Project 365 by Sharon Dale (skyezak)

9th April 2009

My little Easter bunnies....they were playing dress-ups, hence my youngest in a rain hat and a Superman cape!

11th April 2009

The kids were decorating egg cartons to hold some of their Easter eggs, of which they got too many of!

Hello! Anyone still out there?

Man, does the year fly by and you don't even realise it?  I'm so behind on my photo a day taking and with Winter set in here, myself and my kids are taking it in turns at being sick, so my mojo flew out the window months ago as it's been that long with one or all of us being crook with some darn Wintery bug thingy!  Today, I've had both kids sick so it's not been much fun.  Anyway, it's late here but thought I'd come on and put at least a few photos up from April which was where I last left off.

1st April 2009

Here's my eldest son drawing his own hungry caterpillar from a digital kit that I picked up.  It was a hybrid kit full of goodies for the kids to make their very own caterpillar album and I went out and bought the story book for them too as we didn't have it.

3rd April 2009

I took this photo outside my scrapbooking window during a big Autumn downpour we had.  The water was blowing up against my window which it never does and the rain was just flowing down our back driveway!  Rain is a rarity at the best of times here so this was good to see.

4th April 2009

Toby's friend Skyla (in the black and white footy jumper) turned 5 today and she had her party in a local park.  Here are Toby with his 4 year old Kinder friends who are all now at the same primary school with him this year.

6th April 2009

Yet another birthday party and this time it was for Toby's best new friend at school Aaron who turned 5.  We went to Kidz City, an indoor playground and the kids ran themselves silly.  Toby kept getting Aaron's older sister Emily to take him down the big slippery slide and here they are coming out so fast at the bottom, it was hard to get a shot in focus!  Kirilly on the left is another friend from Toby's Prep class.

7th April 2009

 

Some new Homy-Ped shoes I picked up at our local pharmacy and they're just so comfortable!  And I don't think I've ever bought green shoes before either!

My poor neglected Project 365 blog!

Boo hoo :(

I've been very very slack indeed and time just gets away from you.  I am still taking pics but most certainly not every day unfortunately.  From next week, my kids are on school holidays for 2 weeks, so I hope to at least post April's pics and get somewhat closer to the current date up on here.  But for May and June, my pics for the month will be a lot less than when I started off with a bang!

I don't venture out too often from the house - too and from school and Kinder most days, so I'm always running out of things to photograph and my rental house doesn't offer too many exciting things to photograph, so stick with me as being a scrapper means there's always got to be photos sometime, just not every single day :)

I'm so far behind, it's not funny!

Yep, my lame attempt at keeping up with my blog, daily pics and weekly layouts sort of went out the window.  Been quite a while since I posted, so thought I'd better do some more posts or I'll totally forget something about each photo if I get too many more months behind!  I'm still trying to take daily pics although I'd slacked off a bit the past month or two, but I'm still at it at least...haven't totally ditched the idea yet as I still want to record my life.  The kids now know that I need to take a pic each day so they usually prompt me!  Righty-o!  Where were we up to last time I was here?!?!

DAY 74 - 16th March 2009

Here was one of my sneak peak stamp sets (a hostess gift) from the new Stampin' Up catalogue that was going to preview on the 1st April.  Love the old writing, the flourish and the fab rooster!

DAY 075 - 17th March 2009

Ryan has started coming home with these Kinder creations.  This was his boat built from an ice cream container and a yoghurt container and some straws added on.  We played outside on the decking with our big water bowl full of rocks and shells and any other things they can find to put in there!

DAY 76 - 18th March 2009

Here is Ryan with what doesn't look like much, but he fell head first onto our concrete driveway whilst running around with his brother.  He tripped, fell and literally bounced off it with his forehead and I have no idea how he didn't crack it open!  It did get worse with the bruising over the next few days but he survived!  I make my boys tough I do!!

DAY 77 - 19th March 2009

Here is Toby with his buddy Taylor from his Prep class.  They were enjoying their very first ever sports day at school.  And apparently it is a novelty to chew your hat cord!  Now it's totally been broken off the darn thing!

DAY 79 - 21st March 2009

Here is Toby, proud as punch, with some ribbons he earnt in school.  The green one is for Pupil of the Week which he earnt in the first week of Term 1.  It was for helping volunteer to take his classmates to the toilet as they need to go in pairs!  I just cracked up when I read that's what it was for LOL.  The red one is for competing in his Prep sports day.  All the kids that didn't get a place got one of these.

DAY 81 - 23rd March 2009

Yaay!  The brand new Australian Stampin' Up catalogue is finally in my hands!  Now the countdown is on until it begins on the 1st April 2009!

DAY 82 - 24th March 2009

 

This is how I try to organise my monthly CT commitments!  I really do know what I'm doing and who I have to do what for!  The system works, so I'm sticking with it for now :)

DAY 83 - 25th March 2009

Toby had been creating with playdough at school so we went and bought some new pastel colours and these were the things he created for me - a monster and a flower!

DAY 84 - 26th March 2009

 

This is Toby (in the red shirt) showing me the number marked on his hand.  He had just run a lap around the school oval with all the Prep boys as part of their introduction to cross-country running.  He came 10th out of 40 kids in his year!  He was so happy but he could have come up closer to the front as he stopped to help his buddy Aaron (in the blue shirt) out who fell.  That's true sportsmanship for you!

DAY 85 - 27th March 2009

Toby's Primary School had it's annual fete and here is Ryan enjoying a ride on the cup and saucer with his mates James and Ben!

DAY 86 - 28th March 2009

Here is the lovely Susan creating some scrapbooking pages for the Victorian bushfire victims of Black Saturday.  Susan along with a scrapbooking shop in Victoria, is co-ordinating a drive for scrappers to create pages without the photos and these will be passed onto families of the victims in these devastating bushfires from February.  The families can fill in the precious memories for their loved ones as so many people lost every possession they owned.  Great job Susie!

DAY 89 - 31st March 2009

Uumm, Ryan, you've sort of got ice cream on your face!  The aftermath of eating a Bart Simpson ice cream! 

Yippee!  March is done, minus a few days I missed in there!!

Over a month behind posting!

Okay, I  know I'm waaay behind in my posting pics on my blog but I'm still taking a photo every day (or almost every day) so thought I'd jump on and try and do a bit of catching up!

DAY 68 - 10th March 2009
Today I did duty at my DS4's Kinder and managed to snap a few shots of him deep in play.  Here he was with a bucket of water and a paint brush painting underneath their cubby house.

DAY 69 - 11th March 2009

This is a pic of my two sons and their playgroup buddy Sally.  Toby and Sally were born within a few days of each other so we all met up when our Mother's Group was formed and then we all went on to a playgroup together.  Now the older kids from playgroup have all started school this year, so we don't get to see too much of Sally these days so she came by for a visit today after school and the kids had a ball catching up.

DAY 70 - 12th March 2009

Today was the first day that Toby started reading at school.  I was asked by his teacher to come up to read with each of his class so this is the first book Toby bought home and he sat down with his younger brother and read it to him.

DAY 71 - 13th March 2009
I went up and read to Toby's class again today and when they were all finished, I snapped a pic of him with two friends that he sits with.  Aaron has become his best mate since they started school and they go everywhere together and do everything together.  They didn't know each other until school started, so Toby makes new friends very easily.

Day 72 - 14th March 2009

 

Here are some big storm clouds rolling in.  It hit that quickly and it was pitch black during the middle of the day.  We had so much rain, the first decent rain in months probably along with lots of thunder.  This view is out the back of our house over the house next door.

Day 73 - 15th March 2009

My boys have have a bit of phase of using their Duplo blocks again and here is Toby with his magnificent creation from two sets of Duplo - a dinosaur/caveman set and Mac from Cars.  Oh and that's Michael Schumacher driving up the top!

I am still taking my pics!

I just thought I'd let you know that I am still taking my daily pics...although I'd missed a few more days here and there, but I'm conscious that I have to take them.  One day I'll find the time to catch up on my weekly layouts too...only done up to week 5 but they can wait.  It's the moments that I am concentrating on capturing.  The boys are off to their Dad's next week for a whole week, so I'm sure I'll get most of it updated then over the Easter/school holiday break.

Catchup again!

Day 62 - 4th March

 

Not a very good shot as I took it on my phone, but this is my DS-nearly4 at swimming lessons.  He's just started learning the basic strokes and has come a long way in the past few weeks even doing them without any aids now.  He just loves the water and you can't get him out!

Day 63 - 5th March

Here's my DS-nearly6 with some artwork he made at school today.  It's a card and this is the inside view of it.  He's written Mum inside and Dad on the front and From Toby at the top and done a bit of cutting and pasting and drawing and he's proud as punch to show it to me!

Day 64 - 6th March

Here's my DS4 and I goofing around taking pics of ourselves!  I can never quite hold the camera out far enough with my hand and get us all in but I didn't do too bad of a job here!  I squished his face a little but he's still my little cutie!

Day 65 - 7th March

Oops!  No photo for today!

Day 66 - 8th March Here's a huge peach tree in the backyard of our rented house.  We've only been here a few months and the tree has just ripened, so we've been having lovely, juicy peach for a week or so.  But as I write this on the 16th March, there's not too many left.  This past week, it's been attacked by so many different birds - lorikeets, rosellas, sparrows and miner birds.  They're coming from everywhere to feast on our peaches.  Oh, and the other nasty that is out in force is those damn European wasps!  They're just swarming the tree eating all the broken fruit that has fallen off the tree or that the birds haven't finished.  So I've had to go out every day and make sure all the fruit on the ground is thrown out that's no good or the good fruit salvaged and bought inside.  We've had a couple in the house but it's mainly the kids and the dog I'm worried about.  The dog is eating as many as he can off the ground too and I have no idea how he hasn't been stung as some of the peaches on the ground have like half a dozen wasps inside them.  Even the cat's been in on the action, stalking all the birds that are congregating in the tree!  In a couple more days, that will be it for our peach for the year :)

Day 67 - 9th March

Um, this is me in my PJ's at 2pm still!  We had a public holiday, so I was allowed to stay in them all day...I did have a shower right after I took this though!

And here's my week 5 layout...

I have used the following from Sugarplum Paperie and also available at The Digi Chick:
* BLANK TABLET (black paper)
* PROJECT 365 EMBELLISHMENT PACKS 1 & 2
* SCUFFED UP ALPHA - WHITE

And '2009' from Amy Pearson PROJECT 365 WORDART

The main font I've used is Traveling Typewriter

Days 59 - 61

Well I've finally caught up posting my photos and am not too far behind now....still got week 5+ weekly layouts to make though!

Day 59 - 1st March

Ryan getting his tooty pegs all squeaky clean before bed!

Day 60 - 2nd March

Now that Toby's at school, Ryan and I get to play lots of games all day.  Here he is with some of his favourite puzzles which he is so quick at solving.

Day 61 - 3rd March
Another of Ryan's favourite past times...reading.  Here he is in Toby's room during school reading some of their books.  This is a Wiggles counting book and who doesn't love The Wiggles!

Days 51 - 58 (phew, that's February done)!

DAY 51

See how I found my DS5.5 in bed well after I'd tucked him in!  He'd put his pillow up the other end of his bed and somehow tied his feet (in knots mind you!) to the bedposts on his bedhead!  Heck, he's into bondage already!  I had to try and untie him in the dark and he did a good job but have no idea what he was playing at.

DAY 52
Oops, forgot to take another shot!

DAY 53

The boys drawing out on our back deck.

DAY 54

Ryan got invited to Lainee's 3rd birthday party and here he is with Lainee, Sophie and Renee waiting for the cake to come out.

DAY 55

This weathered old birdhouse is on the fence of our rental property and I love how it's all worn and rustic.  I was shooting some items around the place to use in my kit designs.

DAY 56

Yummo!  Spag bol and doesn't Toby sure love it....messy, messy indeed.

DAY 57

Sunset over Sunbury.  This is the view from our back deck above all the houses behind us.

DAY 58 One of my clock as I ran out of ideas to photograph!

Days 47 - 50

I'm still here taking pics, but I'm so far behind posting and doing layouts, I don't think I'll ever catch up.  But I've got plenty of photos to edit and upload here so here's another 4!

DAY 47

Another hot Summer's day here in Melbourne, so the boys asked if we could call into the milk bar next to Toby's school to get an icy pole.  This was the state of their tongues after they had finished them!

DAY 48

This was Lucy's 5th birthday party and the kids all had a ball on the Tinkerbell jumping castle.  Lucy is in Toby's Prep class and he's only known her since school started in early February, but they have become the best of mates.

DAY 49

Ryan and Toby just love playing with these Magnetix sets.  Santa gave them to Toby last Christmas but they've only really just started playing with them and discovering what they can build with them.  This is Ryan sitting on the floor with his Dad showing him how to build a pyramid.  Fascinating to see what they create as I'd have no idea!

DAY 50

Here's is a crafty creation from Ryan's 4 year old Kinder today.  Gluing bits and pieces onto a cardboard box.

And it was Lachlan's birthday today, so his Mum made all the Kinder kids a cookie decorated as a face.  She even put little name tags on each bag held in with a star brad and a balloon too.  Well done Francine!

And that's it for now until I get a chance to do some more editing and posting!

Week 4 layout

Credits:
SPRING FLING collab kit from The Lily Pad
LITHO ALPHA from Miss Crow (no. 3)
PHOTO CLUSTER 7 from Simply Sweet Designs (frame) - available at Scrap Matters
365 PROJECT from Amy Pearson (2009)

You probably won't be able to read my journalling but I've pretty much just copied my blog posts from each of these days so don't try and ruin your eyes by squinting as I could hardly fit it all on so had to reduce the font to like 8 points or something!

I'm trying to do every two pages that will open in an album together in the same theme as I don't want to do the whole 52 layouts the same.  I'm having fun using different kits for each 2-page opening spread.  I'll then do a front cover for the first page of my album at some stage.

Lots of pics to catch up on!

DAY 40

Here is a fabulous pack of goodies that I got from the lovely Leslie of Golden Girls Digital Designs in a Valentine's Day swap with Scrap Matters staff.  These are all made with Leslie's beautiful SMITTEN kit (available at Scrap Matters) which I've just done a layout with. These are all just beautiful and came to me all the way from the US!  Thanks ever so much Leslie!!

DAY 41

Oops, forgot to take a photo again!

DAY 42

Here's a pic of Toby in his Winter school uniform.  Can you believe it!  In the middle of our hottest Summer ever, he's got to wear the Winter gear to keep warm!  Now I need to go out and buy some more as we'd only bought one pair of pants and a jacket and if it gets cold for more than a few days, I'm not washing every day as he gets so filthy running around in the playground!

DAY 43

Yep, those ever-faithful rechargable batteries!  I never seem to have enough of the darn buggers what with nearly every kids toy taking AA size!!

DAY 44

Took this photo just after 7am when the sun was coming up through all the smoke haze we've had lingering from the devastating bushfires that are burning across the state of Victoria here in Australia.  They started up on the 7th February and as I type this post on the 20th February, they're still not all out and the smoke just keeps hanging around.  This is looking out one of our sliding doors across the shed in the house next door.

DAY 45

 

Look at all these birthday invitations that keep coming for the boys to go to!  There was one more that I didn't get into the photo but they've all been in the past fortnight, 3 of them this week!  The boys have got so many friends and they love running around with them and eating all the cake, lollies and party food!  Today was actually Valentine's Day but the boys spent the day at their Dad's so I took my VDay pics on the 15th instead (keep scrolling)....

DAY 046

I bought the boys some heart-shaped lolly pops for Valentine's Day but because they stayed at their Dad's, I only got to take them today.  They just loved these and Ryan ate all his up in like 10 minutes flat.  Talk about teeth rot!!

Week 3 layout

I'm a little behind in creating my weekly layouts but I'm still taking pics, so here's my week 3 summary.

Credits:
SPRING FLING collab kit from The Lily Pad
LITHO ALPHA from Miss Crow (no. 3)
PHOTO CLUSTER 7 from Simply Sweet Designs (frame) - available at Scrap Matters
365 PROJECT from Amy Pearson (2009)

Days 37 - 39

DAY 37

Oops!  I didn't take a pic....okay, it's only the first time I've forgotten!

DAY 38

Today was 46.4 degrees in Melbourne and the worst bushfires in history gripped our State of Victoria.  This was the hottest day on record here and winds just whipped dust and smoke right across the state.  As I'm typing this today and this all happened yesterday, there's been over 60 bodies found and over 600 houses lost in Victoria, 500+ in the town of Kinglake and many fires are still raging out of control.  This photo shows my poor poochy very hot and thirsty after just taking a drink from his bucket.  I tried to take him inside our air conditioned house, but he never sits down and just stands at the door, even on the hottest day he's ever lived through in his 14 years.

DAY 39

Okay, this has to be the funniest photo I've taken for a long time!!  I always go in and retuck the kids in as they're known to get all twisted in their sheets/doona. Well tonight I wondered what Toby had in his mouth and to my surprise I found he'd gone to sleep with my old set of plastic vampire teeth in his mouth!  I tried to get them out and he nearly bit my finger off fighting me off while he was still in a deep sleep.  He's going through a vampire fad lately as there's a kids show on ABC Kids here (can't even remember the name of it) but he's obsessed with watching it every night it's on, hence he's wearing these teeth often during the day too.  But to go to bed in them is another thing Mr Toby!!

Lori has given my blog an award!

Thanks Lori (aka ellay) for my little blog award!  And happy birthday for yesterday too Lori!  Hope your '25th' birthday was so much fun!  LOL

I have to pick 5 addictions and let you know about them!  5, is that all I'm allowed to pick!

1. Scrapbooking - digi, paper, hybrid - can't help myself!
2. Chocolate - I eat way too much of it
3. Coca Cola - yep, goes great with the chocolate doesn't it!
4. Checking my emails first thing when I get up
5. Downloading digital scrapbooking freebies - do you think you'll ever scrap with ALL of that stuff!  I've nearly filled up a 500gb EHD!

Now I have to tag 5 more lovely bloggers who can now accept this award for this fabulous blog:

1. Pene
2. Bree
3. Marilyn
4. Yvonne
5. Angela

Yep, I'm still doing this!

Heck, I've not had a minute to scratch myself this week with my DS starting primary school in grade Prep.  Then I've had my other son starting 4 year old Kindergarten so it's been in and out every day doing pickups and dropoffs.  So there's been no posts this week but I'm still taking pics and now I'm about to get up to date with the daily photos.  Then I'm off to try and scrap the past couple of weekly layouts so I don't fall too far behind.

Alrighty then, we're up to Day 28 onwards, so here we go!

DAY 28

Here's a hybrid layout I made for my CT commitments over at Snap & Scrap.  You can check it out in the Hybrid Gallery in my Sidebar.  Love Amy's vintage papers and elements in this beautiful kit.

DAY 29

Here are the boys Superhero toys taking a swim in some containers in their wading pool.  With this abnormal extreme heatwave we've been having here in Melbourne, even the Superheros need to cool off every once in a while!

DAY 30

Here's Toby with his kid-tough Fisher Price digital camera that he got for his birthday last year (I think).  He's always running around snapping pics of everything in our house and even captures me in some very not-so-attractive outfits (like when I've just gotten out of bed)!  He's worse than the paparazzi!

DAY 31 (there's January 2009 done)!

Here's my very first meal back on the Lite 'n Easy program which I haven't done for quite a few years.  I don't enjoy cooking and moreso these days because I'm always so tired being a single SAHM to two boys under 6 so having your meals delivered each week and having it calorie controlled will help me start back on a healthy lifestyle track.  This meal was absolutely delicious too - it had a bed of salad, some citrus dressing, a cous-cous salad and a chicken breast that had been marinated.

DAY 32 (now we're into February 2009)

 

The boys helped me with some cooking, albeit from a packet!  We made banana bread and Toby has been so happy having it in his school lunch all week!

DAY 33

 

My eldest son Toby started school today and doesn't he look smart in his Summer uniform!  We only have to walk 5 minutes and we're at school and he's just loving it!

DAY 34

Here's my puddy cat Rusty sitting in the middle of my scrapbooking desk when I'm trying to sew on my machine!  He has to just plonk himself right where you are whether it be on the keyboard of my laptop or here on my craft desk!

DAY 35

Here's Ryan outside our local veterinarian clinic.  We had to pop in and pick up some more arthritis medication for our puppy Zak and the walls outside a decorated with lots of wooden animal cutouts which the boys always point out when we drive past.

DAY 36

 

And the last photo in my catch-up is of my DS3.5 who started 4 year old Kindergarten this week!  It sure was a busy week with staggered starts and finishes for both of my boys and next week is the same! 

Days 24 - 27

Okay, I'm getting a few days behind here but we've finally gotten a typical Summer heatwave in Melbourne and we're getting 40 degree temps for the next week which is just crazy.  Too hot to move or go outside.  So here we go with Days 24, 25, 26 & 27!

DAY 24

Here's the first round of Toby's Prep books - he starts next Monday so thought I'd better get a move on!  Covering books with Contact is the most horrible job.  Remind me not to get a job doing this as there's so many air bubbles on them!

DAY 25

I am on a CT for Brianna Cox (Scrap'it Designs) and out of the whole world, she just happens to live only 1 hour from me!  So after being on her CT since last year, we finally decided to meet in real life.  How amazing when you just chat online via the Forums every day.  So this pic was taken by my DS5.5 and is the only group shot I got out of the few pics I took!  On the far left is half of Bree's head!  Then Marilyn her Mum who is also on Bree's CT.  Then there's little 'ol me with my eyes shut!  Then there's Pene who is a friend of mine and she's also on Bree's CT.  A very ordinary shot, but one that will help me remember our day out.  We all took our kids along and they had a blast running around in the park we met at in Bendigo.

DAY 26 - Australia Day
 
These are pics of the boys going to bed with one of their favourite toys.  Obviously I can't take one pic of them together so I thought I'd use both of these as my pic for the day.  It's been in the mid-20's at night still with our Summer, so they've been staying up a little later as it's still broad daylight but once they hit their pillows, they are out like lights!

DAY 27

This pic was from yesterday when I set up the boys wading pool on our back deck.  It's getting a little too small for them but at least they can splash around and keep cool.  Today's forecast is for 41!  Yesterday it was in the high 30's and the next few days are going to be 40 so this will help to get some relief from this nasty heatwave.

Day 22 & 23

DAY 22

Haven't been out and about much lately so I just snapped a shot of the side of our fridge with all the boys magnets on it.  There's plenty there and a whole box more up on a shelf but they love playing with all of them.  They especially love the Leap Pad alphas that you stick into the speaker and it sings about the letter you've put in.  Ryan's been dancing around to the songs lately.  This was a great present from a friend who has the same toy on her fridge and the kids loved playing with it there.

DAY 23

Oh heck yeah!  LOST is back!  Well not in Australia anyways but I have ways and means of getting the first two eps that screened in the US this week!  Yippee and look at Sawyer - already wandering around in the first few minutes shirtless!  Bring it on!    Okay, I'll stop drooling now!  Off to watch the 2nd episode now.  see ya!!

Days 20 & 21 & week 2 layout

DAY 20

A couple of years back, we bought the boys this wooden kitchen after the boys loved playing with it at a friends.  Well it's probably the most popular toy they own and every other child that visits loves it as well.  It's now out on our back decking and I snapped the boys playing 'ice-cream shops' the other night.  They were making up ice-creams for everyone and also cooking a potato, egg & hamburger soup!  Don't think that's something I'd like to try in real life!!

Day 21

Here's my 15 year old cat Rusty, relaxing on our back driveway after another hot Summer's day.  He loves to lay there once the sun goes off it as it's nice and warm from the sun being on it all day.

And here's my summary layout of week 2:

Credits:

Sugarplum Paperie kits:
* HOLIDAY WRAPPER PAPERS
* SWEET AFTERNOON
* PAPER GARDEN
* PROJECT 365 EMBELLISHMENTS (set 1 & 2)

Template free from Meghan Mullens at SWEET SHOPPE DESIGNS forum

Amy Pearson 365 PROJECT WORDART free from Scrapbook Graphics Forum

Days 18 & 19

Yep, that is a lot of stamps and that's only part of my stash!  These are the ones I'm trying to sell off and had them out on a table in my scrap area for people to browse through when they pop in!  Bye-bye stamps.  You know I've got WAAAY too many to use you all :(

Day 19

The kids just love playing on their swing set.  Since my Dad put it up last week, they haven't been off it yet.  Toby is just so impressed at how he can swing across the monkey bars and climb up on top and see into all the neighbours backyards!  Not such a great thing when he sits up there and antagonises the two terriers next door who then start yapping back at him!  And the cubby house belongs to the owners of our rental house and they have left it here while they are overseas so the kids also run in and out of that all day too.  Great backyard with lots of room to run around.