I had a wonderful year full of new beginnings and challenges, but a wonderful year. A lot has happened in the last couple of days, I will have to talk about it and post here when the time is right, but for now, enjoy your holidays, family and friends. I wish you all the best and wanted to thank everyone for their love and support over the last few months.

See you next year :)

xoxoxo

Leora is having an awesome 25 days of Christmas event in her blog and today we are giving away a 10 dollar certificate to my store, check it out here.

Little Dreamers has also started the 12 days of Christmas sale, with a whole section of the store on sale each day and freebies on the blog, today is Quickpages, so all my quick albums are 45% off!!

Tomorrow my little munchkin is turning 6 years old, we will have a party for his friends at my place, so I have to get everything ready, but will hopefully get back with photos soon!

xoxo

Hello!!!!! We came back on Wednesday! I still have visitors at home so that is why I haven't been around much. But just wanted to start sharing a couple of things before they stack up :)

Firstly some highlights of our vacation that had highs and lows. The boys weren't interested in shows and the COLD water in the parks, but they loved the characters:

  

After lunch they managed to get in the water:

At night we had a fire show, I played with the camera!

Matty got an allergic reaction to God knows what, we think it was the smoke from the fire show. He got really puffy eyes and the next day we went to Sea World, you can still see how it is a little swollen and how he doesn't look like he was having fun:

'

but there were some good times:

As you can see from the above picture, after lunch his eyes were much better.

Next day we went to Movie World and it was by far the kids' favourite day. Matty just LOVED the Scooby Doo ride, he went twice, Lucas was very disappointed he could not go and I stayed outside with him.

   

 

Throughout the day Mateus asthma was playing up, I was giving him the puffer almost every hour, it went through the night and one hour after he finally slept he woke up screaming he could not breath. We called the ambulance and went to the hospital. Luckily we stayed there less than one hour because as soon as he was given steroids he got better. We gave him the medication for the next 3 days and he was fine, phew.

The last 4 days had rain forecast so we didn't plan anything far from the hotel, the first day I just stayed in the room with Matty to make sure he was ok, and the other two we enjoyed the hotel facilities. On the Monday night me, hubby and the in-laws went to Draculas. I loved it, it is hard to describe, it was my second time there and I have to say is something people should do if they plan to go anywhere near the Gold Coast. If your English is good you will get the jokes and the night will be complete, but just the music is worth it :) It was also the very first time the kids stayed with a baby sitter. I was a bit stressful but hassle free experience and the boys had no problem with it :) might be doing it again some time hehehe

I could share some more photos of our way back and the time we spent in Brisbane but this post is way too image heavy already and, you know me, there will be scrapbook pages with the photos :)

(it is also 4AM and I am done LOL)

See you tomorrow with a COOL giveaway :)

Mateus - 7 months. He was starting childcare and doing so well, just a couple of hours a week though, we spent most days just the two of us. I had just got a new job, my mom was coming to visit the next month. What a great couple of months!

I love browsing through my old photos :)

xoxo

(no pun intended or reference to my last kit, hehehe)

You must be wondering why I have stopped posting photos. Well, I haven't totally stopped taking them but it has been hard to get out and about with the kids in the current weather. The weekend before last it was ok go, and we did go out for some exercise and I finally got the camera out.

 

Lucas was having a great time, he just loves being out and about. Matty on the other hand decided to be Mister Drama, complained the whole that it was too hard, his legs were hurting, blah blah blah, well, with camera in hand I don't stop, I still took photos of his "bad mood"

 

it doesn't last long though

and on the way back he was a happy chappy (well, it was downhill so he didn't even have to pedal!)

(first four photos and last photo edited with Itty Bitty Actions)

No hybrid feature this week, I think I might have to start having them every other week as I am torn between lots of different projects :)

Hope everything is good on your end because here... it's crazy good, hehe

xoxo

New sketch at the Pencil Lines blog, go have a peek at the amazing inspiration!!! For the digi girls, our free template this week:

and here is my page inspired by the sketch:

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I am delighting myself with the latest Fancy Pants goodies. They arrived just after I got back from Brazil and I am still sorting through everything. In this page I have used papers from the On a Whimsy Collection by Jackie Eckles, Ribbon from the Delight Collection, the Felt mat is from the Bracket Mixed Media book; and the alpha is a mix of the Lotsa Letters and Say it Simple 12x12 Chipboard. Tree from RiffRaff Designs, I got this one from being the Pencil Lines reader's gallery winner for July 2008. After that Anna invited me to be part of the team.. and I was ever soooo happy!! So, about time I used my little tree hehehe

Here are a couple of close ups:

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Had a little adventure with the sewing machine too :)

I have to show you guys the rest of this "photo session" with Mateus last month, we loved it :)

My boys and Isabella:

Look at the little pout :) I don't think she likes being smothered by her cousins :)

Needless to say it was great to play with the camera and these little models! Even though it was a dark cloudy day, these are precious to me!

No scrapping yet, too busy playing with the photos, these were edited using Jinky Art's IttyBitty Actions - Sweet set. Talking about Jinky Art, congratulations to Barb Uil for her new baby girl:)

See you soon!

Hello :) Hope everyone had a fantastic Mother's Day! Mine was nice and quiet (well, as quiet as the kids allowed), just the way I like it. Woke up to handmade presents from the kids and the Twilight DVD from hubby (movie I haven't seen yet of the book I also haven't read). Took photos (had photos taken, see below) then brunch at the local shoppes and shopping for a new handbag and boots. Then back home and everyone did exactly what they wanted. Matty played Batman Lego on the Playstation, Lucas watched a new Mickey Mouse DVD, Alex went to take a nap and I... was scrapping and editing photos :) Ended the day with a little TV we watched the finale of So you think you can Dance Australia that was recorded a couple of weeks ago. I was happy I still didn't know the winner and even happier that it was Tahlia, I think she did great and I can't wait to see her performance at the US Finale of So you think you can Dance.

Yesterday I thought I was going to buy myself a new lens or camera for Mother's day, but found out the prices went up so much the money we had saved was not enough (it was a major bummer). Even Alex was disappointed, now he had to think of something else to give me LOL. But, if camera gear is not available, the next best thing he could do was take photos and so he did.  Even though I put on a ton of weight over my vacation time and had my hair back, I still think this will be one of my all time favourite photos of me and the boys:

Thanks Alex!

(the sunflare was a complete fluke, we had no idea the sun was entering the lenses and we didn't plan for it. Some people would toss something like this but I absolutely love the feel of this photo)

xoxo

Another awesome digital designer is a quest at Pencil Lines this week so she has provided the free template for us to play with :) I really really loooove her work, she is one of my favourite ARTISTS in the whole wide world, not only the scrapping community, Vinnie Pearce. Check out the blog post here at the Pencil Lines blog.

Your Scrapbook Stash is the sponsor this month so even though I had the wonderful template by Vinnie to play with, I also could not pass the opportunity to play with Crate Paper's wonderful goodies. Here is my page:

I also love this American Crafts alpha, I could use it in all my pages but I don't have such a "modern" style :)

This is one of these pages I feel look much better in person than in photos LOL

As you can see, Mateus is not always only smiles. He was pretty upset I asked him to stop for one minute just so I could take a couple of pictures at a time he wanted to explore :) I need to scrap the photos I took 5 minutes after these, he was giggling already hehehe I know am lucky ;)

Hope you had a great weekend! Happy scrapping!

No hybrid feature for you this week! I have photos to share :)

Final countdown of photos in March - over 2000. I am a big failure when it comes to resolutions LOL I wanted to start taking less photos, but as soon as I see an opportunity I snap away. Plus, my brain is wired that way nowadays that everywhere I look I imagine how that place would be like as a photo backdrop. Does it have the right light? interesting colours? bla bla bla I need intervention :) The other factor in all this is that my brother is here and, well, I can ask HIM to take photos of ME. It has worked well in my favour and he is not complain hahaha I get good shots of him too.

Anyway, all that to say I have loads of photos to share and can't possibly scrap them all so let's flood this blog with images of last weekend when we went to Sydney spend some time with my bestest friend Melissa :

me and my boys

My *not so little anymore* brother:

I just LOVE this photo of Melissa and Mateus, so I had to get one of the two of us too:

Talking about Mel, I have this "family shot" I took of them: Indy, Alex, Mel and Jack (they are so pretty!!!)

Mateus loved riding Jack :)

 

 

and by the end of the day I was chasing flare again LOL

That was just the first day, and there are MANY more photos love... maybe they will end up in a little album just for this day :)

xoxo