Shhhhh....

Two posts in one day, don't tell anyone, things like this are unheard of around these parts! Anyway, I remembered after doing the last update that I forgot to mention that middle girl Erin lost her top front tooth last night, while eating ice-cream of course! My goodness she has a big gap there now! I wonder how long it will be before the new one starts to grow? Or perhaps the other will come out and she will have an even bigger gap! Also had to share this one of Chooky. Went to close up the other night (one of the hot nights) and found out the coolest place to be, on the back deck lazing in one of the kid's little chairs! Cats always know the best and coolest places to have a nap!

School Holidays....Been and Gone

OK, I was looking forward to these school holidays as a chance to wind down after a busy couple of months. Well, no such luck, they disappeared way to fast to be of any real use! Admittedly we didn't do much, but they still disappeared into a puff of smoke with school starting back Monday this week. We did however catch up with Sue, Grant, Daniel and Rachel and also Jenny, Richard and Jasmine. The kids saw Wall-e (Liam for the second time as he loves the movie that much!), the girls graded to orange belt in Karate, we went to Rocks Riverside and took some great photos, we went to the local library, watched some dvd's hmm, well I guess we were kept pretty busy! I have lots of great photos to share today too. Some more of my beautiful little nieces Jasmine and Rachel (she just turned 2 can you beleive it??!!), and some general family ones.

Little Miss Rachel at her party.

The kids at Rocks Riverside park. They loved exploring the old equipment.

Liam has been building things from his lego non-stop these holidays.

Well, these are of cheeky little miss Jasmine! She is growing so quickly.

Oh, and these of me and Liam and me. I set a challenge at Scrapbook City to do a self-portrait and then scrap it so, I thought I better put my money where my mouth is and join in! I am really pleased with this photo, now I just have to scrap it. The one with Liam, well lets just say he didn't want to be left out of the photo! Speaking of Scrapbook City, they have just launched a big competition finishing in the Scrapbook City Christmas party and Awards Night 2008. There are five challenges set on the message board with five fantastic prizes and a random draw prize of a Slice! How cool is that?! So drop over and check it out you may just want to give it a go! Well, thats it from me. Things to do places to go and people to see! Just the usual in other words! 'Til next time!

Almost School Holidays....again!

Well it is almost time for the September/October school holidays and I feel a break from rushed mornings will be great. I am hoping to get a bit of photo taking done with my willing models over this time...but we will see! Life is continuing at its fast pace, I guess I just need to face facts and come to terms with the fact that this is normal and quiet weekends don't really exist! Speaking of weekends, last weekend we went to Seaworld for the Energex family fun night! We got home at almost midnight that night but everyone had a great time. We all went on the flume ride and just had to bring home the photos that they snap as you go down the big drop. The one with Andrew and Erin is a cracker! The dolphin show was great too. Below are the kids on a couple of the rides in the Sesame Street Beach kids area. Things are starting to gear up at the shop now as we prepare for Christmas with a newsletter and classes and the like. And if that won't keep us busy enough we have a few surprises in stall too to keep our supporters on their toes! Keep an eye out for that, as soon as I can I will spill the beans here too! I thought I might add a few more photos from the shoot I did for Jenny and Richard. So here they are: And here are few from when I was playing around with my newest lens (my first "L" series, if I haven't already mentioned that!! And looking back I haven't!! Well I now own a beautiful 70-200 f2.8 L series lens and it is superb! I want more!!!) Well, that is enough for now, I suppose. Oh I remember something more, I have entered the Canon Photo 5 competition! I have just this week received my little box of goodies and need to find a creative way to photograph these items: cocktail umbrella, red ribbon, black crayon, bottle of bubbles and a tea light. If you think of any wonderful ideas contact me!! I will try and photograph them soon to show you what I mean! Catch you next time and thanks for stopping by.

Wow, is it September already??!!

Wow life has sure been busy and it will stay that way at least until the end of September! So this is why I have been neglectful of my blog. So whats news over the past month or so? July - In July we packed up the car and took a trip to Stanthorpe where we stayed for 5 nights in the cold! Yes we chased the cold and it was great. Cold, like five layers and beanie cold at times, but it was nice to have that fresh cold. Although, having said that it got colder a couple of weeks after we got back and they even had snow there! To quote the great Agent 86 - "Missed it by that much"! July also had us celebrating my nephew Daniel's 4th birthday and to say he had a good time is probably an understatement! I have pictures but they are on my other PC!! (yes another PC but that news will come later.....) August - Gearing up for birthdays and the fete kept this month full of action. Took Mum to a nursery for some "stuff" for her birthday and it was a nice morning as the nursery had a coffee shop too, where we had to start of course! Then the fete and Richard's birthday all on the same day (not to mention the Riverfire fireworks too!). I spent all morning working on the two stalls run by the girls classes (coffee shop for Erin and Mexican stand for Niamh) after which, it was on to viewing class performances and then the rides..... To say I was exhausted after this is a complete and utter understatement! I was falling asleep on the lounge by 8pm that night! Not surprisingly I was in bed soon after that. Went to Richard and Jenny's to take some family photos the next day (and there are some previews below) and it was nice to catch up with them both and my beautiful little niece who is growing so quickly! September - And that brings us to the current month! Liam turned 4 on the first (I am still coming to terms with my baby being 4 so lets just leave it there I think!). Liam had his first ever party with his own friends, 12 kindy friends to be exact! And they had a ball at McDonalds! Again, after this I needed a strong cup of something and a lie down. Liam just loved all his presents but most of all the Star Wars transformer that Daddy gave him! And we are still getting together with family on the weekend too! So that is a nice little overview of our busy lives over the past couple of months. Oh, I did forget to mention my new PC! Just last week we bought the fixings for a new "powerful" PC for my photo storing and processing requirements, it is great and running smoothly thanks to the talents of my wonderful husband! We now have quad core power and 4Gb of RAM! Yay no more struggling through photoshop editing! ( A shiny 22" monitor will be on its way soon too, yay!) So that is enough rambling on, have a look at some of the photos from the fete; Rich, Jen and Jasmine; Liam's party. Thanks for stopping by and catch you next time.

Liam's Birthday

Richard, Jenny and Jasmine

Graceville Fete

What we got up to....

Well, imagine this if you will, a group of 9 (and sometimes 11) 35+ women descending upon the Gold Coast to catch up and feel free for a weekend! Sounds dangerous doesn't it??!! Well, I can honestly say it was and I am still suffering for it, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world! Here are some photos to have a giggle at!

Now here we all are before going out for dinner.

Thanks for a great weekend girls! And here's to planning the next weekend! Keep a look out and I will post some more photos when I get around to editing them.

Cheers, Katie

Don't Fall Off Your Seats, But....

I have made two posts in one week!!! Amazing isn't it??!! Anyway enough of the theatrics! I have actually been scrapping this week. Thought I would do some of the challenges from the challenge blogs to get something done for me for a change. I have to say I have been pretty pleased with what I came up with too! So of course I need to share!

This one is for the Fiskars ANZ blog's June challenge and I had to use a template in at least two ways on the layout. So I created the scalloped border and the decorative strip using the decorative edges of one of my templates and then not content to leave it there....I cut out two stars from the shapes template I have then cut their middles out, overlapped and created my "flower" embellishment!! I think it is quite cool, and it goes to show I could be using these alot more!



This one is for the 1,2,3 Challenge Blog. The requirement was a page with

1. 6 photos
2. Doodling
3. Title is a song title or song lyrics

see where the 1,2,3 comes from??!! So I immediately thought of the kids song "Shake Your Sillies Out" when I saw these photos of Erin, and the rest they say is history!!

OK, will sign off now....but who knows maybe it will be three posts in one week....wouldn't that be something!!! LOL!!!

Been playing...

Well, I am now the proud owner of some new photographic equipment!! Yay me!! I have a portable backdrop and stand, and it is BIG!! It is about 3mx3m when fully set up and the backdrop is 3m wide and 6m long! It is great! And I am pleased with some of the photos I have taken while playing around with it too! So of course I need to share them with you!


So these were taken using the backdrop and stand. Not too bad hey??!! Can you see that Erin has a "new" gap?! She lost her second tooth just last week, and I tell you the tooth fairy money was burning a hole in her pocket! And Liam, he just loves his hoodies! In fact most of his jumpers don't have hoods and I am worrying that he won't wear them now! Kids...... Check out how grown up Niamh is! She is almost 9 and a half now and looks too much like an almost teen that it is scary. I am not sure either Andrew or I are ready for that stage in her life, but as with all things it is not coming soon enough for Niamh!

Now these next photos are of Liam's wonderful creation! He told me the other day that he was making a helicopter from lego and I didn't think too much about it until he brought me the end result! He is still 2 1/2 months from 4 and he built this all by himself....another engineer in the family perhaps! Anyway, I thought it was so cool that I just had to take a photo of the amazing creation and the creator too of course!


I am off for a girls weekend this weekend so that should be fun. Catching up with the playgroup mum's, some of whom I haven't seen in years! The school holidays are also approaching fast, so we are all getting excited about our little trip to Stanthorpe. I just hope we have enough warm clothes! Anyhoo, enough for now, catch you soon.