Day 15, Week 3, January 15th

Sorry in advance for any typos. I’ve got migraine just starting so I’m at the visual aura stage and the pretty sparkling triangles of light are obscuring the left hand side of everything I look at. I need to get this finished quick so I can go close my eyes.
Alex was at pre-school today and it was another door building day. Not too hot so it didn’t matter that the door was off and I couldn’t use the aircon but we did get flies and cats coming in :( Ben actually napped through the noise and I got the laptop mostly sorted and cooked a roast dinner to be ready when Alex and Graham got home :) It was the best gluten free gravy I’ve ever made too :)

Here’s our door in all it’s painted glory. There’s just a few things too be finished off tomorrow like another coat on oil and then we’ll be able to vacuum all the a paint and sawdust off the shelves and move the table back. I’ll have to get a photo from the outside too. Outside the white door looks a bit out of place but it looks nice when it’s open like this. If we painted it to match the outside of the house then it wouldn’t look so good when it’s open into the room.

Alex made a cake and put a candle on because in his 4yo eyes all cakes should have candles. Very convenient that it’s cousin Jane’s birthday today :) So Alex says Happy Birthday Jane and pwwffttt all over the cake.

See Ben in the background there? He’s reading his book :) Didn’t take him long to notice the cake though. It’s a gluten free chocolate mud cake with chocolate chips. The unfortunately shape is not due to Alex’s baking skill, rather that’s the effect of gluten free flour. It just falls apart. Good thing there were chocolate chips in there to glue it together.
and look here’s a photo of Ben NOT eating. Hehehe he’s drinking :)

and here’s a cute shot. Ben was keen to get in the bath tonight. Look at his cute little pudgy legs. He has such short legs.

I don’t think I’ve blogged this yet. Not only am I doing my daily photos again this year and weekly layouts, I’m still trying to catch up with my weekly layouts from last year. I did some of them out of order and I changed the style along the way so now I feel like I should go back and make them all co-ordinate if I can just decide on a style I like best. I’m pretty pleased with how this one came out as a single page but I’m not sure about cropping my photos. I like to keep them with the original crop which makes it hard to have a consistent look to my pages with a mix of landscape and portrait orientations. I’m hoping I can keep things matching with this years layouts but in a way it makes sense to wait until the end of the year to co-ordinate the look. So this was week 9 2009. Oh look I had migraine back then too. Anyone would think it happens a lot but it’s really only once a month.

Created with 365: International Edition {Bundle} by mgl Scraps and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

Day 14, Week 2, January 14th

Not as hot today so Ben was happier. Actually we were all happier.
Nana and Grampy came to check out the door and drop some stuff off on our pavement for council collection (and someone’s already taken it). So the kids enjoyed a visit and Dad inspected the work :) Ben gets excited now when he sees Nana and Grampy and babbles away.
Here’s what the door looked like this afternoon. It’s all ready for painting. We have nice solid locks and the screen door is up too. Best of all it’s shut and the aircon is on :)

and I took a photo of my art journal tonight.

and here’s a summery layout with some photos Dad emailed me of Alex playing in the pool over there on the weekend.

Created with Anticipation Of Summer by ON Designs and MK Designs, Fabric Papers by ON Designs, Old Overlay Frames by ON Designs, Hey Boy by ON designs, Along With You collab by ON Designs and Joe Designs, Summer Overlays by ON Designs and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

Day 13, Week 2, January 13th

We have a door, where once there was a window. Well it’s a door but not yet finished. For tonight it’s sealed up and there’s a few more days work before we have a working door. It was an awfully hot day to have a hole in the wall. Heat and flies! I couldn’t put the aircon on and with all the building nose Ben couldn’t sleep so we had a little hot, grumpy boy. He wouldn’t even eat properly, there was just too much going on. I couldn’t get the laptop sorted. It’s a real mess and seems to have a virus or two. I’ve been running scans and cleans which are incredibly slow but at least I could leave them running while I looked after Ben.
Here’s a photo of the door in place. I love the wood but it’s going to be painted. Every other door and frame in the house is painted so it would look weird if we left this one.

I took that before photo yesterday but with the blinds shut so it doesn’t actually sow what was there so I went through my old photos and found this one from 2008 (back when someone still bought me flowers). See it’s two windows there, the bottom was frosted with bars on the outside.

Looks like we had less books then. Less kids too.
and here’s my hot, grumpy little boy who can’t sleep :(

and here’s a layout of someone enjoying much cooler weather :)

Created with Chilly by Rosey Posey, Jumpers 37-40 by Crystal Livesay and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

Day 12, Week 2, January 12th

Today was incredibly hot! I had the aircon on in the house and in the computer room but it was still too hot to have the computer on for long. My graphic card heats up and my monitors give off a lot of heat too. It was so hot the shrimp in our fish tank cooked! The ended up looking like little pink prawns :( Now we’ll have to buy some more after summer, they do such a good job of keeping the tank clean.
Ben spent most of the day in just a nappy and Alex spent the day with his Grandparents. Graham picked him up after work. It was too hot to cook dinner but Alex ate at Nana’s and Ben had a sandwich and banana. I hope tomorrow is better because I’ve got some pork I want to roast.
Tomorrow the builder is coming to take out the dining room windows and put in a door to the deck so tonight we had to clean out the dining room. The room had unfortunately become a storage room for all the stuff we need to put on ebay, like baby rockers and car capsules. We hadn’t seen the surface of the dining table for months but I really wanted it cleared off so I could set up the laptop and printer where I could watch the kids. So tonight we cleared things out and we still have a pile of stuff to put on ebay or freecycle, and some for the council clean up this weekend, but it’s not in the dining room anymore :) There’s enough room there now for the builder to get to the new doorway and I have the laptop and printer on the table. I still need to set the printer up and it will probably take me all day to get the laptop sorted, Alex has been using it and it’s a bit of a mess. Things are in the wrong folders and folders have strange names, even the computer has been renamed. So tomorrow when Ben naps I’ll be doing scans and cleans and updating the software. That’s if Ben naps, it all depends on how noisy the builder is I guess. Alex will be at pre-school for the day.

So today’s photo is a before shot of the dining room, before the new door goes in, and it’s also an after shot of the mess we had but I was too ashamed to take a before shot of that.

and here’s a layout I finished tonight for my Art Journal. This is for the week 1 quote - Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. I had fun painting with the wacom but it really makes my computer lag with all these layers so I could only work on this in short bursts with a lot of saving :)

Created with Art Journal Caravan Provisions {Parcel 01} by Tangie Baxter, Antique Lace Doilies by Jen Ulasiewicz, Old Brass Printer Block Alphas by Jen Ulasiewicz, Journal Anthology by Tangie Baxter, Resolutions Kit & Word Art by Phuong Ton and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

Day 11, Week 2, January 11th

We’ve been getting Ben to practice walking each night. When it’s quiet we sit down with him (on carpet) and encourage him to step between us and he gets a cuddle at each end. So far we’ve got up to 2 steps in a row unsupported and up to 4 seconds of standing on his own. Problem is he thinks it’s such a fun game he gets excited and throws himself at us which doesn’t help his balance and we have to watch out for the head butts. It’s fun though and so cute to see him standing on his own with his short little legs. To stop him bending forward and toppling on his face we sing twinkle little star which makes him look up and when he reaches up to do the actions it seems to help his balance. So for today’s photo I tried to get a shot of him standing or stepping with Graham ready to catch him. Graham worked late tonight but Ben had his afternoon nap late so he didn’t mind waiting up to see Daddy.

and here’

s a layout with some photos of Alex when he was around 9 months old or 6 months corrected and still learning to sit. I did this for a challenge at SO where we had to use some old photos and not leave any ‘white space’

Created with I am amazing by LCC by Amy Stoffe, Multi Photo Templates by Scrapping with Liz and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

Day 10, Week 2, January 10th

Alex went home with Nana and Grampy after dinner last night but he left his marble racer set up in the lounge room and I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the bright colours and twisty shapes today. Even though they were so bright there wasn’t a lot of light, we’re trying to keep the sun out because it’s so hot, so I had to crank the ISO to 800 and these are 1/13s, f2.8 handheld!

Last nights dinner was nice. I managed to avoid any gluten :) Ben provided the entertainment with his amazing capacity for food. He ate everything we gave him and kept tugging on his Grampy’s arm for more peas. He finished off with a huge banana split and most of Alex’s too. I really don’t know where he puts it.
Mom and Dad gave me a beautiful Pandora charm with mother of pearl hearts. I’ll have to try photographing it.
We had to do some grocery shopping on the way home which Ben enjoyed and then he went straight to sleep when we got home and slept really well.
Today has been another domestic day. I took advantage of Alex not being here to strip his bed and wash all the linen.

Kami has a new kit out which I used the other day to scrap my boys. Alex helped me and he chose the pink paper. I had green originally but he’s right the pink does look better.

Created with Fruitie-Pa-Tootie by Ziggle Designs and Tracey Howard, and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set

I had a nice surprise tonight. I have not one, but TWO layouts on the Gallery Standouts blog today. I’m sure they wouldn’t normally pick 2 from the same person but each picked are from a different gallery under a different user name. Not that I use different user names to confuse people, just some galleries require longer user names or my name is taken and that’s when I fall back to pSyren. Up the top is my Year of Ben layout and towards the bottom is my Sydney 2010 layout from the other day.

Day 9, Week 2, January 9th

A hot and domestic Saturday of washing and cleaning.

We’re going out for dinner so it’s important for the kids to have naps and then baths before we go.
Graham cleaned out the gutters but didn’t wear a hat or sunscreen so of course he is sunburnt now and it will look worse later.
Alex played with some bubbles while Graham baked. Luckily Alex stayed on the deck out of the sun. I still had the macro lens on the camera so couldn’t get back far enough to get all of Alex in, not without walking under Graham and the mess he was throwing down out of the gutter.

Flergs has a new kit out and it’s just perfect for boy layouts :)

Created with Tinker Toy by Flergs, available Jan 8th, Storyteller Templates #2 by SuzyQ Scraps and Bec's Shadow Mistress Action set