This won’t win any awards for the most exciting video after shown on the internet, but heres a little footage of Molly skating this morning.
It’s been way too long since I posted, I’ve had a crazy few weeks where I feel like my feet just haven’t touched the ground. So a little catching up is in order.
So, the big news is that we have a new niece. She is called Sacsha and was adopted by my sister in law and her husband. She has been home with them for a week and seems to be settling in really well. I can’t wait to get out there and meet her. I have a feeling she and Molly will get on like a house on fire.
It finally stopped raining!
Last weekend, we held the third Gibside retreat. What a great weekend! I am blessed with a lovely group of friends, who I really cherish. It was a little damp, and there was an initial shortage of tables, but we had a superb time regardless. For some reason, we all were incredibly productive and got loads of scrapbooking done. I’m not sure what was in the water, because that’s never happened before, but we all came away with lots of pages and mini books completed. I will post some of mine in a future post.
Then this weekend, we have been away again, Katie was skating at the Hull Open so we all went down to cheer her on. She’s just moved up a level and was skating in Level 2. She had a lovely skate, but no trophy’s to bring home. She looked gorgeous though, don’t you think?
So that’s been the last few weeks. Hopefully it won’t be another month before I blog again!
It was Greek Day at Katie’s school today, and Pirate Party day at Molly’s, so it was fancy dress costumes all round.
Last year, Molly went to a Pirate Party and I made her a great Pirateskirt, but could I find it this year….. Umm - no….
So, we created a little something this morning, a pair of old trousers, one of Katie’s t-shirts (which conveniently had a skull and cross bones on it) and a fab hat! She even has a pirate ribbon in her hair, although you can’t see that in the photo.
Katie’s was trickier, She had to wear a toga, but we had specific toga creating instructions which she’d lost, so we had to try and remember what they said. She looked pretty good before we left thehouse, but as she ran into school I noticed you could see more PE kit than toga, so I don’t know how well the toga will last.
But the most important thing was I got some good photos!
I am taking a year long class with Shimelle. It involves taking pictures everyday on the 25th of the month, and tomorrow if the 25th, so here’s hoping I remember.
you can find out more on Shimelle’s blog
http://www.shimelle.com/scrapyourday/350/from-the-grass-to-the-clouds
I’ve signed up for another Digi class at JessicaSprague.com, this one
is the intermediate class and already things are getting trickier!
With the first class I could do most of the layouts in an hour or so
but this has taken me all evening. Still the whole family is learning
Photoshop, I’ve had Katie hovering over my shoulder telling me what
to do, and Phil keeps popping in and out to see what we have learned
so far.
This is Molly playing with her babies in the driveway, the photo is a
couple of years old but I rather liked it. You can’t see the babies
as I’ve had to crop them out - it seems I tend to zoom in close on
most of my photos, and a lot of these class layouts use further away
shots, and then zoom in on the layout which is making life a little
tricky. I guess as a paper scrapper I would have never used a photo
that large, hence my always zooming in, so I could get a nice image
of Molly in a 5×7 rather than a 4×12.
I am still working on my digital class. It’s really interesting, I wish I had more time to really dive in and play with everything. The Lakes layout is my own creation, and Katie Lou is the class layout. I can see there is a definite difference in quality! I am getting the digi skills, but I need to be more creative in what to do with them.
The same challenge that I have with paper scrapbooking really.
We’ve just arrived home from the most beautiful wedding, it was held at Rudding Park, near Harrogate which was a stunning venue for a glorious day. It was absolutely scorching hot as we sat outside sipping champagne and watching the children play on the grass.
It was lovely to see everyone, my brothers were both there, along with my nephews, and also my cousin and his children, Molly just loved that there were so many children to play with, and spent most of the day chasing around the lawn playing with her new friends. Loads more pictures here
I have dabbled in Digi Scrapping on and off over the years, but I’ve never really mastered it. So, I’ve signed up for a course at JessicaSprague.com I’m going to be posting my pages as I create them each week, so here is my first attempt. No creative input from me, this is exactly as the class page was designed.
Since it was a bank holiday weekend, we decided to head over to the
Lakes for a couple of days and have a little break. We have been for
the day a few times, and wished we’d booked a room as we didn’t want
to come home, so this time I booked 1 night at a B&B. It was a bit
last minute, and we need a room to accommodate 4 so there wasn’t a
great deal of choice, but we ended up in a most interesting place -
it rather reminded us of Fawlty Towers, complete with a grumpy Basil
Fawlty in charge of the place. There were a number of foreign
tourists staying there, and I was waiting to hear ‘Don’t mention the
war’ at any moment!
Sunday was a little drizzly, but we had a wander around Windermere
and attempted to find a couple of geocaches in the town - we failed
pretty miserably at both of them, but did have a lovely meal in a pub
in Bowness and then the kids had an ice cream in the seriously pouring
rain.
Monday, after an interesting breakfast, we headed out to glorious
sunshine. I decided we would attempt another geocache, this time out
of town. It was only a short walk, but I hadn’t quite realised it was
up a steep hill. Phil had told me to check the altitude as well! And
I know, it is the Lakes and that means hills! The weather was
glorious, but due to the rain the previous night it was rather damp
underfoot and we managed to walk through a bog or too. Still the
views from the top were spectacular, and we found the cache as well,
I think I’d have been in trouble if we’d not found this one either.
After the walk, we went to Grasmere and had lunch sat outside in
glorious sunshine overlooking the river, it was almost too hot! We
could have been abroad.
After lunch and a play in the park, it was starting to cool off, so
we ventured up to Keswick and the Pencil Museum. One of those places
I’ve driven past before but never actually visited. The kids really
enjoyed it, and we were in there for ages. It’s not very big but
they get a quiz to do and there are lots of pencils for colouring.
A coffee and a cake in Keswick and then it was time to head home, we
had 2 very sleepy kids on the way back!
All in all it was a really lovely weekend.
