In:

bless me father for I have sinned, it's been ages since my last post.

It's not like I have loads to do, we muddle through pretty much the same each day, and you can only read about that so many times before wanting to jump off of a tall building.

Am loving
Scrubs at the moment and especially love Zach Braff's blog - he's just what you want him to be - funny, clever and kind to fans & dogs.

I'm not sure how I reached this
print & pattern site , probably via elisalous's blog , but I love all the print and pattern and totally want one of those marikemmo mice! elisalou makes THE most gorgeous bags and blankets and jewellery - I am hoping to get one of the blankets for Pip - kind of make it an heirloom piece.

I bought a beautiful necklace from Jacquie at
A String of Beads - what can I say? it is fabulous and she is going to make me a matching bracelet too.

Busy, busy this week - Munch has a tennis course (I am hoping he can contain his natural tendency towards tornado behaviour), they are both going go-karting on Wednesday and we have Pip's Christening on Sunday (which is my birthday too) and I need to buy an outfit for me & the boys. Plus finishing off ironing on name labels on uniforms and making sure everything is together to prevent last minute panics and the wearing of too small old uniform. I've had to buy Sam long sleeved shirts this year as he was very sensitive over the kids making fun of the dark hair on his arms when he wore his short sleeve shirts. Poor kid.

Have 2 red hot scrapping projects on the go - a digital to print album for a little girls bday party and a little 40th bday album for Hubby. Hope to get them finished tonight (and pigs will fly and I will give up choclate and biscuits)

In:

actual photos





I've taken quite a few photos these past few days,

one for me and my best bud for our birthday cake (we share a birthday and a lot of history!)


one of cheap storage from Woolies that i carried home from town whilst wheeling a buggy and keeping the older two close by

some of the Big Picture by Stacy Julian (pages I intend to work on)

and a pic of all the LO's in Cathy Z's book that I love straight off the bat

we should be getting our new (2nd hand)car soon - just finalising finances, I am going to miss the old Polo but it simply isn't big enough for our growing family. I am hoping someone in our family will want it - it's lost such a lot of money over the 4 years we have had it (£5500 in fact) it is almost not worth the hassle of selling. Ours is such a disposable society where no-one wants to keep things for long or want second hand things that getting rid of cars is more of a hassle than is used to be. My father-in-law had an old car he wanted to trade in and the dealer gave him £100 off the price of the new car to NOT trade it in (mind you it was an ancient car - you know what old people are like).

In:

and we're off...

have got me mojo back! about bloody time too.

bought 2 books to help me get into the groove and they've given me loads of ideas. Cathy Z's Clean & Simple : The Sequel & Stacy Julian's The Big Picture - Cathy's book is just sheer joy - full of seemingly simple LO's that I can achieve and Stacy's book whilst on the surface less 'me' has planted so many seeds i am actually writing things down and planning. i have also resubbed to simple scrapbooks - should never have let it slide.

I hope to get some money for my birthday so I can buy some more albums and organise them into categories: Sam, Munch, Pip, Family & Me+Steve. This is such a simple way, then all those 'event' pics where i have lots i will put into either simple 7x5 ablums or themed 8x8's. I think it will give me focus and also help reduce the photo pile.

Must say going back to crops has given me a lift too, nothing like the company of other scrappers to gee you along.

Holidays going ok so far, no riots or tantrums, just slightky messy but generally good times.

In:

scrapping & struggling

so this is the conundrum:- I really really want to scrap but it's the holidays and my kids really really want to do things & need attention. By the time I have some space the scrapping bug will have died. What do I do?

I'll figure it out, but you'd have thought at 40 I'd have this whole thing sorted. Who are these women who have spotless houses, smart kids, are immaculately turned out and are so arty they create in their sleep? maybe it's too much Desperate Housewives and their impossible lives but it doesn't do a girls soul any good.

Maybe I can't mutlitask or maybe I can multitask but cannot expect everything to be perfect. I hate living life in a whirl, I want to be controlled and calm - at the moment we are somewhere in the middle!

Had a fabulous weekend at a friends. The kids played with the little toddler brilliantly and it was nice not to have to rush to tennis/gym/footie etc.

Steve has taken on running an U8's football team so we have to add that into the mix now - Sam is over the moon as he loves football so much. They will both be going to our local team regularly now as Sam has a season ticket - 1 kid down and 2 to go!!!

Baby crying - bang goes cleaning the bathroom!!!