Times flies...

Wow - time really does fly by, doesn't it???

All of a sudden, Madison is 7 weeks old and Kyle has just turned 8 - 8!!!!! Where did the time go??? Now as I hold Madison in my arms, I remember how small Kyle once was and then I find myself wondering where the last 8 years have gone!!! I must have blinked for far too long!!! LOL

A quick catch up...

Halloween came and went - Madison had her own little outfit - come on, who on earth could resist this cute little number!!! Thanks to Fiona (aka Angelfish on UKS) for the heads up on this outfit!!!
As you can see, even Madison was full of glee with this outfit!

Then there was my fabulous friends' daughter who regularly comes to walk my pooch, who was looking for an excuse to dress up on Halloween, so she took Kyle out for 'Trick or Treat'...
For Kyle's eighth birthday, we went Ten-Pin Bowling and then Pizza Hut with his best friend Leo and our family...
And a LO, just the one!!! This took me a couple of weeks really, by snatching 5 or 10 mins here & there...

Introducing Madison...(used the most gorgeous Pixielicious range from Cosmo Cricket, which was part of the ScrapaGoGo kit for October!)


Madison has been having loads & I mean LOADS of cuddles from lots of friends and family - I can't show them all here as you'd never get the page to refresh properly!!! So instead, just a few smiles from Little Miss Indecisive (my team on UKS is 'The Indecisives') and/or the Ribbonette (on UKS, I'm part of the fabulous and best house - Red Ribbon House)...



Til next time...

Creations

So much to catch up with... grab a cuppa - this could be a long one!

Madison has been weighed twice by the health visitor and is just over her birth weight which is good! She's sleeping well when she has a good feed but when she falls asleep early on in the feed, she doesn't sleep for very long afterwards! But we do tend to get spells of 4 or 5 hours during the night!
We're getting lots of beautiful smiles from the little lady so they more than make up for the lack of sleep!!!Before the appearance of Madison, I made this mini book for my best friend & Godmum-to-Madison Suzy after watching the incredibly talented Laura create a Grungepaper & Canvas mini album - lots of inking involved with red & orange fingers for the main part of a week!!! I finally gave it to Suzy after Madison was born - its for her to put whatever photos and memories of hers & Madison's time together.
I have been able to do a couple of LOs - first 'Les Fleurs' for Suzy's Weekly Challenge over on UKS & I shocked both Suzy & myself by using the pink Cosmic Shimmer mist that my friend Sam sent me in an attempt to get me used to pink stuff! These three beautiful bouquets of flowers bought after the birth of Madison by Andy, my parents and my fabulous UKS team The Indecisives, deserved a LO to show them off!

Pegs! was created for the October UKS house challenge to scrap your quirky traits & idiosyncrasies and to scrap in a style that is so NOT you! This more 'graphic' style is a style I've been meaning to scrap in for a while and I like it a lot - I think I'll be doing more LOs this way!

My journalling reads "Each item of clothing HAS to HAVE the same coloured pegs handing it up! Coloured clothing has coloured pegs - White clothing has White pegs! Different coloured pegs on one item puts me out of my comfort zone!" and its amazed me how many other people have admitted they do the same thing!!!

Introducing Madison...

Madison Grace Annie arrived at 5.14am, Thursday 30th September 2010, weighing in at 8lbs 8ozs :)


Madison posing under the handmade blanket! It may well be wind causing the smile in this photo but its still a smile - just a windy smile!

Quick LOs

Hullo - I'm still here... and STILL waiting for baby to arrive... if Mother Nature still hasn't taken over before Tuesday, then I'll be going in to be induced! Come on Little Lady - everyone is getting impatient, especially ME!!!!!

I've managed to do several LOs though in the past week or two while I've been waiting and I'm now down to doing LOs with kits and/or instructions so I can complete them quickly - just in case!!!

So firstly, Hello Mr Dragonfly - I was quite happily scrapping when I heard Gizmo behind me and a very LOUD buzzing noise... turned out she had caught this beautiful dragonfly. Andy managed to rescue it and the camera came out rapido to get some photos as it recovered from its ordeal. I don't think I've ever seen a dragonfly soooooooo close before so I was really happy to get some decent shots of it. Then I just had to wait for my September ScrapaGoGo kit to arrive as I knew the contents of the kit would be perfect for these photos. With the addition of some pre-made ribbon dragonflies from BF Suzy, the LO was complete...

I also had another perfect photo for the same kit - Andy & I went to the 'official' opening of Rare Aquatics in Crewe and I had to take a photo of this pleco Jo had in a tank. I was gobsmacked at the size of the fish, probably about 8 or 9 inches in length and those teeth!!!

I managed to take part in the UKS weekly challenge this week - to scrap an obsession or guilty pleasure - well, as I don't wear matching socks anymore and was proudly wearing my new Little Missmatched socks that day, I set to work basing it on a sketch from the Bo Bunny blog - this turned out to be a very BRIGHT LO!!!
And finally today I did this Tasty LO - one of the quickies! This LO was courtesy of my fabulous teamie on UKS, MJ who put this class kit together for a DLO and gave it to us at our retreat back in June. I only wanted to do a SLO so also based it on a LO that another fabulous teamie Katy created from the same kit, here. Thank you ladies for the inspiration! Photo is of Kyle when he was approximately 10 months old - just enjoying a quick snack!!! There was a very soggy end to that french bread by the time he'd finished munching on it!!!

There is something else crafty I've created but I can't show it yet as it is for a certain Godmum to be!!! Be patient Suzy - I'm not!!! tee hee!

Maybe on my next blog post I'll finally be able to introduce you to the Little Lady!

Zentangle ATCs

I've been looking at the Zentangle blog and receiving the newsletters for soooooooooo long now but never really got round to actually doing a Zentangle! Pretty normal for me!!!

When an ATC Zentangle swap appeared on UKS, I signed up immediately - despite my resolution that I would not do anymore swaps - hey I kept to it for over 8 months!!!

And I have to say I'm suitably impressed with myself! Each ATC is different but with the same heart shape in the middle. Eight done so far, may have another 7 to do yet but have felt very relaxed doing them - although it may not be ideal to do so many all at once - right wrist & shoulder are complaining a little!!! LOL

Quick update on Bump - nothing happening yet - had hospital appointment this morning, have midwife appointment next Tuesday, and if Mother Nature doesn't get a move on, it'll be the 28th when I go into hospital to be induced!

It's September at last!!!

Phew! Made it into September! Now at 39 weeks and no sign of baby coming yet! Despite being told I'd probably be induced a week early due to the SPD, it hasn't happened and nothing will happen now until next clinic appointment on 14th Sept! Unless Mother Nature takes over before then!!! Fingers Crossed!!! LOL

Kyle has started Year 3 (Juniors) at school - in a mixed class (Year 3/4) of the eldest children from Year 3 and the youngest from Year 4. All due to the number of children! We took the now traditional first day at school photos ready for a LO in the future but here he is - one of his mad poses!

My best friend Suzy has bought us (well, baby!) a gorgeous sleeping bag from Mothercare's Baby K range - I love the colours - purple, orange, teal, black, white & grey! So much so I was contemplating on buying the blanket from the same range but at £32 for a blanket I decided against it!
Instead I decided to do my own in the ripple pattern I saw on Attic 24 blog - so I bought this beautiful soft cotton wool (by Sirdar) then had to buy some more because I hadn't bought enough the first time and got to work! After 110 rows and a double row of edging all around, I now have (well, the baby now has!) a lovely soft blanket to snuggle under!And did I save any money by doing the blanket myself - NO and YES!

NO - the wool cost me £50 including postage in the end (still have some left over) and

YES - its more than twice the size of the Mothercare blanket, its homemade and it was made with Love!!!

UKS Weekly Challenge August Wk4

I managed to finish a DLO today for this weeks challenge over on UKS - pictures and papers I've had lying around as a page kit for yonks! Really, YONKS!!! I first discovered UKS when it had its 5th Birthday Cybercrop (5 years ago!) and I was sooooo excited I bought almost every kit for the cybercrop, yet I hadn't really got a clue what a cybercrop was!!!

And this DLO was created from one of those kits!!!

Kyle was about 6 months old in these photos, we had just bought this little ball pit to take away with us in the caravan and he loved it!

Oops!

So much for keeping this blog up to date - another month has just flown by!!!

End of Year 2 for Kyle which was quite hectic with school plays, street dance performances, pressies for Mrs Dean and Mrs Clarkson - these 2 mugs which I painted last minute (as per usual!!!)Then Andy, Kyle & I had a lovely holiday down in Cornwall for the first week of the summer holidays while my mum house & pet-sat for us! The weather was pretty good, it rained most nights but only during one day, whereas the weather at home was atrocious!!! Andy managed to get some fishing in (including losing his phone in the lake!!!) and Kyle did his first bit of fishing with his own fishing gear which Andy bought for him! I love this picture of them both...Since the holiday, its been pretty much back to normal, except Kyle has been playing a lot of Wii, DS & watching TV - unfortunately I haven't had much strength to do a lot of things with him but we've watched some DVDs together and had 'Us' time!

The pregnancy is still having its downside - morning sickness continues and I've been diagnosed with SPD which flippin' well hurts!!! Turns out I've had it for a few months now, but as the first physio I saw back in May said 'you don't get SPD til the 3rd trimester!', then several friends and a doctor told me that wasn't true, I've since seen another physio and she said I have it and from the pains I had back in May (and before) that I've had it for a long time!

At 36 weeks now, its getting harder and more painful to move around and I'm tending to feel very fed up and quite emotional!!!
On the positive side, I had a scan at 34 weeks (and will be having another on 31st Aug), the doctor said they may well induce me a week early due to the SPD!!! Yippee!!! When I saw the midwife this week, she said the same thing! Double Yippee!!! So fingers crossed, as that means less than 3 weeks to go!!! :)

I have scrapped but I've been slightly occupied with finishing a Disney Cars cross-stitch for Kyle (currently at the framers - so photo next time!) and after discovering this amazing blog called Attic24 with some beautiful crocheted creations, I've been hooked (pardon the pun!!!) on creating a ripple blanket for baby! Again, photo once finished!!! In the meantime, here are the LOs I have managed to do, since my last post!

Another Challenge complete and more LOs

Fellow Red Ribbon Housemate Jo on UKScrappers set the weekly challenge this week - to use bright colours, a TV show or Film title, buttons and flowers. Here is my challenge complete - although I tried hard to place a flower on there, I just couldn't justify a flower on such a 'manly' LO!I've had these photos and these papers & stickers in a 12x12 bag for soooooooo long waiting to be scrapped - I'm proud of myself for actually doing it at last (even if the LO is a bit more themed than I usually do!!!)

Other recent LOs are below - some of which were created at the Wrenbury Crop last Saturday - I really enjoy going there - 6 hours of scrapping & laughing! I'll be sad when I'll have to miss a few once Bump arrives!!!



















"Live with Passion" uses Creative Imagination papers that I've had stored for ages. I wanted the black heart from the background red paper to be on top so I set about cutting it out, recoloured it in black and added Glossy Accents. Took me a while but I think it was worth it in the end!!!



















"Lifeline" and "Our Time" both reflect the time when Kyle & I moved out from the family home after my first marriage ended - we started afresh in a new home and had great fun! Not that we were alone for long - I met Andy only 3 weeks later and have never looked back!



















"Ride" is scrapped at 8.5x11 inches - a size I use for a separate album just for Photos I Love!

This photo was taken on Boxing Day 2006 - Andy & I had bought Kyle a new bike for Christmas and this was his first outing on it - he loved it - he rode it up and down the paths in Congleton park and literally screamed with delight! I love how I managed to capture the smile and look on his face - pure fluke, but so glad I did!

GoGo Challenge

ScrapaGoGo are 6 years old! I've been subscribing to their fantastic kits for over 2 years now and still love them! They have a challenge on their blog to celebrate their birthday, to use a sketch which includes 6 photos and 6 elements. I had the perfect photos!
Meet STIG - my BFF Suzy's dog - first time I met him, he totally destroyed this cuddly toy, almost as if he was showing me how clever he was! In fact, I think every time I've seen him since, he's destroyed something or other!!!

Baby Girl

Whilst at the hospital to have a Glucose Tolerance Test, we had another scan yesterday - 28 weeks - the detail that could be seen was amazing!

What we really wanted to know was the sex of the baby - at the 20 week scan, the umbilical cord was between the legs, so it wasn't possible to tell.

Yesterday we discovered we will be having a little girl.I'd been right all along!!! LOL

Shakespeare???

Finally, finally, finally got round to doing a weekly challenge on UKS - this week it was to Use Circles, 2 of something, bling and include a quote from Shakespeare. After reading through a long list of quotes (courtesy of Google!!!), photos of an beautiful Ice sculpture sprung to mind after reading "All That Glisters Is Not Gold". I used ScrapaGoGo April 2010 Fabrication kit with the addition of letters from my own stash.

Crop & Retreat

Its been more than a month since I posted - eek! I've slapped my wrist! The time just flies by sometimes!

Sad to say I haven't done much in the way of crafting during May - my mojo went with my get up & go! I did manage most of the LOs for my Mickey (the kitten) album - 28 in total (yeah, okay maybe I did do some crafting!) and have now finished the other 9. Its been quite emotional, maybe thats why my mojo left me - who knows!

Anyway, I went to my monthly crop at Wrenbury on the first Saturday of June - had a good laugh, there was only 6 of us this time but still had a great time. I took far too many page kits to do but somehow managed a record of 4 LOs in the 6 hours I was there - probably helped by some sketches I had ready and the fact I'd forgotten to take anything to use for titles, so I've just finished those these weekend.
The second weekend of June was a 'mini retreat' with other UKS teamies - out in the beautiful Peak District, no phone signal or internet! My BFF Suzy was poorly so she couldn't come :( - but I had the lovely company of MJ, Sue & Katy. We went on a workshop at Artist Trading Post on the Saturday and spent the majority of the weekend scrapping, eating or chatting! We did manage some sleep, when the noisy neighbours below us (in a converted barn) finally shut up and went to sleep!!!

Now 27 weeks pregnant, only 13 to go! Still being sick in the mornings with the occasional day of nausea throughout but overall, everything is going well. Hormones are playing up with very itchy hands and legs but hey, nothing about this pregnancy has been straightforward so far!!!

We have a girls name sorted out but no boys names yet. We're not telling anyone what we've picked. One more week and I've got to have a glucose tolerance test and we've got another scan, so hopefully baby will be playing fair and let us know if we need to pick a boys name or not!

Introducing Gizmo...

Well here she is...
She's small, she's playful, she doesn't know that early mornings are for sleeping, she eats like its going out of fashion, she loves chasing feet, in fact, she'll chase and pounce at anything and nothing!Originally she was going to be known as Patch but with those ears and her wide eyes, she definitely looks like a Gizmo! So for now, her name is Gizmo Patch ??? - the ??? could be Claw, she certainly knows how to use them, it could be Scatty because she certainly is! The third name will come eventually (all my pets have to have 3 names, don't ask me why, they just do!)
Its taking some time for Costa to get used to her, and vice versa, but they're getting there! Gizmo hisses and growls more now than Costa - its quite funny to hear such a loud noise coming out of such a tiny creature!

She's 6 weeks old in these photos, 9 weeks old at the time of posting and already she has grown so much - I'd forgotten how small they are at this age!

Craftiness

Right thought I better pop back on to show you some more of my craftiness over the past couple of weeks, as I haven't been blogging again! Been too busy scrapping!

I've done a few of class kits that I've had lying around for a while - here are a few of them.

This was a spare kit I picked up at the ScrapaGoGo retreat last October - strictly speaking it should be two 6"x12" LOs but I've stuck them onto one 12" square cardstock for ease of filing away! Very "Vintage" with lots of things going on - I wouldn't normally use this much on a layout but love love love it!Next 3 LOs are from class kits for another ScrapaGoGo event I should have gone to at the end of February but having only come out of hospital the day before (from the 'orrible pregnancy sickness period), I wasn't able to go to the event. But the class kits were sent to me so I've still been able to take part.

First is Andy with a real 'Oi!' pose of 'Why are you pointing that camera at me yet again?' and 'What on earth do you think you are doing actually taking a photo?' Tee Hee!!!
Next up is of niece Ellie with her brand spanking new PINK piano for Christmas 2008. She was really REALLY into music at the time and would love to sing along to Take That! Well, who doesn't!!!???
This next class kit was great fun to put together. It was perfect for the photo of Kyle after I suddenly decided to take him to Congleton Paddling Pool in summer '08. He had swimming shorts on as it was a very hot day so we were sorted! So I thought! Luckily I found a towel in the car, because I certainly didn't have any dry clothes with us! Hence the title of 'Where are my clothes?' which were exactly Kyle's words when it was time to go home! OOPS!
Last week on UKS, the Weekly Challenge prompted this LO 'Bubble Time' taken of Kyle in a Jacuzzi Bath we had in our suite at The Gretna Green Hotel (where we stayed when we got married at The Blacksmiths Shop last May) - as we have a wet room at home with no bath, Kyle was thoroughly enjoying having a bath for a change, with lots of BUBBLES!

This last layout is the one I had just finished before I heard the news about losing my beloved Mickey. The photo was taken last August when the kittens were about 3 months old so still not 'allowed' out. They had escaped though but Andy was faster on this occasion and caught them both! Mickey is the one looking at the camera.

Some news to come in the next posting of a new member of our household - a very cute little girl!

x

RIP Mickey

Mickey Starbucks TigerPaws
(6th May 2009 - 10th April 2010)

He was such a beautiful & adorable cat with an amazing personality!
I'll miss him trying to wake me up at 6.30am by rubbing his nose against mine!
We'll miss his very loud purr & insistent nature that he just HAD to be fussed!
He was one of the family, a little furry bundle full of character and love!
I'll even miss the toads & fish he brought us!

A month off being a year old and only 9 months after getting him, he was taken from us far too quickly. Mickey is now buried in our garden, Costa (his sister) is pining for him and I can't stop crying!

Andy is almost as bad as me but Kyle has being an absolute trooper - by trying to cheer us - bless him! Kids are just so resilient, aren't they? Costa has slept indoors or stayed with us as much as she can since the boys got home! I hadn't realized how much it hurts to lose a pet!

RIP Mickey - we love you & we miss you!
x x x