A few tidbits and our block.....

OK - first things first. Beth - this LO was the one that I did in response to the journal it challenge a few months ago. I know, I am a little slow in uploading, but better late than never I guess?


Secondly, the other week with me trying to encourage Matthews new found love of cooking, I asked him to cook us something in the slowcooker. I took him shopping and he picked the ingredients.....(OK - I did recommend the tomato and I forgot to take a pic of the meat, but this is what he chose.)

In case you can't see everything, there is celery, leak, mushroom, eggplant, onion, asparaus, tomatoes, garlic, some herb mixture thingo, capsicum, bok choy and not shown is the meat. The strawberries and cherries were for desert. Matthew cooked and prepared nearly everything - seriously the only things I did were the leek (cause I had never prepared it before), the eggplant, and I the bok choy (cause I didn't want to eat grit). Matthew tried to cut the onions, but gave up very quickly. This is what it turned out like....

Let me assure you - it was DELICIOUS. I am glad I took a photo, cause now we can replicate it.
What can I get him to cook next time?????

Next. Here is a photo of Tori in an outfit made especially for her by two very kind and special people. Sonia, a co-worker hemmed the jeans and added the butterfly as she knew how hard I was finding it to buy jeans for Tori, especially pretty girly ones. The jumper (or sweater for my US friends) was knitted by a patients wife who knew I was having trouble with finding jumpers...(you just can't hem a jumper). She has made it to fit, but has also put press studs in the head opening in case Tori couldn't get it over her head. I gave her free reign on the colours and I LOVE what she had come up with. Thank you to both of you for your very special gifts.....they are truly appreciated and I hope you can see from the photo how much Tori loves them.

Now - last but not least.....some pics of the block before the building begins tomorrow. These first 4 photos are from the 4 corners of the block. Excuse the sun flare in some of them...it was going on sunset. I have had to compress the photos for blogger, but if you are really observant, you will see Ray and Matthew in the 2nd one, Tori in the 3rd one and Matthew in the 4th....but it will take some looking.

This was a photo I took while standing there talking with our builder......this was taken from where the patio will be......This is part of the veiw that we will be looking every day and night while we are living in this house.....This was the beginning of our first sunset on this block. THIS is part of why we fell in love with this block.

And... this is us.....as a reminder of where we are now. Yep, we are worn out and tired from running around today...but this is us.....as we start the next phase of our lives....wish us luck and please pray that this house turns out just the way we envision it and that we will indeed live happily ever after.

If you got this far...thanks for reading. Have a great day,evening or night, depending on where you are and when you read this.

Hugs to all.....

Anthea

xoxo

Good enough to eat??

Matthew had his foodathon at school on Friday....just thought I would share a pic of what he looked like. Now I am not the best drawer and these are not the best photos, but it should give you an idea!

I think he looked good enough to eat....hehehe.

Hugs to all.

Anthea

xoxo

I've been tagged...

so without further ado, here are my answers:-

8 things I look forward to:
Catching up with Nonna on the weekend and making sure for myself that she is doing OK.
Catching up with the rest of the family on the weekend.
Going and picking more stuff for the house tomorrow.
Building the house.
Holidays.
Weekends off.
The day that Matthew figures out how to do as he is told....hehe.
Finishing this assignment (yep -I am still procrastinating - I think someone needs to put a bomb under me)

8 things I did yesterday
Worked (hard).
Laughed.
Watched some TV.
Hugged my husband and kids and told them I loved them.
Phoned my Aunt.
Chatted to my sister on the phone for an hour and a half.
Checked my email.
Had coffee with Ray before the kids woke up.

8 things I wish I could do
Wake up feeling like I had actually slept.
Speak Italian.
Cook.
Hire a house keeper.
Help Matthew be a better person (right now it isn't good).
Do my job (but in a voluntary capacity).
Be more patient and less angry with the kids.
Paint.

8 things I’ve watched lately
Play School.
The Night Garden *screws up face and breathes really deep*.
Pokemon.
Merlin (new fav in the house).
Master Chef.
Everybody Loves Raymond
I really cant think of anything else right now.....

8 People who I tag - sorry if you have already been tagged!
Kim
Mejane
Katie
Melisa
Sarah
Sue
Jenni
Dina

Night all....hugs all round
Anthea
xoxo

Master Chef Matthew

OK - the other day in the supermarket, Matthew announced that he wanted to cook dinner that night. He proceeded to tell me what he wanted to cook. We had to have carrots, peas, red pepper and meat "in strips". I already had a cauliflower in my hand at this stage, so he agreed that I didn't have to put it back.

We came home and the process of creating began. Matthew peeled and cut the carrots, boiled the beans....(yep the peas I thought we had at home were beans)....and helped cut the caulifower. I taught him how to cut the red pepper and Ray helped Matthew cut the rib eye steaks into strips.

We steamed, boiled, stir-fried and sauteed the various foods and Matthew arranged them on a plate. Now the meat in strips had to be placed in a glass for a few minutes after being cooked to give it a roundish appearence (that is the best way I can describe it) and put in the middle of our plates in 'circles'. He then cut up the cauliflower and filled the circles and decorated the plates with the remaining vegetables

..... this is his creation.....

So - who do you think has been watching too much Master Chef.....!?

Hugs all round.

Anthea

xoxox

One Lovely Blog.....

I received my very first blog award from my lovely scrapping friend Sue. Thank you Sue.

Here are the rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.


Now picking 15 people to send awards to is going to be difficult...so I am just going to say I nominate everyone who I visit on a regular basis for this award. Everyones blogs are amazing in my eyes. I love sharing a little bit of my life with you all and I love that you allow me to share in yours. So to all my blogging friends, this one is for you!

MWAH

Anthea

xoxo

Busy times...

Sorry it has been a while...life is justa bit too busy right now.

I have 2 more assignments till I finish my post grad -now 2 doesn't sound like much, but it just isn't happening for me right now. Finding the time and having the inclination to do them is like pulling teeth! Grrrr. If I could find some positive in doing it, that might help, but all it is going to give me is a piece of paper telling me that I can do what I have been doing for the past 10 years! I am not saying I haven't learnt anything - how can you not? I am just questioning the relevance of some of the stuff that we have learnt. Oh well, it can only be good in the end! Just have to finish.

Work is busy - when is it not? Lots of people off sick and too many patients. Seriously - so many new patients of late - not good!

The new house will officially start within a week or two - just finalizing contracts. Will have to get down to the block to get a before pic....ohhhh...very exciting. Yesterday we started picking out baths, taps, sinks, etc. I love this part...am not looking forward to tiles and bricks though - they are hard to change if you make a mistake - lol. Will keep you all posted. Hope it all goes well. We really like our builder and think he is going to do a great job.

The kids are well, Matthew is off today as it is parent teacher interview day. Both him and Tori are driving me mad...! LOL

On a sad note; my Nonna (grandmother) is not doing so well. There is a pic of her in my previous post. She is in hospital right now and not looking to come home for a while yet. I pray she is OK, and ask that everyone spare a thought for her.

On a good note; Rays sister is getting married this weekend - unfortunately with the house stuff going on right now, we couldn't spare the funds to be there with about a months notice as a trip to Canada for 4 isn't that cheap. Nancy and Greg - we wish you all the best together and can't wait to see some photos. We truly are thinking of you on your special day and wish we could be there.

That's it for now - no photos for today. Hope everyone is well.

Hugs to you all.

Anthea

xoxo

Scrapping Fun

Ok -for those of you that don't know, I dabble in scrapbooking. I certainly am not the best scrapper around, but I have a bit of fun and find it very therapeutic. I also love that it is a great way to preserve history and tell a story. In the year and half that I have doing this, I really am lucky to have created about 20 - 25 pages....and this weekend I did 5!

This weekend I participated in my first ever cybercrop (actually my first crop of any kind) and had a blast. A cybercrop is where a bunch of scrappers get together online and participate in challenges set by the organizers and sponsors. Now none of my pages are by any means good enough to win any prizes but I thought it might be fun to show you what I created. So without further ado.....

Here they are...

The journalling reads:

On this bridge – we played, we laughed, we cried. We shared dreams and hopes. We fished. We put on concerts for the birds. We pretended we were birds. We raced. We waved at Mum and Dad, or anyone else who passed by. We were captains on our own ship. We were famous explorers. We were anything we wanted to be!I *heart* THIS BRIDGE

This challenge was particulary hard....had to use orange, hot pink, polka dots and the word buzz or bloom in the title. I didn't have any polka dots to match..so I made it with paint. The colours are not really coming through, but the heart is bright orange.



This is perhaps my favoutite LO of the weekend...but I will be changing the title to "I'm Here" as in hindsight I think it works better. Here is a link to a you-tube video of the song if you are interested.... "I Volunteer" . Pretty much sums up what I want for Matthew to know.

This challenge was the hardest of them all - producing some of the best pages. You had to use only black and white patterned papers and cardstock, had to use button clusters to accentuate your journalling and the photos had to have a strong connection between the past and the present. I nearly backed out of this challenge, but am glad I didn't as I really like the result.

And it opens up to this.....

And last but not least (according to the judges....cause I just found out this one won!)
A sketch challenge. Tori meeting Alex for the first time. I am surprised it won and figure the judges were just being nice to me - for whatever reason?! There were alot more entries in this challenge that were far more deserving.

If you got this far...thanks for looking. If you were one of the people participating in the CC with me...thanks...I enjoyed your company over the weekend and look forward to another one, everyones work was amazing!

Hope you like my pages. Better go now...and tidy up all the mess I made while creating.

Bye for now...

Hugz to all

Anthea

xoxox