Even more layouts

We are having a fairly quiet week here. Michael is in Chicago again, so it is just Kyan and I. We have a few things planned for the weekend though once Michael is home. Hopefully some more ice skating, and we have a Christmas party with Michael's work.

Sara and I made it through another round of survivor. We are into week 9 now which is a pretty good feeling. Only a few weeks left to go. I'll love for it to be a tie between Sara and I. I don;t want to have to come head to head. Erica is still in too, and she does lovely work, so she will probably beat us both.

Here's a layout I did last night for Scrapbook City with the brand new Crate Paper products.
The hat, scarf and gloves set were a gift from Leisa and Kerri when I left, so I did this layout for them. It came together really quickly, but I'm really happy with it.

This one is for another comp at the Scrapbook Supply Company. It's the second layout I did for this entry as I wasn't happy with the first one.


I have another couple of things that are due this week, so I'll work on them tonight while Michael is still away.

My new friend kat from Scrappy Giraffe is sick in hospital at the moment. I'm sure she'll be fine, but spare a thought for her.

No movement on Melissa's baby yet. She's hoping it will come before Christmas. The doctor doesn't seem to think that anything will happen for a while yet, but we are still waiting all day and night for a phone call.

I think that's it for now.

A few things to share

When we left to move overseas, I had to give up my DT position with BumbleBee Crafts. I have still had work in the ads til now though because of the turnaround time. Sara has been kind enough to email me some of the ads since I have left, so I thought I would share some here.



They always do a really good job with the ads I really enjoyed working with Dorlene and Joy at Bumblebee. I hope I get another chance to work with them some time in the future.

I have put the new challenge up at Scrapbook City. It is a friends challenge this week. here's my sample layout.


I'd love to see some more people joining in the challenge.

If you haven't read Michael's blog layout, check it out. He has a very interesting way of recounting our adventures. Plus you can find out about the possible weather we might be facing this week. Spare us a thought, while you are all sweltering at home.

A few layouts to share

Because of Thanksfgiving over here, we are in the middle of havig Michael home with us for 4 days in a row. It's been good. We've been tryign to get out and do things, but at the same time, we have been a bit lazy since Michael has been working so hard. We finally got Michael a pair of ice skates today, so of course, we heading straight to the rink to try them out. We both went well. We have Kyan with us of course, who is too small to skate just yet, so it means one of ius has to wait with him, so we can't actually skate together, but it was still good. I'd love to be able to have some lessons, so I can something mmore exciting than just skate around in a big corcle. I'd like to learn to skate backwards.

I've been busy doing layouts for challenges. Two fo these are for Scrap Survivor. It is getting close to the end now, so the comp is getting quite tough. Not sure that I am happy with mine this week,(Wisdom Path) but I did my best within the challenge guidleines, so we'll see what happens. With any luck, I might get immunity.



This one is for the blog challenge at Scrappy Giraffe. Don;t bother asking though, I can't tell you what the secret is. Yes Mum, this means you.


That's it for now. I'm off to think of a challenge for the weekly challenge at Scrapbook City. The retreat has just finished, and from I have heard so far it went really well. Still a bit sad that I wasn't there, but we are hoping to be back in April for a week, so maybe we can organise a crop while I am home.

Turducken and rain

Well, we have had our first Thanksgiving, but it wasn't all that eventful. It has been raining since last night, so unfortunately we didn't get to go and watch the balloons being inflated. Michael had a quick look after work, and decided it wasn't worth taking Kyan in. We also missed out on the parade, since it was still miserable. It wasn't even certain that the balloons woud fly until the last minute and they flew quite a bit lower than usual It was quite sad watching it on Tv and not actually being there. The rain did make it look pretty unpleasant, so I'm sure it was the right choice.

I cooked my first turkey. It turned out surprisingly well. We had a nice dinner. Kyan once again refered to the turkey as dinosaur. I have no idea where he got it from. He has taken a bit of a liking to Dorothy the Dinosaur, but that has nothing to do with food.

We were watching some show last night and we found out about something called a Turducken. It is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, all deboned. Strange!!! We also learned that in the south they deep fry whole turkeys in enormous buckets of fat over an open BBQ flame. Seems extremely dangerous to me, not to mention very unhealthy.

Tomorrow is called Black Friday. It is when all the shops have their major sales like our boxing day sales at home. Some of them have actually started tonight, and some of them start at 5 in the morning. Most of them only go til lunch time. We probably wont go. There isn't really anything we need, and it doesn't sound like a good place to take a baby.

Let's hope that the weather is a bit better by tomorrow. Not sure what the plan is yet.

More layouts

Here are some more layouts that I am about to add to my gallery.





I went for a long walk around Parkl Slope yesterday. All of park Slope is quite pretty, except for the part where we live. Oh well, after a year, we will move to a betetr spot. I walked the long way past the bank and then to the park so Kyan could have a play, and by the time we got there, Kyan was fast asleep.

I'm going to take him to Central Park this afternoon and then we'll meet Michael and watch them inflate the enormous balloons for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Apparently it is a bit of a tradition, so it should be good. The weather forecast is for wind which could be a problem though. I hope the parade doesn't get cancelled.

I took some photos yesterday for a challenge at SGK. Here's what I came up with:


I better get going. I have somee things to do before we head in to Manhattan.

Dinosaur Wings

We went for dinner the other night at a Thai restaurant. I ordered some chicken wings as an entree. When they come out the lady asked Kyan if he knew what they were. He piped up with "Dinosaur Wings". Very cute and funny.

My Mum has finally got broadband on, and a webcam, so now she gets to see Kyan almost whenever she wants. My sister also got hers connected which is good. I'll get to see her baby nearly straight away when it is born, rather than having to wait til next year when we come home.

I have been busily uploaded layouts into my galleries on my siodebar if anyone is interested. It's nice to have them in one place.

I think that is all I have. I have some new layouts, but I am too slack to get them onto the computer just at the moment.

A Very Lazy Day

We have had a very lazt day despite good intentions. We have pretty much just stayed home and napped, read the paper and make a train track.

Kyan is being a bit funny. He wants the train track built, but only wants to push the trains. He doesn't want to turn them on. He was a bit odd last night too. He woke up about 10 and wandered out. Somehow (Daddy) Sesame St ended up on TV. Kyan stopped mid cry to watch it. Literally. He still had his hand up to his eye. It only had about 5 mins to go. As soon as the credits rolld, he lost the plot. He screamed. Not just upset because it was finished. It was as if he had just seen a car crash. It was awful, but a bit funny. I've never seen him so devestated before.

Have done a few more pages this week. I'm really happy with them too. I'll upload them here and into my gallery.






The Life of Kyan one is my favourite at the moment. I'll admit that there is a lot of Julie Love influence in there. These are both for survivor. The competition is getting very tough.

Blog makeover

I decided to have a little play with the new blogger and managed to delete most of my settings, so I have spent the morning completely red-doing my blog. I have added a gallery so I can have one plce for all my work.

Let me know what you think.

Miserable weather

We had plans to do all sorts of things today but the weather is awful outside. We did manage to make it to an "Aussie" pie shop this morning. The pies were good.

I got myself a pair of ice skates yesterday. They cost almost $10 to hire, and I got my own pair for $50. Should save us a bit of money. The rink right near Michael's work is free too.

I took Kyan to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. We haven't seen the whole place yet, but they have a toddlers room with toys, a water trough, sand box, etc, plus they do classes there. Kyan seemed to have a good time, although he didn't stick to any one activity for more than a minute at a time. He seemed to like the sandbox the best. The sand was blue and glittery. Will probably go again this Wednesday for story telling.

We have a couple of things planned this week with Rachel (from Australia). One of which is the Butterfly conservatory. No idea what that is really, but I like butterflies.

I have started a new forum over at Scrapbook City for all the new stuff that came out of CHA. Here are a couple of the layouts.




















Better go. I need to do my sample project for this week's challenge.

Please sponsor Shaun

If you have a look on my sidebar, you will see a link under Michael to our friend Shun's blog. Shaun is one of Michael's best friend and best man. Along with his wife, the 4 of us have been friends for about 12 years (wow!)

Anyway, Shaun is taking on the "Movember" challenge. Basically it involves getting sponsorship to grow a mo. The proceeds go towards caner research. Michael found out about it last year, but late. He grew the mo, but didn't do the sponsorship. It certainly spread the word about the cause though.I have a photo somewhere, but I can;t find it just at the moment. The moral of the story, head over to Shaun's blog, leave him some encouragement,and maybe even a donation.

Nothing much going on. The weather was absolutely miserable today. It's a shame we couldn't send some of it home. For those of you reading this in America, it is now level 4 water restrictions at home, because the drought is getting so bad.

Michael and I had a cultural training session last weekend through his work. They had an ex-pat come to speak to us. She (Rachel) has since sent me a heap of links for playgroups and so forth. Today I looked up the Brooklyn Children's Museum and found that they have some classes for toddlers, so I'm planning to head there tomorrow to check it out. I think it's an art class on Thursday's.


A few layouts, then I am off to bed.

Some more layouts.

Here are a few more layouts that I haven't gotten around to scrapping yet. Sorry if I am repeating any, I am starting to lose track.




Absolutely nothing else to say today. Just sitting at home doing the washing and the cleaning.

I have had a few new people drop by my blog later. I'd like to update my sidebar, so please speak up if you come here so I can add you and return the favour.

New York Marathon

It's been a pretty full week here in New York according to our standards, but it's probably the norm. Last week we went outdoor ice skating, then we had the Halloween parade on Tuesday. Today the New York Marathon was on and it was right outside our building. There were thousands and thousands of people. Lance Armstrong was running. We are pretty sure we could tell when he went past because of all the cameras, but we didn't recognise him.

Happy Birthday to my brother in law David. Hope youo had a great day.

Also my sister Melissa who is die to have her baby has been in hospital. Nothing to do with the baby, she's had a bit of a bug, but they like to be safe. We had a bit of a chat to her on the phone tonight, so that was good.

Here are a few layouts. The Kyan one is a bit old, I just haven't blogged it yet.





I found a really great website last night called Scrappy Giraffe Kits. I'll link them on my sidebar. They seem like a really nice group of people. The owner Kat is my age with a little boy and lives here on Ling Island, so she has offered to take me shopping. I can't wait.

That's about it for now.

5 Years.

Michael and I had our 5th wedding anniversary yesterday. I doesn't seem like it has been that long. Michaelgave me a beautiful gold necklace. I haven't photographed it yet, but I'll post a picture when I do.

Nothing much going on at the moment, so I'll try to post new some layouts.

Halloween

It was our first Hallooween lasst night. We decided to go into the city to the Village for the bg halloween parade. There were thousands of people and every costume you can think of. Apparently 2 of the people from KISS were the grand marshalls. I did see someone in KISS make-up. I can only assume it was one of them. Kyan quite liked it. He wasn't frightened at all which was good. Lots of the characters stopped to talk to him, and he was given a whistle, a ball and a mini frisbee.

Kyan was dressed as a beautiful little bumblebee. Unfortunately he wouldn't let me get any great photos, but I am going to try again.


Because of the parade, we couldn't go trick or treating as well, so we'll save that for next year.















These are a couple of layouts I did a while ago, but haven't gotten around to uploading yet.