pages on this blog entry just click on the photo & it will open in it's own window & become easier to read.

Other Stuff

Scott has been very busy this week with all the switching changes that have been happening. He has had quite a few trips to Wellington but it looks like everything went well on the night or early hours of Monday morning. There is still another change to go in but that can be done from Christchurch on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

I managed to do a layout of James this weekend.

This week we have a fish & chip night with a bottle auction at the kindy on Friday night. Hopefully Brent & James are having a couple of friends over to play on Sunday & then it is into the last week of term 2. I can't believe how fast the term has disappeared. At this rate James will be at school before I know it.

Folk Dancing Night - 15 June

Brent & I went off to the folk dancing on Thursday. Interestingly it was the same dances as last year so by the time I am up to James' year 2 year I should know what I am doing.
The boys would show us the dance first & then they would come & invite us to do the
same dance with them.




I think you can tell by the smile on Brent's face that he really enjoyed the evening. This is him rushing to invite me to dance.

Icey cold

Well it has been icy cold here recently but it does make for interesting photographs & also some sunny days.



When I went to hang my washing on the line on Wednesday 14th June I caught this out the corner of my eye. This is the accumulation of snow that we had on the roof of the house down over our bedroom. It was melting & we had a natural waterfall happening from all the ice coming over the gutters. Luckily the gutters withstood the pressure & are still attached to the house.

Snowman

Scott left work early so that he could get home before any buses stopped running. The snow stopped falling at about 4:30pm so I then let the boys outside to play in the snow. The snow was awfully slushy but they were able to make this snowman.


James was also very keen to create a snowangel so he got to do that as well as throwing snowballs.

Unfortunately the snow has pretty much melted today so there was not much playing in it.

At least the boys had fun while it lasted.

Snow!

This was the resounding cry yesterday morning when Scott told the boys to look out the windows. they were so excited that they came running to tell me. It was snowing when all night it had been torrential rain. I really didn't expect it to stick after all the rain we had.

I decided I would drop Brent off at school & keep James home with me because it would be warmer at home than at kindy. I rang the kindy to tell them James wasn't coming in only to be told there would be no kindy anyway.

At 9:48am I got a call from medbury telling me that I could pick up brent from his classroom because they were going to close the school for the day. At least they did it in an orderly way so the car park wasn't overflowing with people trying to pick up their children.

I took this picture at 10:33am from our front patio.

New Layout

This layout was done as part of a sketch challenge on
http://www.scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz/

Thanks Lara for the awesome sketch.

This is Brent & those cool froggy boots that he used to love wearing no matter whether it was summer or winter.

Blah

I'm feeling pretty blah today & can't get settled to much. I need to do something to take my mind off the question, how & why?

How can something go so wrong after so many years? Has it always been wrong & no-one knew? How will I know if it is happening to me?

Why? Why after all this time & the light was shining at the end of the tunnel do you pull up the rug? Why does this hurt me so badly? Why do I care what happens to them? Why am I sitting here with tears pouring down my face? Why can't I grow up?

Should I press the publish key or save this as a draft? Why should I censor my thoughts & feelings?

ScrapCamp 2006

This post is about me! It's not too often that a blog entry is about myself but this one is.

Last weekend I went to Otaki for a Scrap Camp. What a fantastic weekend. I flew up on Friday afternoon & didn't get back until Sunday night. It was a weekend of chatting, cropping, eating & catching up with people from last year as well as putting faces to names that have become friends over the internet. What a great stress reliever. I managed to complete 5 layouts & I won a CIS paper taker in a random draw. I didn't take many photos although I took about 6 of the red gum tree with a tui sitting in it. The sun shone from time to time too so that was an added bonus.

Thanks to the organiser for the transport to & from Otaki as well as organising such a great weekend. I loved every moment of it & will definitely be back next year.

Star of the Week - Brent

Brent's teacher has introduced a new topic in her class. Each week one of the boys is star of the week. A couple of weeks ago it was Brent's turn. We took his scrapbook in to show the class & then they said some positive things about Brent.

Some of the things the children said were:
- He has a beautiful smile & big, brown eyes
- He can colour in well
- He is a tidy boy
- He has good manners
- He is a happy boy
- He like biking
- He is playful and a lovely friend
- He is fun
- He plays well with us
- Brent has sparkly eyes

Some of them make me wonder if they are talking about the same boy I know but how nice to think he has good manners & is tidy when he is at school even if he can't carry that through at home.

June already

I can't believe that it is June already. This year is speeding by, hopefully that means that soon it will be summer again. The weather here has been shocking. I seem to recall Wellington in winter being grey, cold, miserable, dreary & drizzly. That is what the weather has been like in Christchurch for the past two to three weeks. I had forgotten how much I love to see the sunshine. I am fine with cold weather as long as I see some sun, but at the moment the sun hardly seems to shine.

What's coming up this month?
- Brent & I will be going folk dancing on the 15th.
- Brent will be bringing home his 1/2 year report on the 23rd.
- The last day of term is the 30th & Brent will be bringing home an effort card then.

We have no idea what we are doing for the school holidays as yet, James not going to school next term means that the shopping for uniform can be delayed for a while. I would like to try & go to the West Coast on the Tranz Alpine but we'll play that by ear.

Keep warm everyone & winter is the perfect time to scrap!