Monday Giggles

Good morning dear blog friends and welcome to another Monday Giggles. Hope this helps you start your week with a smile. :D

I will have to introduce my dogs to the new bubby soon, and thankfully I've found instructions on how NOT to do so.

Enjoy!

*hugs*

A Miscellany of Card Creations

Firstly, let me thank you all for your lovely comments on the Right Now and Thankful Thursday posts. ^_^ I apologise profusely for not being as lovely as you and leaving comments on your blogs lately. No, I don't really have an excuse other than the fact that I've been trying to speed read through all the unread blog posts that have amassed to a huge scary number and I've been trying not to spend too much time on the computer. Trust me, I have been keeping up with all your activities and will try to comment more soon!

Now, onto today's post. It's been a while since I've shared anything creative with you, hasn't it? The lack of craft projects does make sharing them a bit difficult. LOL

However, loads of birthdays and a house-warming over the past two weeks have seen me sitting at my craft desk trying to get the card ideas out of my head. This wasn't as easy as it sounds as my mojo hasn't been seen for dust! Therefore the cards I'm sharing with you today are nothing fancy and were born more out of quick necessity rather than a creative outpouring! (As always, click on the photos for a closer look. :D)

First up is a card for a friend's house warming that I attended recently. My friend loves the red/white/black colour combination, so at least I didn't have to stress over choosing the colours! I took inspiration from this gorgeous card by Sarah J Moerman (who designs for Lily Pad cards amongst others):

Credits: Kaisercraft To Have And To Hold:Forever paper; I drew the house in Illustrator and hand cut it;
Carl butterfly punch; Kindyglitz on the butterflies; Nestabilities Labels Four; button from stash;
white pen for the faux stitches

The next two cards were for my SILs birthdays and they were inspired by the Week 19 One Layer & Frames challenge on the Less Is More card challenge site. Unfortunately, I didn't make them up in time to enter the challenge, but there you have it.

Credits: Sweet Bird, Flower & Leaf Branch and Enjoy Life's Moments stamps from Heroarts; Memento Black ink; messily coloured in with Copics :D; black Artliner for frame.

Credits: Flourish Flowers stamp from HeroArts; Quote from Miracles Blossom set by Verve Stamps;
Memento inks; black Artliner for frame.

The next three cards I made for the birthdays of two nephews and one niece.

Credits: Freebie monkey card kit from Dustin Pike, cut out and decoupaged.

Credits: Papers, chipboard robot and star from Lil' Robots by My Mind's Eye; Peel off birthday greeting;
Nestabilities Labels Small; Colorbox Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink Cat's Eye for edges.

Credits: Printable picture from Popcorn Bear Birthday edition CD; ribbon from BigW.

So there you have it - my crafting efforts for the past week or two. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to share with you soon as I do have a couple of digi layouts in production.

*hugs*

Thankful Thursdays

Although the above photo was taken two weeks ago when I was at 36 weeks, not much has changed since then, thus today I'm thankful that the pregnancy is progressing well at this late stage. Baby's head is only just dropping down into my pelvis but it doesn't look like she'll make an appearance any time soon! The rest I'm getting now is really helping as I don't feel as tired and stressed anymore and can just concentrate on preparing myself for the birth. We had our first ante-natal class last Saturday and that was pretty overwhelming - I'm still trying to sift through all the information and emotions! I don't think any class or any advice from other mother's is going to prepare me for what's to come. Am I freaking out? You bet. LOL

What's happening in your neck of the woods that you're thankful for today? :D

*hugs*

Right Now . . .

Right now...IT'S SNOWING!!!!! Yes, this very instant.

Okay, so this might not be as exciting to some of you as it is to me, but we don't often get snow in Australia, unless you head to the alpine regions. We did get a bit of snow around here last year, but all three times it was night and very difficult to take a photo. This time it's in the afternoon. It's not cold enough for the snow to collect on the ground, but still nice enough to enjoy. Although I must say that the freezing temperatures accompanying the snow is not quite so enjoyable. LOL

Just to prove that the above photo isn't just of heavy rain, I managed to get a few flakes on my gloves:

So, what's happening in your part of the world right now?!?

*hugs*

Monday Giggles

Welcome to another Monday. The weeks go so fast, don't they?!?!

I love reading facts and trivia and I thought I'd share a few funny ones with you today.

Enjoy!

• More than ten people a year are killed by vending machines.
  
  
• The average person spends three years of his or her life on a toilet.
  
  
• More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world!
  
  
• 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
  
  
• 40% of women have hurled footwear at a man.
  
  
• The inventor of the Waffle Iron did not like waffles.
  
  
• The Yo-yo originated as a weapon in the Philippine Islands during the sixteenth century.
  
  
• The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery ticket is greater than your chance of winning.
  
  
• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
  
  
• More than 2,500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people.
  

*hugs*

Thankful Thursdays

Just a quick one today - I'm very thankful that I've finally finished up at work. No more early mornings and long commutes into the city and no more sitting up for hours on end (lying down is MUCH more preferable! LOL). I still have a few things I need to complete, but I can work from home, which I'm also thankful that my workplace has allowed this to continue.

Thanks also to all of you who have been asking about me. I'm currently in my 36th week (37th on Saturday) and thankfully have no problems besides being excessively exhausted and beginning to get a bit impatient! I'll hopefully update you all a bit more over the weekend - if I can get enough rest that is!

Let me know what you're thankful for today. :D

*hugs*

Monday Giggles

Hey there! Welcome to another installment of Monday Giggles. It's a holiday Monday here in Aus, so I'm all smiles today, but for those of you who have to trudge into work, here's something I hope will make the day easier.

Enjoy!

*hugs*

Thankful Thursdays

Hello and welcome to Thankful Thursdays!

It's been very cold here in Southeast Aus this week and more so up here in the Mts. Yesterday only got to a top of 5C, brrrrr!! Today doesn't feel any warmer although our weather station did say that the maximum today reached 10.5C. Currently it reads 7.5C with a windchill of 6.8C. BRRRRRR!!!! On the plus side though, I hope we get more snow this year. That would be awesome!! :D

So today, I'm very thankful that we have this awesome gas heater. Not only does it keep the living room warm, it also looks pretty with the flames and fake logs. It also has the added bonus of keeping the dogs quiet as they love to sleep in front of it. Well, at least Pepper does, and with abandon!! :D

What are you thankful for today?

*hugs*

Monday Giggles

Wow! Another Monday already! Time sure does fly. Hope today's Monday Giggles helps to get you through this week!

Enjoy!

*hugs*

Last Getaway??!?

Last weekend (I seem to have a habit of being one week behind in my sharing, don't I?!?!), Gus and I went away for a final getaway (or Babymoon as some like to call it) before the baby arrives.

Warning: Another photo heavy post. Click on the photos to enlarge as usual, but especially with the panoramas this time. ;)

We stayed here from Thursday to Sunday:

Peppers is a relatively top end luxury hotel/resort chain that we've stayed at previously and have loved each stay - this time was no different. Port Stephens is a lovely bay area about 2.5hrs out of Sydney, famous for lovely beaches, dolphins in the bay, and lovely seafood eateries.

This is a 360 degree panorama of the resort that my talent hubby took and stitched together:

There were three "houses" where the rooms were. We stayed in Dalton House. Ours is the second room from the left on the ground floor:

Inside the room. Nice huh?!?

Our first night and we were treated to an awesome rainbow right outside the window:

Practically every day (except the last one as it was pouring rain!), we were also treated to gorgeous sunsets:

The sunrises were awesome too, although we only managed to wake up and catch the tail end of them, and it was far too early in the morning to try and work a camera for a good photo. LOL

As I hinted on last week's Thankful Thursday, I was going to get pampered, and I did! I had booked in for a one hour massage on the Friday morning. Whilst it was a little strange having a massage half reclining and only restricted to my limbs and shoulders rather than a full body massage, I do have to admit that it was absolute bliss. I completely felt like jelly afterwards and very much refreshed. It was awesome!! LOL :D

Having thus been reduced to a mass of wobbly jelly, the rest of the activities that day - which included having lunch at Soldiers Point and then a brief walk at Tilligerry Nature Reserve - all passed in a bit of a blur. LOL

However, the next day, after refuelling with a lovely buffet breakfast, we went for a walk around Corlette Head, of which Peppers Anchorage is cosily nestled behind:

The clouds were doing lovely things:

We even managed to see some dolphins, although much to our disgust and frustration, they decided not to resurface again by the time we fumbled around and put on the telephoto lens to try and get a better photo. Typical wildlife!

Since the dolphins weren't playing nice, we headed off to Nelson Bay for lunch where the pelicans and seagulls were being a bit more cooperative:

The Nelson Head Lighthouse was our next stop. It was disappointing though as it was no longer a lighthouse, but had been converted into a Marine Rescue Headquarters:

We then headed to Gan Gan Lookout where Gus took another 360 degree panorama:

And I had to get this photo of him in the act of taking the panorama. LOL

Our final stop for the afternoon was Stockton Beach. You can drive on the beach and the sand dunes if you have a capable 4WD. What amused me greatly was seeing the camel rides! I was disappointed that I couldn't ride one - maybe AFTER bubby is born! LOL

We didn't spend much time at Stockton beach because it was very windy and cold, and besides, we had to get back to the hotel for High Tea:

Here I will admit that, being the gluttonous pigs foodies that we are, we finished EVERY CRUMB of that afternoon tea, AND managed to have dinner four hours later. Needless to say both of us had a very restless night. LOL

All in all, it was a very lovely and relaxing weekend (despite actually getting out and doing more sightseeing than resting in the resort!). I thoroughly enjoyed it and it certainly helped to ease some of the stress I've been feeling in the past month or so. I know it's only going to get worse from here on, but at least I have this lovely weekend to look back on.

Finally, I'll finish off with some obligatory food photos. We ate so much over the weekend and every meal except breakfast contained some kind of seafood. Living in the Mountains now, we don't get as much fresh seafood as we used to when we were living in Sydney, so this weekend we were definitely making the most of it! LOL (Unfortunately we only had these two presentable photos of all the food we ate. The other photos were taken with our mobiles and they turned out pretty shocking! Oh, and sorry if you don't like seafood, we love it!)

Thanks for persevering to the end of this post! Hope you found my trip interesting. :D

*hugs*