Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

OK, in true typical Anthea style, I am late with the wishes in my title, but I promise they are sincere. I did try to touch base with everyone on FB, but if I missed you....please accept my apologies, I was thinking of you all and I truly wish everyone a wonderful and happy New Year.

I trust that you all had a good one. We certainly did. Mum got this idea in her head that it would be fun to go camping for Christmas and New Years. After some convincing (yes it took a bit with some of us), we all decided that camping would indeed be fun. Camping on New Years is not new, but the whole camping on Christmas Day was a concept that even most of us had some trouble with. Deb, Shane and the girls were unfortuantly not with us this year; but by Christmas Eve at around 5ish, Mum, Dad, Shell, Brian, Dylan and Jake (Brian's nephew) and us Englishs' were all out camping at a place called Burrowey Reserve, ready to see in Christmas.

Now, don't get us wrong, just because we were camping doesn't mean that we missed out on any of the luxuries of a good ol' traditional Christmas, we just did it in true Aussie style. Now I know that there are a lot of Aussies out there who would question whether the word traditional Christmas and camping belong in the same sentance, but for some of my international friends I would imagine it is downright unbelievable, so here for you all to see are some of the photos from our week out.......(Just bear in mind there are a few - I have resized them to make veiwing them a bit easier, but it still might take a little while....sorry!)

No Christmas is complete without a Christmas tree...

One of the mini 'wreaths' that adorned each of our caravans

Christmas Eve, we kept with our Italian tradition of seafood - and boy was it goooooood!

Santa found us....despite one young man not being sure he would....and you can't see here, but the pressies and tree were about the only things not to get wet in the rain the night before - Good old Santa knew just where to sit them.

Tori wondering if there was more in her stocking. Yep - she understood the concept of pressies this year.

Matthew with a boat that Santa bought him, how clever of Santa to know that boat would get lots of use on the river.

The pressies that we got for eachother and the kids. Mmmmm - no! None of us were spoilt.

The Christmas table, complete with home made bon bons (The boys all got fishing tackle in theirs and us girls got a keychain with a supermarket trolley token on them and hair clips & Tori got hair accesories).

Yep - Ray got his turkey and to eat it too.....(in case you are wondering, it had to be cut in half to fit in the camp oven)

The food (salads instead of veggies), and yes there are several bottles of champers on the go.

Us

Mum & Dad

Michelle and Brian.

Dylan with his new toy.

Tori modeling her new bathers and thongs. (And before you ask, Tori did have a hat and rashie vest, but it was very late in the afternoon and very overcast and she was covered in sunscreen.) Oh and she did not wear ear plugs and she did NOT get an ear infection the whole time we were there!

The boys cooling off after Christmas lunch.

Matthew showing of his new t-shirt (& muscles).

Well, thats it for now, hope you enjoyed. For the very observant, you will notice some of these photos are larger than others....this was in no way intentional and by the time I realized my mistake I was not downloading them again.

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as us....it really was fun; very little mess to clean up, a river to cool off in, everyone got to have a drink without worrying about driving, if anyone wanted a nap they could, the food was great (albiet it be simple) and most importantly we had eachothers company for the whole day!!!!!! Other than the fact that we missed Deb and Shane and the girls and of course, all of Rays family, it really was a perfect Christmas Day. So perfect that we might just do it again next year!

I will post more pics later. Love, hugs and kisses all round....

Anthea

xoxo

Just some random pics...

Matthew and Tysha after the school concert......she doesn't have cooties Matthew!

The veiw from the upstairs bathroom in the new house....I can not wait to sit in that spa.

The house as it stands now...it is going sooooooo slowly.

Tori in my pjs.....too cute.

Me and Dianne - it was great to see you! (I love this pic of us)

Thats all folks...

Hugs all round

MWAH

xox

Matthew is 10!

OK -so I am a bit slow in posting, but what's new?

Happy Birthday to you Matthew. We love you so very much and we wish for you nothing but the best in life. I can't believe that our baby boy is in double digits now......I remember the day you were born vividly. You were just beautiful with your black hair and blue eyes....nothing except the black hair has changed.

We all love you. Even though Tori is sometimes the biggest pain in the butt to you....I hope that you realize and treasure just how much she truly adores you. I love that on your birthday, you pulled her close and deliberatley cut the bottom of the cake so that you had to kiss her.........it was heartwarming.

I love that you are funny, smart and kind (when you want to be). I love that you still love to have me read to you. I love that you still kiss me goodbye in the morning (with your friends watching) and still kiss me goodnight everynight. I love that you still love to hug me! Even though I get frustrated with your extreme stubborness and dogheadedness (is that a word?), I know and love that will help you go far in life. I hope you know that you can be anything that you want to be.

Matthew, you may be 10 - but you will always be my baby boy!

This is Matthew's last day of being 9.....

This is when Matthew had to kiss the closest girl for cutting the bottom of the cake! (OK - I made him re-do it....but you get the idea!)

Blowing out the candles.....(and yes there is 11 candles....one is to make him grow).

Matthew putting on his new shoes.....(he MADE me take this pic!)

Here is Matthew with 2 of his friends. They stayed over Saturday night and we all went to the movies to see Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. The movie was in 3D and here they all are with their 3D glasses.

That is it for now....

Love and Hugs to all.

Anthea

xoxo

The spoiled under - 30 crowd!

I got this e-mail again today and it gave me a chuckle (again), so I thought I would share it all with you. Hope you enjoy!


THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take, like, a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe! There were no MP3' s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone. Cause - that's how we rolled, dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel! NO REMOTES!!!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

Have split my blog....

into two!

Decided that splitting the scrapping from the other stuff might be in order. Will see how I go. As I get more organized - I will add a link to the other one. But if you are interested - my new blog is redantscrap . Hope to see some of you there.

Other than the usual colds and coughs at this time of the year. We are all doing well. We are meant to be camping, but the weather is so cold and wet it is just not funny. The house is progressing slowly. Just so that I can say I have kept you updated - here is the latest pic - although from what I hear, the trusses are now up and the roof and gutter will be going on this week. Yeah!

Also - just had to show you this pic of Tori. Last week I go to pick her up from child care and they tell me - oh and tomorrow is dress up day. "What? It is 5.30 at night and you are telling me this now?". "Oh there is a note on the door - it's been there since Monday" they say. I am thinking yeah - I love reading through masses of notes to find the one that applies to me....and it is ONLY Tuesday and Tori doesn't go Mondays...... Anyway - I try not to panic. I mean I have NO costumes at home at all and finding an outfit with less than half an hour before the shops close - that will even come close to fitting Tori is really stretching the friendship - OK killing it really! I don't even try!

I do come home and think what I am going to do?

I have a pile of clothes that someone has just given me to go through - I find a red t-shirt - that needs mending. Well, I decide I have to mend it anyway and that is likely to happen - NEVER - so I draw big black spots on it and some wings on the back with marker. OK - now I need antanae! Yes - it just so happens that I have these massive red pipecleaners on hand (don't quite know why) so I attach them to a black headband. I added in some black pants (which as luck would have it,I had bought the day before), some red socks and some black shoes and voille - what do you have - one very cute Toribug. Not too bad - considering the costume was finished and ready to go at 6pm.

Have a good one everyone....and take care.

Hugs and kisses

Anthea

xox

Some recent scrapping

As usual, I have not been scrapping as much as I would like of late. Between the house, work, kids, etc - just no time.

This weekend however, (between the house, work and kids) I decided to participate in my second Cyber Crop ever and have had a blast. The gals over at Scrapbooking Top 50 have been a blast to hang out with. We are from all over Australia and there is even one gal from the States there.

Anyway - still haven't done a heap of scrapping, as I have been too busy gasbagging with the gals and getting to know them; but this is what I produced on night 2.

This is an all time favourite pic of Matthew and Lily when visiting Canada last year. I reckon they could be models. The challenge here was to have 90% white and the other 10% had to be one colour only - Despite the fact, that I can't get a decent photo - I really like the result.

This second pic is from an online class that I did at Scrapbooking Top 50 about a month ago - I didn't have the kit that everyone else had so had to put it together with my own stuff. I originally did not like this LO too much, but I must admit, it has grown on me. I have included the link to the class if anyone is interested in checking it out.

Well thats it for now! Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Hugs to all and MWAH

Anthea

xoxo

Please - tell us if we are crazy?????

OK - some of you might already know, but Ray and I have been pretty stressed the past few days over the colour of the bricks that have arrived at the new house.

We ordered a sandstone/cream/beige brick (whatever you want to call it) and we feel we got more of a brown/ tan brick. The 1st and 3rd bricks in this pile are the sample that we were shown and that we ordered (the first brick is slightly darker than the 3rd because we soaked it in water as we were told that is why the bricks were different.)

The 2nd and 4th bricks however is a sample of what has been delivered to the house and the builders have started to lay.

Tell us - and please be honest!!!!!!

a) Do these bricks look the same?

b) If this were your house, would you be happy to take the darker brick (even though you ordered the lighter one), because it is close enough and they are 'only a couple of shades darker?

I really would love some opinions here....from everyone and anyone who visits - we just need to know if we are stressing too much and is this really is an 'acceptable difference' that we just need to learn to live with.

Thanks for your opinions.......

Anthea
xoxo