Ben just simply adores his guinea pig -Stripes. It was really hard for him to keave stripes at home when we went on holidays. He was really worried about her. As soon as he got home he was ready to give her lots of love and attention. Ben has made Stripes really quiet. I think that it is great for kids to have pets and take on the responsibility of looking after something. I always had pets as a kid and I still love having them.
It is days like these that you just want to sail away. These photos were taken up in Iluka a couple of years ago when we were on holidays. Now the little sail boat is made by Julie from "Time to Create" and it is just gorgeous. She makes them in a variety of colours and they are great for beach, holiday or boy themes. I tell you for what they cost I seriously would not sit down and make this embellishment myself - all of the hard work is done for you. I have also been experimenting with using doileys on my pages. I used glimmermist on this one to give it a golden tone (can't really see the effect in the photo that I have taken).
This is where you can find out more about these beautiful products http://timetocreate.com.au
Or you can email Julie here for more information julie@timetocreate.com.au
Love to All
Rell
ps Happy Australia Day everyone. Mine went too quick. I am off now to have a family BBQ
The boys have two great friends that live in our street and they all play together well. You have to keep an eye on them as they are always up to something - usually harmless fun. The other day they wanted to take their cricket set to the park with them so they needed a trailer for their bike so off to work they went. I must say their invention was quite creative. They got the base off our old recycling system, a box off the rubbish pile from nest door and some rope from the garage. Now if you are wondering what the stickers are around the box - yes they are VB stickers and boys will proudly tell you that they are stonsored by VB LOL. The funniest part of the story was when Dani (Mitch and A's mum) was over the other day looking at the trailer design and she said "gee that looks like the string out of Aiden's footy shorts tying the trailer to the bike." You could hear the boys gulp as that is exactly what it was. It goes to show a mother always knows. 
Every night on the farm included a bit of a drinking session on the verendah. I don't remember laughing so much. We all sit out of the verandah for hours and just talk - no radio,no TV, just good old fashioned conversation. We laughed about funny things that we have all done. The boys then decided to make some masks and we were on our 4th jug of cocktails. Things got way out of hand and the wild things come out to play. FUNNY!! The thing that really cracked me up was when Shayne looked at Belinda with the Hippo mask on and said to her "It doesn't even look like you." She said "thank god because I am wearing a Hippo mask." Oh we laughed for ages. We had some good fun on the verandah. I was sore from laughing the next day.
We stayed a few nights up with Lin and Shayne on the farm. I love staying with them and so do the boys. We always have a good time on the farm. One of the boys favourite things to do is to hang out the window of the car as we go up the track to their house. They love the fact that they can take off their seatbelts and walk on the wildside. On the day that this photo was taken BJ decided that she too was going to hang out the window to try the experience - she loved it as well. I wanted to try too but I didn't think that this was a good idea considering I was driving LOL.
On one of our little adventures we accidently ran over a BandiBandi Snake. I have only seen one other snake like this - apparently they are really rare. One of sisters thought that they were on the endangered species list (which made us feel really good). The boys were a little freaked out when we went back to see what we had run over. They wouldn't let me hop out of the car. Ben must have know that we were going to come across a snake as he was sayng earlier there are snakes here and I want to go home. He was right!
Well I made the trip home to Dungarubba - the place where I am from. We spent a week with my family and had a lovely time. These photos were taken from about 1km from mum and dad's house at the river. It was just on sunset - my favourite part of the day. When I am home I am constantly looking out the window to see the sunset. My family take it for granted as they see the sunset everyday but I only get to see a few sunsets. I miss the sunsets and I miss seeing the beautiful night sky that is lit up with millions of stars. Stars are harder to see in the city but when I am home the sky is littered with them. There are so many things I associate with home - I love windmill as we had one that you could see from our kitchen window, the beautiful big trees, the cane fields, the frogs that perch on the verandah and talk to you at night, the old dairy that is now falling down and the Eastern Rosellas and wild birds that freely. Feels like home to me.
Just a scrapping share of gorgous little Lockie. Not the best photo of the layout - but I just love his little smirk. I want to get better at photographing my layouts - my aim for the year.
We had a really quite New Year - we just decided to stay home. We played games in the pool all afternoon. Ben was riding his pool pony as a bull and tried his best to stay on it for 8 seconds as this is the bull riding time limit. Now I know that you don't think that this is a long time to stay on the pool pony but it is as I too tried to ride the bull and was lucky to make 2 seconds. A quite dinner at home. We ended up going to bed at 1.30pm - the boys probably would have stayed up longer but it was time for bed for the adults.
