I was sitting here

trying to decide what to write and I was drawing a blank because I really had nothing to say. I kept leaving it and leaving it and hoping something would come to me. I had no layouts I could share and I figured nobody really wanted to listen to me whining about feeling ill. Then something interesting happened I checked my email, and I found that the new releases at The Digichick were already up, which means… you get a blog post because *insert sing song voice right about here* now I can share my layouts. I have a grand total of 3 brand new ones and 1 that’s a combination of both and an old layout and a new one, trust me it will make sense when you see it I promise. Maybe I should start with showing you the kit I was working with first. It’s a collaboration between Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing) and it’s called April Showers. I was worried when I first saw it because it seemed a little bit too pastel for me and I couldn’t think of any photos I had to use. Then I remembered two things, firstly I am an idiot and secondly, I have a baby boy who is usually dressed in pastel blue! Here’s the preview for the kit you can buy it at Digi Scraps Drive In or The Digi Chick.

If you buy it this week you get the cardstocks set for free, and Jane has this cute addon available for free on her blog here

None of these layouts were created for challenges, I just scrapped them with Cindy’s template sets that I just had to have. I am going to show you them in the order I scrapped them. The first layout was made entirely with the kit and one of Cindy’s templates (Set 44, Template 3).

Credits: Layered template (Cindy's Templates Set 44, Template 3) by Cindy Schneider, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Paredes (Madame Wing), April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps), String Styles by Miriam Lima and Coloured Krafts 2 Styles by Megan Farrow (Flergs). Fonts are AL Post Master and CK Constitution.

Journalling reads: After we were done with his doctors appointment, Lukas was picked up by Lisa. He was going to Jambinos with her and Ella. Since we had nothing better to do we decided to do a bit of shopping before we went home. We spent a lot of time in Boots and Tesco looking at different foods for you to try. We thought that Heinz Biscotti would be a good choice. Before we went home we stopped to pick up some dinner for Lukas from one of his favourite take-aways. While we were waiting you started moaning. I offered you the bottle, not interested, I offered you toys, not interested, offered you a biscuit, result you stopped crying. You were a bit confused at first, but you soon got the hang of it. This was the first time you had eaten food in your pushchair and the first time you had tasted a biscuit. You chewed on it a bit, then waved it about a bit, chewed on it a bit more then threw it on the floor. You were not at all happy that you had dropped it. I think you did really well for a first attempt. Clever boy!

Enabling: Cindy’s Templates Set 44 by Cindy Schneider available here, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing) available here or here, April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) currently available free with the kit here or here, Coloured Krafts 2 Styles by Megan Farrow (Flergs) available here, AL Post Master Font available here and CK Constitution font available here. I am not sure if Miriam Lima is even selling anymore sorry.

The second one was made using the kit and one of Jane’s alphas I have been dying to use since I saw it and another of Cindy’s templates (Set 37, Template 4)

Credits: Layered template (Cindy's Templates Set 37, Template 4) by Cindy Schneider, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing), April Showers Cardstock and Basic Alpha - Stunningly Silver by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps), My Day My Life by Ale Parades (Madame Wing) and Glitter Styles by Megan Farrow (Flergs). Fonts are Dirty Headline, Bead Chain and DJB Miss Liz by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: It always seems that whenever we have to get Lukas from school, it’s either pouring down with rain or blowing some kind of mini gale. That means I am forced to struggle and put the raincover on the pushchair. Some days you really couldn’t care less and you seem to enjoy scratching at the plastic, but there are other days when you despise the raincover with a passion and scream the entire trip to school. Unfortunately little man it’s one of those things you just have to put up with. Stupid unpredictable weather.

Enabling: Cindy’s Templates Set 37 by Cindy Schneider available here, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing) available here or here, April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) currently available free with the kit here or here, Basic Alpha – Stunningly Silver by Jane Shaver is available here or as part of this bundle here, Glitter Styles by Megan Farrow (Flergs) available in her store here, Dirty Headline Font available here, Bead Chain Font available here and DJB Miss Liz Font by Darcy Baldwin available here. My Day My Life by Ale Parades (Madame Wing) is now retired sorry.

The third one was built around the photos, the colours in it matched the kit perfectly, I ended up using the kit, the addon, Jane’s alpha again, another of Cindy’s templates (Set 43, Template 1) and a few other bits and pieces like Miss Tiina’s felt, Holly McCaig’s glass styles (it’s a blue glass style) and my own glass styles (a pink glass style and a yellow glass style). I think this one is my favourite out of all of them. It took a while to get the journalling sounding right.

Credits: Layered template (Cindy's Templates Set 43, Template 1) by Cindy Schneider, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing), April Showers Cardstock, April Showers Addon and Basic Alpha - Stunningly Silver by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps), Felt Sheets Pastel by Miss Tiina, Glass Styles by Holly McCaig and Glass Styles by me. Fonts are DJB Judy T by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: I really love this photograph of Nannie Freda and Joshua. I took it when he was staying with us for the weekend. Joshua looked so adorable in the outfit I had bought for him, I couldn’t resist getting out the camera and taking some photographs. I was able to capture this photograph of Joshua and Nannie Freda having a cuddle on the sofa. This photo is special, Nannie Freda never really liked to have her picture taken when she was alive. I used to have to take the odd one here and there when she wasn’t looking or she thought I was just snapping pictures of you or Josh or Hayley. I ended up with quite a collection of random pictures. None of them were great quality but they were better than nothing. When Nannie Freda died, almost everyone was worried that they didn’t have any photographs to remember her by. It took me a lot of time and effort to gather together everything I had, and fix them enough so they could be printed. Everyone was really grateful to have some photos to remember her with. It was the first time I have really appreciated how important taking photos really and truly is.

Enabling: Cindy’s Templates Set 43 by Cindy Schneider available here, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing) available here or here, April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) currently available free with the kit here or here, Basic Alpha – Stunningly Silver by Jane Shaver is available here or as part of this bundle here, April Showers Addon available for free on Jane’s blog here. DJB Judy T Font by Darcy Baldwin seems to have been retired as I can’t find it in Darcy’s store and Holly McCaig’s glass styles no longer seem to be available. The Felt Sheets Pastel by Miss Tiina I got as part of her GIA Club membership, if you are interested in reading about that details are here. If you would like my glass styles let me know I will be happy to share them.

The fourth and final one is the one that needs a little bit of explanation. I read a thread over at DST and I linked up my original layout you can see below in it. The only problem was when I looked at this layout again, I saw things I didn’t really like anymore like the drop shadows and how washed out the colours were. Still liked the template I used though and the placement of the colours. I updated it a little bit with the kit, changed a few elements and fonts.

Credits: Layered template by Bree Clarkson (inspired by Karen, template 2) and Yesteryear: Baby Collection by Julie Billingsley. Fonts are DJB Nicole DJB My Dear Marsha, and DJB A Bit Of Flaire by Darcy Baldwin, Gigi, Mr. Wade, Shelley-Volante Script and Scriptina.

Journalling reads: I used to think my heart had been broken before, but I soon realised that before you everything was just cosmetic damage, minor scratches on my soul. But you, were the first one to break my heart into a million pieces and use the shards to rip my very existence into confetti. I remember the exact moment that you did it you now, and no matter what else came after you were the first and the first cut is always the deepest. I shouldn't blame you, I mean you were dead you couldn't have done anything to help me but in my mind it was your fault and for a while I hated you for it. When they told me I didn't cry you know, I was determined they wouldn't have that power over me but before it was all said and done they didn't just see my tears sometimes they saw the shattered remains of my heart spread out for them to examine, to pass judgement on. Nobody will ever understand why I cried so hard for the loss of you. But then no-one else knows my secrets do they, no-one else knew how much you were my hope for the future. There was no cloud over you there wasn't any doubts that you might be part monster because you were definitely not created by force you were made with 100% love. You were supposed to make everything better, but you almost destroyed me. I know you made my soul unbreakable, nothing could ever hurt me as much after you. I wouldn't have gotten through losing Leo without you. But I still wish every single day that I never had to hear those words, I never had to endure that pain, I never had to learn those lessons. Every single day I miss you and the part of me that you took with you. I wish i'd gotten to know you as more than just being my heartbreak. I loved you then I love you still, always did and I always will. Gaiebraille Charlett Blake.

Pink Tag: It's hard to say goodbye before you even have a chance to say hello. Unknown. 17th Feb 2003.

Blue Tag: Given wings to soar but never far from our hearts.

Enabling: I can only link you up to the fonts since Bree Clarkson is no longer selling and Yesteryear: Baby Collection by Julie Billingsley has been retired. So DJB Nicole and DJB A Bit Of Flaire Fonts by Darcy Baldwin available here, here and here, Gigi Font available here, Mr. Wade Font available here, Shelley-Volante Script Font available here and Scriptina Font available here. DJB My Dear Marsha Font by Darcy Baldwin seems to have been retired sorry.

This is the finished version of the remake. I like this one so much better than the original.

Credits: Layered template by Bree Clarkson (inspired by Karen, template 2), Yesteryear: Baby Collection by Julie Billingsley, Precious Angel Memories by Kim Brodelet, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing), April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Embossing Powder Styles by Miss Tiina. Fonts are DJB Nicole and DJB My Dear Marsha by Darcy Baldwin, 2Peas Fancy Free, 2Peas Tattered Lace, Scriptina, Vladimir Script, Good Vibrations ROB and Mr Wade.

Journalling reads: I used to think my heart had been broken before, but I soon realised that before you everything was just cosmetic damage, minor scratches on my soul. But you, were the first one to break my heart into a million pieces and use the shards to rip my very existence into confetti. I remember the exact moment that you did it you now, and no matter what else came after you were the first and the first cut is always the deepest. I shouldn't blame you, I mean you were dead you couldn't have done anything to help me but in my mind it was your fault and for a while I hated you for it. When they told me I didn't cry you know, I was determined they wouldn't have that power over me but before it was all said and done they didn't just see my tears sometimes they saw the shattered remains of my heart spread out for them to examine, to pass judgement on. Nobody will ever understand why I cried so hard for the loss of you. But then no-one else knows my secrets do they, no-one else knew how much you were my hope for the future. There was no cloud over you there wasn't any doubts that you might be part monster because you were definitely not created by force you were made with 100% love. You were supposed to make everything better, but you almost destroyed me. I know you made my soul unbreakable, nothing could ever hurt me as much after you. I wouldn't have gotten through losing Leo without you. But I still wish every single day that I never had to hear those words, I never had to endure that pain, I never had to learn those lessons. Every single day I miss you and the part of me that you took with you. I wish I'd gotten to know you as more than just being my heartbreak. I loved you then I love you still, always did and I always will. Gaiebraille Charlett Blake.

Pink Tag: It's hard to say goodbye before you even have a chance to say hello. Unknown. 17th Feb 2003.

Blue Tag: Given wings to soar but never far from our hearts.

Enabling: Precious Angel Memories by Kim Brodelet available here, April Showers by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ale Parades (Madame Wing) available here and here, April Showers Cardstock by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) currently available free with the kit here and here, DJB Nicole Font by Darcy Baldwin available here and here, Scriptina Font available here, Vladimir Script Font available here, Good Vibrations ROB Font available here and Mr Wade Font available here, the Embossing Powder styles were also downloaded from the GIA Club membership linked above. DJB My Dear Marsha Font by Darcy Baldwin seems to have been retired and I can’t seem to find the 2Peas Fancy Free or 2Peas Tattered Lace fonts sorry.

Oops so I missed 2 days of blogging

In my defence I have spent the majority of the last two days in bed, whatever it is that’s wrong this time is getting worse and I am having to resort to taking painkillers. I hate taking painkillers, because they rarely do anything except make me even more tired than normal. Anyway whatever the problem is it’s affecting my vision a lot. I have had to resize all of the fonts on my machine so I can read them a bit clearer I have had migraines for a long time and they don’t usually affect me like this. I’m hoping that everything will sort itself out soon and I can get back to feeling my usual crappy self lol. So I haven’t really felt much like blogging, but I have done a little bit of scrapping. I have one layout I can share with you now as the other ones are my P365 layouts and they are not quite finished, well some of them are but I don’t want to upload them and get them all up to date in one go and I can’t do that quite yet. Yes I am a freak sorry about that. This one I am sharing was created for the template challenge at Elemental Scraps.

Credits: Layered template (Freebie Template 44) by Chrissy W, Christmas Past by Lena Brandenburg and Tabatha Reed (Bella Gypsy) and Oopsie Doodle Borders by Suzy Iverson (Suzy Q Scraps). Fonts are Pea Megeletto and Pea Mystie Unicase both by Amanda Bottoms (KevinandAmanda).

Journalling reads: On this day I decided that it was warm enough for you to go without your coat. I dressed you in a vest, babygro, trousers, top, dungarees and your little fleece jacket and hoped you would be warm enough for just the short trip to school and back again. Then Nana asked me to go to the shop and get electric for her. Since we were running late we thought we would go after we had got Lukas. Then Lukas begged to go to the book fair. He took ages looking through books before finally he finally chose one. We went to the shop, got Nana’s electric and then Lukas decided that he wanted to go to the park. He asked so nicely that I couldn’t refuse. Whenever we go to the park, you love to go on the swings. It’s a lot more fun for you since you can sit up on your own now. As you were giggling and swinging the wind picked up. It got cold really fast and then it started to rain., You were already damp so we decided to stay. We moved on from the swings to the slide, we moved from the slide to the see-saw, back to the swings, I put you in the tunnel and that was when you decided that you have had enough. When we finally left we were all cold and damp. You were grumpy and fed up, but you cheered up a lot once I put you in the pushchair and gave you a bottle. You were asleep by the time we got home, but you were still quite cold to touch. It took quite a while for al of us to really warm up once we got home. I felt so guilty that you hadn’t had a coat on. I hated that you had gotten cold. I knew that I was a very bad mummy on that day. Hopefully I get a few points for the fact that you and Lukas had a great time at the park. You were both enjoying yourself so much I couldn’t bear to make you leave, even when my mummy instincts told me different. I learnt a lesson for the future, I should always trust the mummy radar over the weatherman and I should always keep a coat for you underneath the pushchair!

Enabling: Christmas Past by Lena Brandenburg and Tabatha Reed (Bella Gypsy) available here, Oopsie Doodle Borders by Suzy Iverson (Suzy Q Scraps) available here, Pea Megeletto font can be downloaded here, Pea Mystie Unicase font can be downloaded here and you can find all of the details for the template challenge including the link to download the template here.

Happy anniversary baby

Today is Ambrose’s anniversary. It seems insane to think that it was 4 years ago that we went for a routine scan and were told they couldn’t see a heartbeat. It was 2 days later that I wrote this post. So many things have changed since then but the sadness is still there. I still grieve for what might have been and wonder what my baby would have been like. Mostly it’s selfish fantasies about how things would have been. I won’t lie sometimes I think things worked out the way they were supposed to. I think Ambrose and Gaiebraille and Leo are lucky that they don’t have me as their Mummy. Lukas and Logan are hard work and I can’t always give them everything I feel they deserve. I have to adapt the way I care for them because of my health issues and I feel as though it’s a good thing I only have the two of them to disappoint. I wonder if they would be better off without me too, wonder if they would rather have a different mummy who could run around and play with them. I hate that I get tired all the time and the pain makes me irritable. I have to remind myself that no-one could ever love them the way that I do, and that even though I am far from perfect they love me anyway. They don’t care that I'm sick, or depressed, they don’t care that when we go places I have to take frequent breaks and it takes me days to recover afterwards. I often still question whether there was something I could have done differently to save my angel babies and the truth is I will never know for sure. In my mind it will always be my fault. I will always be filled with questions and I will always feel the sadness at them not being here. None of that will ever change but experience tells me some things will. Time will help heal my heart, it will let me go for seconds, then minutes, maybe even hours at a time without thinking about my angel’s. Days like today will become more about celebrating their lives than about grieving for them. I know that because they already have a little bit. This year hasn’t been as hard on me as last year was, and last year wasn’t quite as hard as the year before. I will never ever forget any of them, because a piece of my heart will always have their names engraved on to it. It will never completely stop hurting, but that’s ok the pain helps me to remember. So happy anniversary my darling Ambrose, I hope you know how much I miss you.

A second layout from yesterday

As soon as I saw this kit, I knew what I wanted to use it for. It’s not very easy to find carousel elements, and I have lots of photos. I decided to rescrap the ones from Milton Keynes, but I have ones from Chessington, Thorpe Park and the fair to scrap as well. The kit is on promotion until the end of today, for $2. If you scrap a layout with it you get the other half of the kit for free. It’s a very cute Mary Poppins kit but versatile enough to do other things with as well. Since I am in an enabling sort of mood, here are the previews of both halves (The $2 and the other half you get when you scrap a layout with it) and a link to the challenge in the forum.

The first image is linked if you want to buy it. Here is the layout I made with the first half of it.

Credits: Layered template (May 08 Square Template) by Di Hickman, Practically Perfect by DeDe Smith and Gold Action by Atomic Cupcake. Fonts are CK Handprint, CK Leisurely, ILS Script and Circus.

Journalling reads: You have always loved to ride on the Carousel. When we took you to see Father Christmas, we had some time to waste before the timeslot on our tickets. We decided to take a walk over to the Carousel inside the shopping centre. Usually we go for the seats we can all sit in as a family, like the Cinderella carriage. But this time we had quite a lot of stuff that needed holding on to. You decided that you wanted to sit on one of the white horses. So Daddy went with you on your first ride, while I took photographs. Then you asked to go again and I went on with you while Daddy waited and took some photographs. On your 3rd turn you asked to go all on your own. You only needed a little bit of a boost to get up onto the horses. It made me realise just how much things have changed. You are growing up so quickly and becoming more independent every single day. 1st December 2007.

Enabling: Practically Perfect by DeDe Smith available here, Gold Action by Atomic Cupcake available here, CK Handprint font available here, CK Leisurely font available here, ILS Script font available here and Circus font available here.

Zzzz

If you saw this last night and wondered why there was no post with it, sorry I just couldn't drag up the effort to sit and type anything, so I published it directly from Flickr. I didn't realise that it didn't add the description when you do that, at least I know for next time. Anyway back to the layout, after I blogged the other night I was planning on taking some more painkillers and going to bed. Well I tried the painkillers and they did less than nothing, so I ended up going to the Featured Designer Chat at Log Your Memory. This month's featured designer is Traci Reed and she was giving away a free layered template. We were also given a code good for a free one month memory logbook or $5.95 off either the full Log Book or the Weekly Challenges book. I had bought the full Log Book previously but have never gotten around to doing anything with it. I decided to pick up the April Monthly Log Book, I even got around to printing it out, I decided to print it at half size (A5) and print two per page. As soon as I can find the paper trimmer I will put it into my folder and hopefully start using it and doing the weekly challenges. This is the layout I using the free layered template from the chat and Jewel's kit Sleepy Snuggles.

Credits: Layered template (Log Your Memory Chat Freebie, Stephanie Template) by Traci Reed and Sleepy Snuggles (slightly recoloured), Little Tags Months, Edge Genius Volume 1 and Heart Genius Volume 1 all by Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs). Font is Pea Missy With A Marker by Amanda Bottom (KevinandAmanda).

Journalling reads: I don’t remember much about these photos. I know that after your bath we went downstairs to get something, I left you alone in the kitchen for a few minutes and when I came back this is what I found. You were fast asleep on the kitchen floor. I couldn't resist taking photos of you, I remember you turned over in your sleep and pulled the hood over your face. I guess either you were cold or the light was bugging you. According to my blog, I carried you upstairs asleep. I was obviously not as ill then as I am now. I also blogged that you went to the toilet and fell asleep again on the bathroom floor. You must have either had a really hard day or you were poorly with something. I only wish I could remember which one it was. I hate having bits of your stories missing.

Enabling: Sleepy Snuggles, Edge Genius Volume 1 and Heart Genius Volume 1 by Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs) available here, here and here and Missy With A Marker Font available here. Layered template was a chat freebie and Little Tags Months was a participation prize for the Project 365 challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In.

Goodbye Flowers, Goodbye Pink

Notice anything new? It took me a while but I finally got around to giving the blog a much need makeover. I decided to go with Zoe Pearn’s Blog In A Box: Blissful but I couldn’t resist recolouring it so there was no pink in it. But apart from the blog redesign, I seem to have spent all day on the computer and not actually done anything. I feel too ill to do anything so there have been no layouts, no tagging, no renaming, no organizing, no stash deleting honestly I am not really sure where the day has gone. I hate days like this where I don’t seem to have anything to show for the hours that have passed. I always feel like they would have been better spent sleeping, because at least then I wouldn’t feel quite so ill. I did get 2 of the P365 layouts I was behind on finished yesterday, but haven’t gotten around to uploading them yet. Anyway while I am here, I may as well do something useful. Do you remember the sale I linked you up to the other day, well Jewel has decided to celebrate her birthday all month long with a different promotion each week. This weeks promotion is a grab bag with a twist, well two twists I suppose because not only do you get to see what you get before you buy, you get to choose which things you want. You get to build your own 3 product commercial use grab bag for just $5. There are a lot of other stores where just one commercial use product costs more than $5, so you are getting a really good deal with this offer. Anyway here is a link to the product you need to purchase to get this offer, you just put the three products you want in the comments section, and you will receive an email from Jewel with a coupon to buy the items, sent to the email address associated with your store account. The ad is also linked to the product.

Do you want to see what my choices would be if I built my own grab bag? Assuming I had bought the things I showed you last time in the sale I would go for these three.

CU Edge Genius Volume 1 and CU Edge Genius Volume 2 because I have a bit of a thing for edges and CU Star Genius Volume 1 because I think they would be great for boy layouts.

 

Now do you want to hear something crazy, if I bought this deal technically I would have got both of the edge sets for 1c since the Star Genius Volume 1 set usually costs $4.99 on it’s own. See I told you it was a complete steal! This promotion is good until next Wednesday (14th April).

Sharing yesterday’s layout

I started this one on Monday but left it unfinished because I was feeling so ill. For some reason I seem to be in the mood to scrap really old photos lately. The strange thing was I actually chose these photos to scrap before I started scrapping. That’s backwards for me, usually I pick the template I want to use first, then the kit/elements, then the photos. With the exception of my P365 layouts I add the journalling first and then the photos before I start really scrapping the page. I am not really a themed scrapper, I like to use things that match the colours in the photo or I find a pattern I like and recolour it to make it match the photos. When I saw these photos I thought they would work really well with an Autumn themed kit by Red Genius Enterprises called Fall Into Fall. I had spotted it the other day while browsing the store but I didn’t really have a clue what I wanted to do with them. Since the photos are so old they are not great quality so I know they couldn’t be huge focal points on the page. Mark bought me some templates from DSDI when they were on sale, simply because they were on sale lol. I never had plans for what I wanted to do with them, except a vague idea that if I had templates from there I could do more challenges from there lol. DSDI don’t require use of their products but I personally feel guilty uploading anything to a gallery that doesn’t have something from that store in it. Anyway I am rambling aren’t I sorry. The point I was trying to make was that when I started this page the only idea I had was to use the brown background paper from the kit and maybe recolour the papers a tiny bit to match the bowling balls better. The layout kind of took on a life of it’s own and ended up being suitable for the Killer Threads Challenge. I probably wouldn’t ever have imagined doing this with these photos but I really love the finished layout, I hardly ever say that.

Credits: Layered template (Blocked Out Templates, Template 2) by Denise Tilley (DigiDesigns by Denise), Shine On DSDI Exclusive Freebie by Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs), Fall Into Fall and Fall Into Fall glitters by Jane Shaver and Jewel Goodwin (Red Genius Enterprises), CU Neon Styles by Scrappin Cop and Lomo V2 Photo Actions (Lomo No Vignette Action) by Addicted To Design (A2D). Fonts are SF Cartoonist Hand SC and My Own Topher.

Journalling reads: You have been bowling before, when we went to Aylesbury, but we decided it would be a nice after school treat to take you to the local Bowlplex. We have never been there before, even though it’s just over a mile from our house. When we picked you up from school, we told you where we were going. You were so excited! You were very disappointed that we had to go home and get changed before we could get going. You were so impatient and kept telling us to hurry up. As we were waiting for the bus you struggled to calm down, you were firing questions at us and hardly even stopping for breath. Once we got there you somehow managed to take in all of the little details, like the sign on the wall outside and the games arcade just inside the door. It was all of the little details that made it so special, like how you were ecstatic that you and Daddy had almost matching shoes, and thought it was funny that Mummy had ugly red lace up ones. The obvious thrill you got, out of helping Daddy type in your name on the keypad. How you insisted on using a heavier ball than we thought you would be able to handle and how you were annoyed that you couldn’t find a blue ball. You ended up being really good at Bowling, both with the support frame and without. We played 2 games and you and Daddy ended up winning one each. I had so much fun watching you both and taking photos, until the camera batteries died. We decided to finish off the evening with burgers and chips at the bowling alley. you had a kids meal that came with a cow Mask and played on the bob the builder ride on, before we got a taxi back home. It was a really nice evening. When we got home I was a little sad to see that because of the bad lighting in the bowling alley, hardly any of the photos were useable. The colours were really bad but I did manage to save a few. At least we have the memories of going and there’s always next time for more photos!

Enabling: Blocked Out Templates by Denise Tilley (DigiDesigns by Denise) available here, Fall Into Fall and Fall Into Fall Glitters by Jane Shaver and Jewel Goodwin (Red Genius Enterprises) available here and here, CU Neon Styles by Scrappin Cop available here and Lomo V2 Photo Actions by Addicted To Design (A2D) available here. SF Cartoonist Hand SC font available here and My Own Topher font available here. Shine On by Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs) doesn’t seem to be available at the moment sorry.

Legoland After Dark Ben 10 Alien Force

This was the post I wanted to write yesterday and the day before but felt too ill to do. Honestly I don’t feel better today, but if I don’t write it today it won’t get written because I will forget the details lol. The day started off badly because of everyone going back to sleep. By the time they finally got up we were running really behind. Nothing was ready to go and everything seemed to take forever. We decided that it would be nice to go and have lunch at Eamayl on the way to the train station. The food is always yummy and it’s a lot cheaper than the rubbish they sell at Legoland. We had a really nice time, Lukas was quite well behaved. He had some rice, chips and prawn crackers which are usually the only things he is willing to try. He tasted the chicken balls but didn’t like them as much as the ones from our local takeaway. But he did surprise us by eating the chicken satay I put on his plate and then asking for more. He tried it when we went to Oxy Oriental but although his liked it what I gave him was enough. It’s very unlike him to not only ask for more but to eat about half a plate full of something lol. His favourite part was the ice cream he ended up having 5 of the tiny bowls 4 vanilla and 1 chocolate and 1 bowl of jelly. We were quite impressed with him. Logan tasted what the sign said was a tomato omelette, don’t think it was though as it had mushrooms in it, he really enjoyed it, he also quite liked the jelly. Coconut pudding was not a hit though he spat it out. Lukas thought it was great that there was a birthday dinner going on and everyone sung Happy Birthday when the staff bought out a cake for the lady. He’s now asking if we can go and have Chinese for his birthday. I told him we would see, since he keeps changing his mind about what he wants. It took a while to get to Legoland but for once we didn’t run into any cancellations or delays. When we got to the bottom of the hill on the shuttle bus, we felt a bit sick when we saw that the opening sign said “Park Closed”. We were dreading having to explain to Lukas that for some reason the park wasn’t open. We were trying not to panic the entire trip up the hill. When we got off the bus we saw that all of the turnstiles were closed and so was the ticket office. We managed to find a member of staff who told us it was fine for us to come in. When we went to collect the event leaflet from guest services, they said the park was closed because it had reached capacity. They were only accepting pre-booked tickets and Annual Pass holders. It was a huge relief to hear that Annual Pass holders were guaranteed entry. Then we saw the ride board, every ride in the park had a waiting time of 30 minutes or longer. One of the rides even said 1hr 45min. We didn’t really go for the rides but Lukas was still a bit disappointed. We wondered around hoping to do some of the Ben 10 special events around the park but they were all too busy. We couldn’t even get into the Lego building contest area. We decided to go and see the new 4D show and were turned away because the theatre had reached capacity. They advised us to come back in half and hour and see Bob the Builder, but since we have seen that one a few times we didn’t bother. Lukas wanted to have a go at laser tag but after lining up he was told they had closed for the day. They were cooking steak on a BBQ and it smelt yummy so we decided to buy a couple, but as we went to bite into them they were not only not cooked through they were tough like leather. Mark finished them off but it was annoying. We decided to try chocolate waffles on a stick, took one bite and threw it away because it was absolutely disgusting. By this point we were cold, miserable and fed up. The kids cheered up a bit when we bought them a balloon each, Logan hasn’t had one before. We also bought and released one for Leo. Lukas had fun playing in the Pirate Training Camp (what used to be The Rat Run) and Mark tried out the new ride, The Jolly Rocker (huge swinging pirate ship). He seemed to enjoy it but he was lucky it broke down just after he got off it lol. We picked up some doughnuts and hot chocolate and headed over to the area where they were holding the laser show. We were really early but it was still packed. We found somewhere to stand and watch it but by the time the show started people had barged in front of us and we couldn’t see anything. Mark managed to pick Lukas up and sit him on his back and lean against the fence so Lukas could see something. Since we hadn’t been able to see the show we stayed for the repeat. We were able to stand right at the front and honestly, that show made the day worth it. None of us have every seen anything quite like it, they used lasers and smoke and projected images off the lake to music. I was able to find a suitable setting on my camera and took lots of photos. Some of them look amazing but I am not quite sure what to do with them yet. We ran into a few problems on the way home. The first one was when we saw a group of 4 girls arguing at Slough station. It turned into a fight between two of the girls. We did inform the guard because I was worried it might get nasty but he didn’t seem very interested. The train only ran from Slough to Didcot Parkway, it was a coach between Didcot and Oxford. The coach was beautiful though, it had really comfortable seats that laid back. There were strip lights along the wall and huge luggage storage bins. The buggy fitted underneath without even being folded up. Both of the boys slept the whole way home. When we got to Oxford station there were no buses running because of how late it was. We had to walk into the city centre. We picked up a Macdonalds, and were quite surprised to see that they have a separate late night menu. Lukas was annoyed that they couldn’t do him a Happy Meal or a double cheeseburger. He ended up getting a double quarter pounder and chips, half of it ended up being his breakfast the next morning, Mark had a Big Mac and chips and I got a McChicken sandwich. Logan decided that would be a great time to have a complete meltdown. We got a taxi home because there wasn’t much difference in price between that and the night bus. By the time we finally got home it was about 1:15am, we were all exhausted and longing to go to bed. It had been a very long day for all of us. Lukas asked to watch a dvd but was asleep before it even got to through the trailers at the beginning. It was a strange day, not one of our best trips out for sure but the laser show made up for some of it. I think we will go again next year, because the Laser show was that good but we will have to get to Legoland a lot earlier so we can get some rides in.

Just keep swimming

you know those days where you feel like you are barely keeping your head above the water even though your legs are frantically kicking underneath, today has been one of those days. I had a bad night last night and ended up spending hours, laying in bed flicking through mindless tv programme after mindless tv programme. For someone who doesn’t really watch TV it’s my idea of hell to be unable to do anything else except watch repeats of tv shows that have been on too many times to count. I just didn’t have the energy to get up and sit at my desk and even if I had dragged myself to the desk I was hurting too much to concentrate and do anything. So I have been dragging pretty much all day, I am tired and I hurt but I just can’t sleep. There are a lot of reasons why I can’t sleep but none of them really matter because the end result is the same, sitting here wishing I was asleep and getting grumpier and grumpier because I am not *sigh*. I think I should go and try laying down again maybe I can find a cookery programme to watch, they are a bit of a weakness of mine. I love watching other people cook it’s kind of my little indulgence when no-one else is around. I don’t love the television enough to waste energy arguing over the remote with Mark and Lukas. I know if I sit here I am not likely to get anything done and that’s just going to frustrate me even more than laying in bed will. I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully feeling a little bit better and in a better mood than I am now, if nothing else I have a layout I want to share with you and my P365 to sort out.

So very tired

and not feeling very well, so I am going to advantage of the fact that Logan is asleep and go to bed. I will be back with a proper post or 2 tomorrow sorry.

Forgot to mention

There won’t be any layouts today, unless I can get one scrapped now. That’s because as soon as Mark, Lukas and Logan finally decide to get up we are off to Legoland for the day. They are holding a special Ben 10 Alien Force After Dark event. There will be activities all day long followed by two laser and light shows this evening. Since they are open until 9pm so we aren’t in any hurry to get there. Mark and Logan were awake earlier as Mark wanted to watch the Formula One, but they have gone back to sleep. It’s always a much better idea for everyone to let those three wake up on their own, it makes for a much more peaceful day. But if you want to do some scrapping today, for Easter Sunday, one of my CT’s Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs) is having a sale this week for her birthday. From the 1st-7th April you get 35% off everything, personal use and commercial use included in her Digi Scraps Drive In store. Discount shows up once you add the items to the basket. Here’s the ad for that, linked to the store.

If you want some suggestions, here are a few of my favourites from her store. Images are linked.

Back To School Bundle

CU Foil Genius Commercial Use Overlays

CU Heart Genius Volume One Heart Scatter Brushes

Perfect Plum Cardstock

Sleepy Snuggles

Running a little late today

so technically I suppose it’s not quite a blog post every day, but close enough. I started writing the blog post earlier, I was feeling ill all day, but by 6pm I was feeling so rough I just went to have a quick lie down in hopes of feeling better and I have just woken up at um 6am lol. Our day has been pretty upside down today, yesterday not sure how this post will make any sense to you if I can’t even keep it straight. Ok let’s make it simple today is going to refer to Saturday, because even though I am up and awake and the clock says it’s Sunday I am not treating it like it is yet. It’s Sunday once I get dressed and everyone else gets up. But anyway back to today (Saturday lol) Mark worked a different shift, starting at 7am and finishing at 3pm. I was up all night feeling rough, but luckily Nan was happy to have Lukas downstairs with her while I got a few hours sleep and Logan was happy to sleep with me. He’s still not right has a slight temperature and gets slightly hysterical when I leave the room, as long as I am sat somewhere near him he seems content to play and he’s happy enough so nothing much to worry about. Nan went to a friends 80th Birthday party last night but since I was asleep not long after she left I have no idea if she had a nice time or not. I’ll ask her later when I see her. I did make a layout while I was awake all night, this one works for the Spice It Up challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In. It’s not often I scrap in black and white but I really liked the layout when I was done with it. In the interest’s of disclosing everything, so no-one can say I didn’t lol. Although this kit was made by a designer I CT for, it wasn’t a CT assignment. I actually won it in a random drawing at Digi Scraps Drive In before I was on the CT, I just haven’t used it until now.

Credits: Layered template (Set 43, Template 3) by Cindy Schneider, Mommyhood by Altered Sea and Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Everyday Moments - The Neutrals by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps). Fonts are DJB Journal Bits and DJB Ms Hyde both by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: I really love this old photo of you Lukas. It’s part of a set of 3 that we took by accident, when somehow the setting on the camera got changed to black and white. More than likely it happened while you were playing with it. You used to love my camera. You look so tiny and almost shy, standing in Nannie Freda’s kitchen doorway. Just holding your bottle and debating with yourself whether you should go outside into the garden. I can’t even remember why you hesitated now and it bothers me. These photos seem like they were taken a lifetime ago. I can hardly remember anything about how you were back then. It makes me sad, I hate that I forget the little details about you.

Enabling: Cindy’s Templates Set 43 are available here, Mommyhood by Altered Sea  and Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) available here and Everyday Moments - The Neutrals by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) available here

Not such a Good Friday

Last night I started feeling more ill than usual. It started with a nasty headache on top of the usual one that painkillers would not touch. It got worse and worse and after a few hours, I had pressure everywhere. At about 6am this morning I gave up and tried to sleep, yeah that didn’t work out so well. I kept getting woken up by Logan and then by Lukas and Mark bickering. When I finally decided to just give up trying to sleep and get up I went downstairs, Nan was mad because no washing had been taken downstairs and Mark hadn’t done a few other things. I was mad because she got mad at me, and I wasn’t even awake. When I came back upstairs I argued with Mark before he went to work. Logan isn’t feeling very well either, he has a bit of a temperature and he’s been irritable on and off all day. Hopefully it’s just teething and nothing serious. I decided to give them each an Easter egg, when I was a kid we always had our eggs on Good Friday. I managed to get a little bit of scrapping time while Lukas was playing with Logan and keeping him entertained. This layout was created for the It’s A Fad challenge at Digi Scraps Drive in. Basically you sign up for the challenge and they send you a 50% off coupon for the current Flavour Of The Month kit, all you need to do is scrap a layout using it.

Credits: Layered template (My Inspiration, Square Template 1) by Breanne Aullman (BTA Designs) and My Inspiration contributions by Denise Tilley (DigiDesigns by Denise), Nikki Mulreaney (7hump3r Designs), Mandymade Designs, Charm City Scraps, Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs), Cathy Cher, Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Ivonne Ivett (Craft-tastrophic Designs). Font is DJB Gail by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: I was really looking forward to your first Halloween, so I could indulge in dressing you up and taking photos. You ended up with multiple outfits, but this is the onewe picked for our trip to Legoland. It was a pain to get you into it since it only opened on the shoulders. You didn't have a single problem with it, until we added the hat. Then you scowled at us and moaned and cried, until we gave in and took it off. What can I say you really hated this hat.

Enabling: Everything I used today except the font came from the My Inspiration Mega Kit (April 2010 Flavour Of The Month) available here and since I can't find a direct link to this font in Darcy Baldwin's Sweet Shoppe Designs store, so here is a link to all of Darcy's fonts.

Another Day Another Layout

So today is the first day of my blogging everyday thing, it’s also the end of term and the beginning of the Easter holidays for Lukas. To celebrate they had an “Eco Day” at school, all the kids got to wear an item of green clothing instead of their usual school uniform. Apparently the school are trying to become an Eco school and they have been working on making the school more energy efficient and more green. The school said that they would appreciate a small donation from each of the children, to go towards a new water butt. Lukas was really excited as he has quite a few green T-shirts. Only problem is we forget to take pictures of him before he went to school this morning. We were all told that school had an early finish of 2pm today. I was running a little bit behind today and ended up rushing like a maniac to get there on time, only to find that for some reason the school decided to change everything at the last minute and finish at the normal time of 3:15pm. They justified it by saying that a letter had been sent home informing the parents yesterday. There was no way I could drag up the energy to walk home, then walk there and back again an hour later. So I rang reception and I told them Lukas had an appointment and asked if I could pick him up. They argued and told me it would affect his attendance, and that they needed a doctors note for me to take him out of school. I argued that if they hadn’t changed the time, I wouldn’t be taking him out of school. Anyway long story short they went and got him for me, he took a while because they were making him a chocolate corn flake cake complete with a fluffy yellow chick. I haven’t really gotten as much done I would have liked today, but I do have one layout to share. It was created for the Radioactive Font Challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In using a template from the new Digi Files (16) Mark bought me.

Credits: Layered template (Set 46, Template 1) by Cindy Schneider and Bedtime Stories by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Altered Sea. Fonts are CK Tween, CK Typeset and Cool Dots.

Journalling reads: Lukas I love this photo of you sleeping in your Fimbles Ready Bed. You had this one while we were living at Daddy’s house. You really loved that bed for lots of reasons, it was so close to the floor you couldn’t fall out and hurt yourself and it was cozy and comfortable. The best thing was since the sleeping bag part was attached to the bed it was virtually impossible for you to kick off the covers and get cold at night. You were really sad when you finally outgrew it and didn’t get to sleep in it anymore.

Enabling: Cindy’s Templates Set 46 is currently available as part of The Digi Files 16 which is currently for sale here and Bedtime Stories by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) and Altered Sea available here. Fonts are available here, here and here.

Tea Party At Georgia’s

CT work is a lot like any other kind of job, you always want to make a good first impression on your first day, or in this case on your first assignment. You want the designers to be glad they asked you to be part of their team and but more than that you don’t want them to think something along the lines of, what on earth was I thinking when I invited her? So the first ct assignment is always the hardest, especially if you are slightly paranoid and obsessive lol. You are all excited to get started and then you download and unzip the kit and you run into a problem. The kit is super cute, and you really really like it but you draw a complete blank on what to do with it. You think oh it’s ok I will think of something to use it for, and you start looking through photos. When you have gone through 10 or so folders and found no pictures that will work, you are feeling slightly less confident. By the time you have gone through 25 folders you are starting to get a little nervous. But it’s when you get to somewhere between 35 and 50 folders of photos that panic really starts to set in. I admit I did even slightly consider borrowing a tea set from Ella and staging a little photo shoot. That’s the problem when you have two boys they don’t do things like tea parties. Don’t get me wrong Lukas had a tea set and a kitchen but I never really thought to photograph it when we had it, even if I had they wouldn’t have worked for this since his kitchen was lime green and orange. I never remembered to grab my camera when him and Ella were sitting on the kitchen floor having a picnic. I never used to take many photos of the two of them playing together at all, mainly because the minute they saw me standing there they would stop playing so I just left them to it. Now they just play different sort of games, and I am so grateful that they are being quiet for a few minutes, I try and cram things I need to do into those moments instead of trying to photograph them. I was so frustrated that I turned off the computer, walked away and went to bed, because I knew anything I tried to make last night would have been a huge mess. Then I got up this morning and I remembered that I did have a few photos of Lukas and Ella playing with the Megablocks. Luckily the colours ended up being perfect. As an added bonus I ended up choosing last month’s template challenge so this layout works for the Killer Threads in March: What’s On Your Plate challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In. This one took me a while, but it’s not often I say this, I love this layout, I want to print it out for Lukas and then retype the journalling and print it our for Ella. In the Interests of full disclosure, I received the Tea Party At Georgia’s kit, glitters and cardstock for free, I bought the Everyday Moments collection before I was part of the CT and the little date element was a participation prize for the P365 challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In. Now that all of that is out of the way let’s get onto the interesting part, showing you the layout!

Credits: Layered template (February Made In The Shade Template 2) by Breanne Aullman (BTA Designs), Everyday Moments Collection by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps), Little Tags Months by Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs) and Tea Party At Georgia's Kit, Tea Party at Georgia's Cardstock and Tea Party At Georgia's Glitters all by Red Genius Enterprises. Font is DJB Gina E by Darcy Baldwin.

Journalling reads: When I first bought your Megablocks, Ella couldn’t seem to understand what you found so great about them. For some reason she hated sitting and building with you. Whenever she came to play and you asked to have them out, she would go off in a strop and refuse to talk to you. All of that changed when Lisa bought her the girly set. Suddenly not only did she want to play when you had them out, she would insist on bringing them whenever she came around to play. Having two sets means you both have a lot more options of things to build. They can’t get mixed up because her blocks are lime green, turquoise, pink and purple with litle plastic girls and animals. Yours are red, blue, green and yellow with monster parts and eyes. I’m still trying to find a set of just plain blocks for you both to build with!

Enabling: February Made In The Shade Template 2 by Breanne Aullman (BTA Designs)can be downloaded here, Everyday Moments Collection by Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps) is available here, Tea Party At Georgia's Kit, Tea Party at Georgia's Cardstock and Tea Party At Georgia's Glitters by Jane Shaver and Jewel Goodwin (Red Genius Enterprises) are available here, here and here. The Little Tags Months was a participation prize for the Project 365 Challenge.

*If you would like to pick up this kit at a reduced price of $3.99 and get the cardstock included for free, you need to purchase it here at Digi Scraps Drive In before the 6th April (next Tuesday), the glitter styles are not included but they are available separately for just $1.99*

So excited

as you can see I haven’t gotten around to the new blog look yet but fingers crossed I should be able to get that all done in time for the 1st of April when I intend to start to start blogging everyday. The exciting part is that since I wrote the last post something has changed. Remember how I said I was going to blog about “something, anything”, well now I have something that is definitely worth blogging about. I received a pm at Digi Scraps Drive In, inviting me to join the CT of Jane Shaver (Little Red Scraps), Jewel Goodwin (Mad Genius Designs) and their combined designing efforts (Red Genius Enterprises). To say I was excited would be an understatement. It’s thanks to these 2 designers that I have kept up with my P365. I was already enjoying scrapping with their products I had purchased before becoming a part of their CT, so now I get to do something I was already enjoying for free. I honestly didn’t realise how much I was missing being part of a CT, so I am going to jump right in and get started. Last night I couldn’t sleep so I started going through my work in progress files. I have a lot of layouts that have been started and discarded because I didn’t know what to use to scrap them. I have templates that I have added photos or journalling to that are just waiting for the perfect kit to finish them off. I also have a lot of layouts that I have started with certain kits only to decide later that I didn’t really like what I had chosen. I started with the August 2009 folder, which had 6 layouts that were literally template and photos. I just didn’t have the time or desire to finish them when Logan was so little. I have a small disclaimer to add in here, wouldn’t want to break any rules now would I. I didn’t actually receive this kit as part of the CT but I didn’t pay for it either. I won it in a random drawing by Altered Sea for her buy my store promotion at Digishop Talk. Since it’s a collab with Little Red Scraps, it’s technically part CT layout, but it’s also part personal scrapping. I don’t really care what it’s label is, I just know that this kit was absolutely perfect to scrap this layout. I fixed the colour in the photos a little bit, but everything I scrapped with is as it came in the kit, with the exception of being resized to fit. This one was created for the Radioactive Font Challenge at Digi Scraps Drive In using a Tuesday Template from August 2009 at Scrap Matters. I have decided to give Flickr a try for my blog images.

Credits: Layered template (Tuesday Template, 18th August 2009) by Linz and Mommyhood by Little Red Scraps (Jane Shaver) and Altered Sea. Font is Ale and Wenches.

Journalling reads: One of the first things they teach in the special care baby unit is Kangaroo care. It’s a great way to not only keep them warm but also to get some really nice skin to skin contact between the baby and the parents. When you were born you weren’t really sick like Lukas and Leo had been. You didn’t need to be in an incubator, You were able to maintain your own body temperature with no help. You got to wear your own clothes and I could get you out almost anytime I wanted to cuddle you. But when they handed you to me, instinct kicked in over common sense and I tucked you into my shirt to keep you warm. You may have not really needed my help to stay warm, but you loved being snuggled up so close to me. You loved to stroke my skin, and hear my heartbeat. You loved it when you could feel my top around your back. You loved absolutely everything about our very special Kangaroo care style cuddles, so when all of the nurses kept telling me, you didn’t need to be that close to me, I knew they were wrong so I ignored them. I just carried on sitting there with you tucked inside my shirt, sucking away at your hand for a few minutes, while staring into my face, before you fell fast asleep until it was time for me to put you down. These moments were something that we both needed. You liked the security and the closeness, I just liked how peaceful it felt to hear you sleeping so soundly cuddling me.

Enabling: 18th August 09 Tuesday Template by Linz can be downloaded here and Mommyhood by Little Red Scraps and Altered Sea is available here. Font can be downloaded here.

*If you would like to pick up this kit at a bargain price of $2.99 check out the Altered Sea retirement sale here, but you have to be quick as her store closes on the 31st of March*

Blowing off the dust

So I suck at updating my blog, you know that it’s nothing new. But I still feel guilty about it. It mainly started because I wasn’t scrapping much. I didn’t have anything to share and honestly how many “I’m sick” posts could anyone really be willing to read. My life isn’t really that interesting I don’t have things to talk about. I admit that something else happened that made me reluctant to post here, I don’t really want to talk about it except to say I felt like I couldn’t even express my own opinions on my blog. Do I feel differently now, no not really the fear is still there but I am choosing to ignore it. Why, well because I want to. I need this blog to record the thoughts and emotions that crash around inside my head. It keeps me sane and much more importantly than that, it is what allows me to journal on my pages. Without my blog I am forced to try and remember the things we did when I am journalling, and for me that’s practically impossible. I found out that I can blog from my mobile phone, well that’s not an ideal way to blog for me, it does take away any kind of excuse about not being able to blog. When we go on daytrips I can blog or even tweet while I am standing around waiting for Mark to get back from his thrill rides or waiting for Lukas to get off of whatever it is that he is riding on over and over again. So here is the hard part I am going to commit to blogging everyday for a month. Every single day in April I am going to blog something, anything, whether it’s a real post, a layout share or just some random picture of the boys, it doesn’t matter the point is that there is something blogged every day. Before you ask me why wait until the first of April to start this, it’s simply because I have a few things I need to get done first, like a blog redesign. The flowers are annoying me and so is the pink. I already know that one post a week will be taken care of with my P365 layouts. Now it’s just 6 others I have to fill lol. Maybe I can set some sort of reminder like an alarm on my phone or a popup to make me remember.

Some people take things to a whole new low

Up until recently spam wasn’t a real problem on here. Idiots posted spam comments, I complained to Mark about it while I went into my blog to delete them, they were deleted and there was nothing more to say or do. The spam increased and I was starting to get fed up of fixing it and deleting comments so I made a few changes. I decided to add comment moderation to the older posts and hoped that would be enough. But when I logged on today to see that not only had someone spammed my post about Gaiebraille’s anniversary, they had spammed it with various things including abortion, adoption, infertility and the one that wound me up the most waste disposal. That’s exactly how the hospital treated me when I had the miscarriage in the first place like my baby was just rubbish to be thrown away. There are a lot of things people don’t know about my when I miscarried Gaiebraille, including the mix up where they almost and I hesitate to even type this since it still disgusts me disposed of our baby with the hospital waste because they didn’t know we had permission to have a funeral. It’s not exactly things I wanted to remember so I didn’t post them on my blog. I have written before about how we were told that we had more chance of winning the lottery than having another baby after I lost Gaiebraille. So maybe I am irrational and emotional right now but I am sick of the spammers, I am tired of having to delete comments so as of right now I am making further changes and turning comment moderation on in all posts. For now I am going to leave word verification off, comments on and continue to allow anyone to comment. Stupid spammers they really should find a better way to spend their time instead of being a bunch of idiots posting links to crap.

A lot can happen in 7 years

but apparently 7 years still isn’t long enough to make the pain of losing a child go away. This is the first anniversary of Gaiebraille’s that I have had a baby for and it’s definitely strange. It seems to make the pain that bit more intense and spark thoughts of what might have been. Last night as we were sitting there talking it became apparent just how much it still hurts me. We talked about when they told us, we talked about the hospital stay and the failures, we talked about the frustration and the anger, we talked about the sadness, Mark talked about the fear he felt while I was being operated on and how scared he was as the hours ticked by, we talked about the pain and we talked about what came after. We touched on how the loss changed everything but not once did either of us have the guts to talk about the baby as a person. I know that might sound like the wrong words to use about someone who never really got that far. But what I meant is that neither of us was brave enough to discuss the hopes and dreams that we had that were taken away along with Gaiebraille. I don’t think I will ever really be able to share the way losing Gaiebraille made me feel. Each of our babies has been special and every single one of them is loved but none of them were ever wanted quite as much as Gaiebraille was. Lukas was my first and that meant that there was fear and even resentment that my pregnancy was so difficult while everyone else around me seemed to be having it so simple. I have talked before about my feelings when I found out he was a boy, about my shock and even my slight disappointment. When I found out I was pregnant with Gaiebraille, I was hoping to get the chance to put things right. I was excited and I was happy. I don’t ever remembered feeling worried about having two babies so close together. My brother Gavin is just over a year younger than I am and Darren is a year younger than him. We used to fight a lot but it was kind of nice being able to go to school and have siblings the year below you. I liked being able to look out for them and I thought Lukas might like being able to look out for his little brother or sister too. I was full of plans about buying a double pushchair and trying to make work out how everything was going to fit and then it was all just taken away. I will never forget the moment when they told us or Mark’s tears. I will never forget how much I didn’t want them to see me cry and how I just wanted out of that room more than anything else in the world. It scares me how vivid all of the details still are about everything that happened when I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast. Since we lost Gaiebraille I have never really felt complete as a person, ok literally I am not complete since during the surgery to remove the baby they had to remove part of my uterus and one of my fallopian tubes but it’s more than that. I thought I was ready to talk about it but the overwhelming wave of emotion begs to differ. I guess talking about it on Gaiebraille’s anniversary is a little like yanking a scab of a wound that you think has healed only to see blood come gushing out again. I am not healed and maybe I never will be. It hurts me that Mark didn’t remember what the date meant until I reminded him. It makes me angry that he is able to move on and forget. I didn’t make a big deal when he got up today and went to do washing at his Dad’s leaving me alone with my thoughts. I didn’t complain when he went to work I just accept that is the way he is and there is nothing I can do about it. I can’t forget the date it is permanently etched onto my brain and no matter how much pain it causes me I think that’s a good thing. Gaiebraille is gone but will never ever be forgotten at least by me. It doesn’t really matter what other people do as long as I remember that’s enough. Today I lit a candle in memory of my baby and I couldn’t find the holder I normally use (it’s a white one with an angel on it). I ended up using one that Lukas had made for me at school and as I did it made me realise something, by lighting a candle for Gaiebraille in something Lukas has made I am showing that all of my babies alive and dead are a part of my life. Happy anniversary my sweet angel, you are loved now and always Gaiebraille Charlett Blake.

Apparently I have nothing better to do than blog

actually that’s a lie, I have plenty of other things I should be doing I just can’t find the motivation to do them. I have a to-do list that is becoming more of a to-do book but between a poorly and very clingy little boy and some other things I just can’t seem to get started. Sometimes I think it’s because I just don’t know where to start, and indecision is the worst offender when it comes to things not getting done. This week I missed my first P365 photo. The problems were simple, I couldn’t find anything interesting to photograph, then when I found something to photograph I couldn’t find my phone, then I found the phone and the battery was almost flat so I started charging it and somehow between putting it on to charge and going to bed I forgot all about taking a photograph. I am not exactly thrilled that I slipped up so early in to the year. I have extra photos I can use, or maybe I will journal that there really wasn’t anything worth photographing that day I haven’t decided yet, are you seeing a pattern here yet lol. Logan has two very sore eyes today looks like he has an infection of some kind, I am cleaning them with boiled water and cotton wool like they told me to when he had it the same in hospital they have only needed doing once today so that’s good but if they are not better by Monday we may need to take a trip to the doctors. Lukas has been off school this week with ear problems again, he hasn’t had them for a while I was kind of hoping he might have grown out of them, but apparently not and I have never seen them this bad before. *sigh* since I have a good idea what the doctor will say I am trying to avoid taking him. Everyone thinks I am a bad mother for not taking him straight away, but I have taken him so many times for this problem. The advice is always the same to treat it and I have been doing everything they always tell me to do, but it doesn’t stop people passing judgement. If that hasn’t cleared up by Monday he will probably need to go as well. It’s not that I don’t want to take him because it doesn’t concern me it’s just that I feel so ill that I can’t find the energy to drag on the bus to the doctors to be told to do everything I am already doing. I don’t know maybe that does make me a bad mother, I love my boys but there is only so much I can do. I am caring for them to the very best of my abilities what more can I do. Sometimes I truly believe they would both be better off without me and they deserve a mummy who isn’t sick. The thing is the boys don’t seem to care. They are both perfectly content and they love me, even when I am sick and we have to spend the evening cuddling in bed, watching things on the laptop because I don’t have the energy to do anything else. One day I will wake up and realise that it only matters what my boys think of me, but that day is not today. Today I am tired of people passing judgement on me and my parenting. I just wish they would leave me to it and mind their own business.

Project 365

I know I haven't been blogging very much lately, between everyone being sick and some other stuff going on I just haven't felt like it. As I mentioned in the last post I decided to attempt Project 365 this year. Well I found this great challenge to help me stay motivated to get it all scrapped. It's so simple every week you take your photos, scrap a layout and upload to the digi scraps drive in gallery. Then you post a link in the thread and the host JewelTheQueen sends you a prize for participating. Nice and simple. But the best part is that the members over there are really friendly and encouraging. I have had some really nice comments on my layouts and that makes me happy. A lot of the other P365 challenges have been more prompt based, take a photo of this etc or required that you use certain products and that just didn't appeal to me. I don't have any desire to go outside and snap a photo of a tree, or the weather. I want to just take a photo of what appeals to me and right now that is mostly Lukas and Logan with a few of Mark thrown in for good measure. Something about it must be working because so far I am all caught up, the posting at Facebook are slightly messed up but I know I have taken a photo every day and I have scrapped all of January's pages. I feel quite proud of myself that for a change I have decided to do something and stuck with it even while I have been sick. I haven't done this weeks layouts yet but I am hoping that will get done today. So do you want to see January's layouts I decided to go with a two page spread each week so I had plenty of room to add journalling. You can click on them for the credits and the journalling, Logan has just woken up so I don't have time to copy and paste them here. If I get chance later I will come back and add that and the enabling links. I also still have one more page to do with the other photos I liked from January.

Not doing so great at keeping the goals from the last post

but the only way to resolve that is to try harder and accept that doing most of them is better than doing none of them. I haven’t really found the time to blog lately between the snow days and the sick days Lukas has been home pretty much all the time and Mark has been at work. As much as I love Lukas and Logan they are very distracting and loud it’s incredibly hard to concentrate on anything when they are both around and wanting attention. Mark is on holiday this week so we have been trying to make a dent in the clutter and chaos that is everywhere. We aren’t doing so well with that either. It doesn’t help that I have been so ill and stuff has cropped up every single day so far but we have managed to do something every day at least it’s a step in the right direction. Today was our wedding anniversary it’s hard to believe we have been married for 3 years already. We didn’t buy gifts for each other but we did each get the gift of doing something we wanted, Mark wanted to watch the Tottenham Hotspur game so we came up with a great compromise. He got to watch the game on the condition that Logan got to sit with him. It’s not actually as unfair as it sounds since Logan is definitely his daddy’s boy, he loves it when there is sport on the television football, rugby, ice hockey and American football are his favourites. He gets very excited and there are lots of shrieks of delight and arm and leg waving. While they were having their father son time, Lukas got to play on the laptop on his game and I got to scrap in peace and have the rare use of both hands and the contents of my desk stay on my desk. No trying to restrain the wriggly monster that is Logan or watching everything be swiped onto the floor. He has issues with my computer and pretty much everything on my desk, so he swipes it all off onto the floor. It drives him nuts that he can’t knock the keyboard off. He’s a little vandal so it’s lucky for him that he is cute enough to get away with it for the most part. The worst part is not only does he seem to understand that it’s naughty he looks you straight in the eye while he does it and then laughs when you tell him off. He’s more than a handful and I am not ashamed to admit I am scared of how bad he is going to be as he gets bigger. He’s so strong already and really hard to hold on to combine that with how stubborn he is and let’s just say we are going to be in in for a bumpy ride with that one! *sigh* Even though he’s a cheeky little monkey I have a hard time remembering what my life was like before he came into it. It feels like he has been here forever and I really couldn’t imagine a single day without his cheeky smile or his giggle. I decided to attempt Project 365 this year and so far I have managed to keep up and take a photo a day. I decided not to set any rules for myself but so far every photo has been of either Lukas, Logan or both of them together lol. I have managed to keep up every day so far, I decided to go with taking the photos with my mobile phone and uploading them from that to Facebook. It may sound insane but my mobile phone camera is actually better than my proper camera, it’s an 8.1MP for a start and the other is a 7.2MP. This way I always have the camera to hand and I don’t miss any of the photos I want to take. It’s going to be challenging to remember to take one every day but I am looking forward to it. I do have a few layouts I managed to scrap mostly using the laptop with Logan on my lap but they will have to wait for another day since Logan is asleep on my arm. If you want to see them though you can always click the link on the right and then the January 2010 album. Just one quick thing before I go spammers are driving me crazy at the moment so if you suddenly see that comments have been disabled or there are annoying caption things to enter that’s why. I still haven’t made a decision if they are irritating me enough to bother doing that.

So it’s 2010, a new year, a new start

only it isn’t. We are 3 days into the year and no-one has even attempted to change in the slightest. Mark is still smoking, Lukas is still leaving his toys everywhere, Logan is still screaming blue murder everytime I put him down, Nan is still complaining, the bedroom is still a mess and me well I am still everything I wish I wasn’t. It’s not for the lack of us wanting to be different, it’s just that there are some things we can’t change and there are some things we don’t know how to change and yes I will admit it there are some things that certain people don’t want to change. My husband has no desire to stop smoking even if it would stop the nagging. My son has no desire to tidy up his toys even if it would mean he no longer lost bits of this and pieces of that and me while I have the desire but what I am lacking is the energy to make the desire a reality. But there are 362 days left in this year and that is the change for this year, usually all of the things we haven’t done would drive me insane, this year I am choosing to take the point of view that we just haven’t done these things yet. I am taking Flylady to heart and I am looking for progress not perfection. With that in mind I am choosing not to make resolutions this year but I am going to make simple attainable goals and I am going to blog about them so I am held accountable to them. There is no bigger feeling of achievement than seeing a to-do list with everything checked off as done. So here are my current list of goals, I will add more as and when I think of them. This is the minimum I hope to achieve and anything else is a huge bonus. Each list will have a deadline to keep me on track. I know some of these look really obvious and you are thinking why on earth would you put that on a to-do list. Simple answer because I need to, I need the motivation to do the simple things like get dressed because I just don’t feel like it.

Daily goals (3rd January)

• Get dressed
• Washing downstairs
• Empty rubbish bin
• Charge mobile phone
• 15 minutes decluttering
• 15 minutes organising files
• Unzip files
• Blog reader
• Emails

Weekly goals (4th January – 10th January)

• One layout
• One blog post
• One photo every day

Anyway I am going to leave it at that for now and head to bed, it’s 8:15am and I haven’t made it there yet thanks to how bad the pain is tonight. But I am starting to fall asleep at the desk so I am going to take a couple more painkillers, have a drink and then hopefully I will be tired enough to fall asleep in the bed despite the pain. Maybe I can rest even if I don’t sleep.

Who needs to type

I can just write my blog post in all the dust on here lol. It’s been almost a month since my last post sorry about that. Tomorrow I have plans to set aside some time to write a proper blog post and maybe even redecorate a little bit. But right now I have to run the boys are asleep and me and Mark are settling down to watch Bones.

Big project and quick catchup

Incase you are wondering where I have been, I am working on a huge project, I had a lot of free photo prints, so I decided to work on a brag book for Lukas about our 5 trips to Legoland this year. I started with finding all of my 5x7 templates. Then I moved onto choosing photos for each of them and writing all of the journaling to go with the photos. I saved all of the layouts in a folder called Brag Book and then started working my way through them adding the papers and embellishments. The goal is to have 100 pages in the end so I use up all of my free prints. I have 80 pages that are photos/journaling in templates and so far I have 20 I think that are completed fully. I have even roped Mark into helping me to get the pages done. Some of them only call for a paper or two, but some of them need a little more thought. As you can imagine it’s taking a lot of time, mostly because I need to search for everything I want to use. It’s times like this I really miss the organised system I had before the hard drive went wrong. I was nowhere near having everything tagged or relabelled but it was a lot better than the chaos I have now. I have been trying to apply the FLYlady principle to the scrapping too, 15 minutes at a time. I plan other pages while I am searching or step away from the desk and work on some tidying up in the bedroom. For the most part I am enjoying it, sometimes 15 minutes isn’t really long enough so I reset the timer and give myself another 15 minutes. I know it’s not really following the rules, but at least I am starting to get a better grasp of the time things take and a tiny baby step in starting to manage my time rather than wasting hours on end. It’s been really helpful for forums and blog reader as well, those are the main things I seem to waste a lot of time on. Me and Logan had our appointments on Monday (my post-natal and his 6-8 weeks check). The doctor we saw was really nice, he examined Logan thoroughly and said he couldn’t hear a heart murmur. We are just going to carry on watching him closely to make sure there isn’t a problem but he was very happy with him. I came home with a depression questionnaire to fill out and I have to make a double appointment and go back. Tuesday the lady from Peeps came to drop off some books for Logan and leave some information about groups in the local area. I don’t think I will end up going to the groups but it’s nice that she came around. Logan has great timing, just as she showed up at the door he threw up all over my bed. Somehow I managed to get the bed cleaned up and the baby changed in just a few minutes. Anyway I have more to say but Logan has just woken up and I have a lot of stuff to get done, before I finally get some sleep. I was awake all night last night with really bad earache. It’s been there for over a week now and keeps getting worse, on top of everything else it’s really starting to take it’s toll. Lukas has been off school ill all week and Logan seems to have a little cold, he’s got a runny nose but apart from that he’s fine. I never had him weighed this week but hopefully we will be able to go and do that on Tuesday. Really have to run now as Logan has decided he wants my immediate attention right this second and is starting to moan. I want to sort him out before it turns into a full blown screaming session. He doesn’t really do patience lol.