Black and White layout for Louise’s blog challenge

So louise @ http://bigyellowdogblog.blogspot.com/ is having a little comp on her blog. She had a warm up challenge where by we were asked to create a layout using ONLY black and white. I like how it turned out so fresh. Thank you for the challenge Louise.

Most of the materials I have used came from a http://www.scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz kit. Peect for this challenge. Usually I don’t use kits for challenges but I didn’t have any other only b&w papers! My only disappointment with this layout is that there is a gorgeous tinkering ink patterned paper hiding behind all the stuff I added! I couldn’t stop stincking and doodling and then I realised I had hidden ,most of this gorgeous paper. Gonna have to get me some more of that I think!

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A great weekend!

Tobyn got on stage for both his dances on Saturday! I was so chuffed to see him out in his black shirt for the Michael Jackson dance! And he did a pretty good job. He did forget a couple of things in this dance, but given he had missed the change for 2 days I can forgive him. I am proud of him for getting out there!!!
Sunday we went to Church for the first time in weeks. We are organising the kids Christmas service and thought it high time to get there and let them know it is all coming together. The kids are excited and hopefully it will be as good as they are anticipating!
Sunday afternoon was spent tidying and scrapbooking. Yay I finally got some more scrapbooking done! And both layouts are for challenges.

This layout is for the Scrapbook Essentials fortnightly sketch competition. It is the first 6×12 layout I have done. Having done the Disney photo I have decided that Disney 06 will be all 6×12. I found it quite hard and I stuck to the sketch. I like how the photos really stand out.

The other layout I will put in a separate post.

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Art and culture in the Gregory house

A busy weekend here for us! Tobyn has had a very busy week with dance rehearsals and I have had a busy week as taxi driver! Last night was the telling moment for the work he has put in. As you may be able to tell from the previous post, Tobyn isn’t too keen on having people watch him. He used to be fine but from around the age of 7 he has not liked it at all. So I wasn’t sure how he would go in the dance show. But he shone! He got out there and danced his heart out and did everything really well. Unfortunately he did miss one dance because he didn’t get changed fast enough, but we have that sorted for today, so I should get to see him in both his dances. Now I just hope that we can convince him that it would be a good idea to carry on dacncing in some way. I know it waon’t be The Jazz Elemeatary 1 class, but maybe boys club or hip hop? It is awesome at his studio that they encourage the boys so well. Dean, the owner and 1 of 3 male teachers is so good with the boys. Tobyn has a natural talent but not the passion yet. Maybe in a few years time he will realise what a gift he has? My Mum let me stop dancing when I was 5 and I wish she had pushed me to continue. Mum, I know you did what was right at the time so don’t take this as me thinking you were wrong. But I guess that is partly why I don’t want Tobyn to give up yet, he might regret it in the future.

Today was pet and craft day. Steve spent all morning cooking 200 sausages, deffinately did his part and got to know some other parents a little better which is great. Tobyn, Isaac and I got to enjoy a pancake breakfast, courtesy of the some of the teachers.
Last night and this morning Tobyn work on his vegetable creation. He hoped he could get first this year after placing 2nd last year. This year he did more of it himself, he chose all the veges and put it all together. The only guidance and help we gave him was with tthe creation he was going to do. He wanted to make a village with grape people. We thought this would be too much hard work with the dance show as well. So he made a dragon, scales and all! And he WON. He is so proud. Tobyn also took his cat Apollo for the pet parade. They got asked about there cat and how they looked after it etc and Tobyn won best presented cat. And Apollo got a lovely silver and blue ribbon. So nioce to be able to add more certificates to the wall of acievement in our house!

I think Isaac is going to have an outdoor career. He was totally in his element among the lambs and calves!

Righto, gotta go wash the floor that Steve spilt milo powder all over and get ready for the show this afternoon, Ciao for now.

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A cute Tobynism

A conversation last night with Tobyn as we arrived at the dance rehearsal went something like this:

T: is this where we are practising?
M: Yes
T: where are we? Are we at the theatre?
M: Yes
T: Cool, I love dancing on stage…..
M: Oh really?
T: Yep, as long as there isn’t anyone watching.

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Excited and Exhausted!

I am very excited about many things this week:

• The fact that the part for the washing machine has finally arrived and I can remove the towels from behind the machine. It has been 2 weeks since we found we had a leak! The washing has been backing up so I am over the moon about that.
• Today there is some blue sky! Yes you heard it here first. So along with the washing machine part and the blue sky guess what is my main aim today? Yep, washing, washing and more washing!
• Tobyn’s dance performance. Every year they put on an amazing show and I look forward to it so much that I always over book tickets LOL. Hopefully my sister can replace Steve on Friday night because we need someone at home to get Isaac to bed. A 7pm show start is not good for a little boy that needs Daddy to put him to bed, can’t get a baby sitter to do it. And when I booked the tickets I didn’t think about the time it was starting!
• My nephew got 3rd= in their schools cluster speech comp. Now what is it about the Rowe grandchildren? My siblings and I were not good at speeches and yet our kids are doing great! Tobyn won for his year earlier this year and now Sheridan has placed 3rd in the cluster schools. Go Sheridan, Aunty is very proud of you!!!
• The thing I am the most excited about and left until last………I am being published! Now as most of my visitors are scrap bookers I will have to let you down gently……not being published for scrap booking…….being published for photography! We have very good friends that are journalists. They are Isaac’s godparents and live in the States. Tim was deputy editor of the listener a couple of years ago and Ele deputy editor of Next. They went on a bog OE. Ele being American wanted to take Tim ‘home’. It took a while for them to find jobs in the industry and they spent some time working in a bookstore to live. They are both now busy with jobs ans study and the big benefit for us is that one of the jobs Tim is doing is helping edit and set up a new online Travel magazine. He asked a few weeks ago for photos in certain categories but I didn’t think we had any to suit. Yesterday I received an e-mail from them wishing Isaac a happy birthday. I returned the e-mail with an update in Isaac and an invite to visit my blog. Tim replied soon after with a request for travel photos for the postcard section of the mag, they are short. So Steve spent a good hour or so last night sending through a pile of photos and they want one! I am over the moon. One of my photos is going to be published in an online travel mag WOOHOO!!! When I know more details and when the mag is being published I will link it on here.

And yes I am also exhausted! My baby who is now a big boy and sleeping in a big boy bed is keeping me awake. Not because he is awake, because I am worried he is going to fall out, or come trough at some ungodly hour so I think I have one ear open for him all night. I hope this will pass soon!

I will leave you with one of the photos that was sent through to Tim, not the one being published obviously. But I don’t like posts without photos and since Steve re sized these last night I might as well use one.

Isaac and I in the Milford Sound back in February.

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Scrapbook Essentials Blinkie

I am doing quite a few short random posts. Just a bit of fun LOL. Neen, one of the Dt members on SE has been playing with blinkies and Meg challenged us to put it on our blogs. So here it is. My only wish is that I knew how to link it so you can click on it and it would take you to the website, but alas I am not that computer literate!

Edited to add, I have got it all sorted I now have a blinkie in my sidebar that if you click on it, it will take you to Scrapbook Essentials. Thanks to Neen for the link and the blinkie!

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Visit my sister!

My sister has finally started a blog. I imagine she will only use it for her challenge layouts but then you never know she might become hooked like me LOL.

http://www.theoccasionalblogger-antionette.blogspot.com

She has her take on The Music in Me challenge up at the moment.

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Today my baby turned 2

It is now officially October 22nd American time. In about 4 hours time Isaac was actually born. It is kind of weird to have to adjust the time differnece, but in my mind I do, every second counts LOL.

So my baby boy is growing up. Some things Isaac can do at 2:

Blow candles out.
Blow party blowers
Sing “Happy Birthday To You”
Open presents almost by himself
Sleep in a big boy bed (we didn’t take the sides off the cot a couple of weeks ago, but DID today and he LOVES it!)
Stay at Grandad and Grandmas and stay asleep all night. And Grandma said it was just about the easiest baby sitting they have ever done.
Jump with 2 feet off the ground.
“Run, fast” saying it while running fast!
Turn the TV on and off.
Give wonderful cuggles and kisses!
Dance while wiggling his whole body. Looks so cute with his shoulder wiggles!

And many, many more.

Here is the birthday boy with his main present. Doesn’t Dad look great in the back ground in his dressing gown and shoes LOL.

Isaac and his friend Finley

Isaac loved getting Iggle Piggle from Tobyns friend. Tobyn also gave hime Makka Pakka. Steve was not happy about Iggle Piggle, he says it will give him nightmares LOL!!!

Fee, what do you think of the theme? The theme was Elmo. I had great plans of cutting out the shape of Elmos face and icing it. But…I failed to get the right food clouring on Friday. A little bit difficult to make Elmo without the black! So I came up with the brilliant idea of just icing the cake red and putting a printout of Elmo on top. I plan on making a mask out of the print out later. The main thing is that Isaac loved it!

Before today Isaac didn’t know how to blow. It didn’t take him long to learn and he then wanted us to keep lighting the candles so he could blow them out.

And the new found skill of blowing came in handy for the party blowers.

It was disappointing that of the 5 children invited only 1 turned up! Vivi’s Mum is 7 months pregnant and at least she called to say she didn’t feel up to it plus the girls had yucky noses. As for the others I didn’t even get phone calls. I know I was keeping it small and told them it was just a quiet party and it would be cool if they could come. But no courtesy call? What is the world coming to?

But we had a ton of fun without them. Finleys sisters were there and 2 of Tobyns friends. And Isaac had a ball!!! His 3 big cousins came for dinner and he was spoilt with more In the Night Garden things and a Goofy soft toy. I think he was pretty happy!

I will leave the rest of the weekend for another post. And I want to tell you all about his time in the Neo Natal unit but that can wait as well. Enjoy these wonderful photos of my adorable 2 year old. (Mum I will try and print some off for you 😉

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NZ Dare #32

My sister came around today we planned on doing some scrapbooking. She is working on the latest music in me challenge “Time after Time” I want to do that one but have NO inspiration for that one yet. So I planned on doing the No 8 wired NZ Dare. The challenge is to scrap a mood. I just flicked through my albums and came across this photo of Tobyn in Disneyland. Tobyn doesn’t often show much emotion but as you can see in this photo he LOVED the thrill. I am pretty happy with this layout…but…I don’t like the journalling block down the right hand side. When I showed Tobyn the layout he said “it’s OK” “just OK” I said, “what don’t you like about it?” “I don’t like the photo. It doesn’t look like a real smile” I replied explaining how it shows how much fun he was having and no it isn’t a real smile, it is real EXCITEMENT! I love it. He was OK about it then LOL.

I didn’t need to egg sit in the end. They have a Motel in the classroom where the eggs go during class time. I went into school to help with literacy today and they were writing a diary for their eggs. It was so funny hearing the antics the eggs got up to last night. One egg visited her friend next door but her friend had fallen and cracked and needed to be replaced and one got squashed by the dog. So far Tobyn’s is surviving. His egg now has a PlayStation 3 and a plasma TV. He has just been making bags of cereal for it. It is great how it has captured their imaginations.

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The Egg Family and the frogman

I have heard of kids having eggs to look after before and I looked forward to the day my kids did it. And here it is. Tobyns class have to look after an egg each for a week. They are all pretty excited which is funny given that there are only 4 girls in his class! Mind you there have already been 5 deaths in 1 day LOL. Tobyn has called his egg Toby. He has made a house for it. The house has a comfy bed, a chair, a bookcase with miniature books and some pokemon cards. Tomorrow I have to egg sit. I hope Grandma Egg does a good job, LOL.

Isaac wearing his new goggles in the bath. He needs to get used to them for swimming and I think it won’t take long!

Today I was thrilled to find out that my friend Adele has paid her deposit for scrap camp next April. I know it is ages away but I am so excited, this will be my first major scrapbooking outing! Woohoo.

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