A Creative Life

Cards Galore!!

I do no consider myself a card maker.  In fact I feel like my cards are creatively challenged, but there are times when you just need them!  Well, I have just about made enough Christmas cards for this year and let me tell you, Christmas cards and I are not friends!  We usually find ourselves at a stand off each year, with me looking at the packaged variety more often than not, but this year DT commitments required some Christmas cards, so I had to delve into the card side!  Firstly I made a group of cards for the Aussie Scrap Source Blog and I used the SEI Christmas mint range.

 

 

 

 

Now if this wasnt enough Christmas card making for me, I had to do some for the Prima Blog as well!  I am such an oportunistic scrapper as well.  I literally used 1 piece of kraft cardstock and cut it to make all 3 items from it.  That might just be the fiscally challenged side of my personality talking to make sure I use the entire sheet.  I also tend to grab things that are sitting on my table that I have cut up for other projects but not ended up using and these cards were no exception.  I had already cut out the Angelique papers, so it was just a matter of arranging the pieces and adding a few flowers.

 

Here are a couple of Christmas cards I made back in July for CHA but havent shared on my blog.

 

As you can see I am totally Christmas Carded out!!  These are not the only cards I have made lately!  I tell you, I have made so many it isnt funny!  Boy birthday cards, Wedding Card, Thankyou cards and I still have to make a couple more Christmas cards!  

There was also a big event this week in our house.  Little miss Kaitlyn had her first haircut!!  Her Daddy did not want me to get it done, but she really needed a little trim off the ends to keep her hair healthy! His solution was to put product on it!! LOL!!  But after the trim, I felt so sad as a lot of her gorgeous curls ended up on the floor!  I asked the hairdresser to just slightly trim the ends and she took at least an inch and a half off the length!!  I also discovered her hair is exactly like mine was as a child, it will probably only be wavy by the time she goes to school, but it will probably come back quite curly in her teens again, just like mine.  I took a couple of pictures when we got home and I have a little envelope with her hair in it.

 

See how much shorter it is!!  Sooooo sad about that, but she is still absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion as a bias Mummy!

Little Ashton is really starting to smile a lot!  The boys think it is fabulous that he will give them a great big smile now!  He has been smiling since about 4 weeks but they were few and far between, but now it is quite easy to get a smile from him.  Mind you he wasn't smiling when he had his immunisations on Monday!!  Poor baby, cried like crazy!  He then proceeded to have a temp of 38.5 degrees for the rest of the day that wouldn't come down with panadol.  Thankfully he ended up sleeping a lot of the day, because he was very grizzly when he was awake. 

He also had a specialist appointment last week for his eye and it is definately a blocked tear duct.  So now I have to try and massage his eye and if in 6 months time he is still the same it is back to the specialist to start the process of booking him for an operation.  Lets hope that his eye fixes itself over the next few months so we don't have to worry about an opporation for the little man.

I have also been going through my rather large box of leftover product from Creative Edge.  I am working at putting together some goodies to offer for sale on my blog at a discounted rate as the box in my wardrobe is just taking up too much room, so next post I will post pics and details for those of you who are interested.  So stay tuned!  TFL!!

My sweet little girl is at times, not so sweet!  She has managed to create a bit of havoc in our house this week, which includes causing a trip to the womens and childrens hospital for her poor brother!  It started out as any other day, but then the sweet assasin struck just before I was going to leave to drop the kids to school.  I got out of the shower and was greeted by screams from Ethan, and I could hear Paul telling Kaitlyn off for hitting Ethan.  I had no time to worry about it, the problem had been dealt with so I dropped the kids to school.  When I got there, Ethan was holding his eye, I didnt take too much notice, I just thought he was still trying to get all the attention he possibly could.

I stopped thinking he was after attention when the school rang me, and I had to go and pick up the little lad.  Off to the doctors we went and with the addition of some coloured drops in Ethans eye, we could see a large scratch right across the eye!  Now I was feeling very sorry for the little lad. We were also advised that he needed to be seen by an eye specialist and were referred back to the Womens and Childrens hospital.  After several hours of waiting the next day, we  finally saw a doctor and this time when the drops were applied, guess what, no more scratch!  The eye had healed itself within 24 hours!  I was amazed, but very happy that no major damage had been done.

She doesn't look that mean here!  But dont be fooled by her innocently cheeky appearance, she is now officially an eye scratcher!  Along with quite a little whinger, highly dummy dependant and cant live without her "waffle blanket".  This little miss has also decided that she wants to be toilet trained.  Difficult timing for me as she always needs to go when I am feeding and settling Ashton, but she is doing a great job so far and if I am vigilant in reminding her she rarely has an accident.  On the up side it will save me a fortune on nappies when she is fully trained so I am very happy about that.

Now little mister Ashton has been stacking on the weight still.  He is 7 weeks old today and I weighed him on Friday and the little chap is now over 5kg.  It is amazing to think that it took 9 months for this little guy to gain 3kg, but in just 7 weeks he has gained 2kg!  He has changed so much since he was born and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they grow. 

Look at those chubby little cheeks!  Yes, I did finally get a couple more pics taken. I thought it was time to try and get a couple of me holding him.  I would still love to get a full family picture, but the two oldest boys were having a sleep over at a friends house!

  This picture just cracks me up!  Between the cheekiness of Ethan and the classic Kaitlyn look, I just find myself smiling at it.  The kids certainly have some character!

Now, changing the subject to scrapping related stuff.... I was assigned a project through Aussie Scrap Source and those that know me found it rather amusing!  You see, I really am not a fan of Christmas and all the commercialism of it and the actual day is just stressful with all the running around to different families for breakfast, lunch and tea.  Now to scrap Christmas pages is even lower on my list of enjoyable activities!  Now couple that with an acrylic album (always challenging) in the shape of a Christmas tree (what the??) and I honestly thought I had gone to scrapping hell! Well, despite elevated stress levels, I was albe to complete the project and here it is:

 

I also had a layout up on the prima blog this week.

I created this layout months ago, sometimes it takes a while to b shown on the Prma blog. TFL.

I've Been Blasted!

It has been almost 12 years since the last time I was completely poo blasted by a baby!  The first time, Lachlan was a baby, I was in white pants at a friends place and I scored a lap full of mustard seed looking excrement!  It was an experience I never wished to repeat!!  It seemed like I would avoid such a mishap ever again, but then along came Ashton, the poo blaster extrodinaire! 

There I was sitting by the inlaws pool, holding Mr Innocent Ashton, when all of a sudden a load farting noise eminated from that cute innocent baby and I was suddenly experiencing a warm sensation on my lap. NOT a good feeling at all and one glance down confirmed my worst fear...  I had been poo blasted all over my lap!  It was a stinking hot day so I let Lachlan turn the tap on me to wash off the evidence of the mishap!!    This is one of the joys of parenthood I could do without!!

I have even managed to do a couple of scrapbooking projects this week.  A few cards and a guest book for my friend Hilary's wedding! I have some ideas in my head for LO's but still not enough time to get them done.  I w ill share some of these projects closer to Christmas.

I can share a LO that I created for Prima, another one of my pregnancy Layouts.

 

And here is a textural shot of all those flowers.

 

I really love working away at floral clusters.  I love getting just the right mix of flower colours and sizes to give a flowing harmonious blend.  I just adore primas vines as they are great as the basis of a cluster and can be cut into sections to add flexibility to the flow of the arrangement.  I think I could just about add a floral cluster to all my layouts but I really need to do other things at times! LOL!!

I also had this layout up on the Prima blog this week, one of Miss K with her baby brother.  I had to document the "my Dolly" incident on a scrapbooking page!

 

I desperately need to take some more pictures of my baby boy but it hasn't happened just yet!  More stuff on my to do list! Eeeek! I have had him to the doctors several times as he has continually got a gungy eye.  At first I thought he had conjunctivitis but it was only ever in one eye and 2 different types of antibiotics have failed to fix it, so it appears to be a blocked tear duct.  Hopefully it can right itself soon, but it looks like I have to take him to a specialist.  Poor baby!

I also received a blog award from Kathie but I will have to get to it another post as I am being called away by the infant!  Till next post.... TFL.

Busy is an Understatement

Who would of thought life could be so insanely busy!!  I guess that just goes with the territory of having 5 kids and one being a newborn and another a 2 year old!  Amidst all the chaos there have been a couple of priceless moments, like Kaitlyn trying to breastfeed her doll!  Paul was even able to capture this on his iphone, so I must pester him to give me a copy of the file to share here as it was one of the cutest things to witness!  I was getting tea ready and peeked around the corner to check if Ashton was still asleep and there she was, on my feeding chair, top pulled up with a dolly held close to her, I just chuckled so much at the sight!!

Now, the other funny incident, really was not so funny at the time, but again, a priceless incident, this time involving Ethan.  At first I was so shocked to see this dark bruise on his chin when I picked him up from school.  I immediately asked him what happened....Ethan: "So and so (name removed to protect the innocent) punched me in the face.  I was so taken back!  My goodness how can a reception child, a 6 yo be capable of such a punch and why on earth had the school not called me.  I asked Ethan for more details and he said the boy wanted his donut that I packed for him for recess.  I was so appalled by this I knew we had to speak to the principal and find out what could be put in place to ensure this didnt happpen again.  Well, the following day Paul spoke to the deputy principal and got the REAL story!!!  My goodness, I discovered I have quite the master liar under my roof!!  Aparently there were a few of them playing chase and Ethan ran into a pole!!!  Quite different to the story my son was reporting!  I was so shocked that he would lie so elaborately.  Needless to say he had a very stern talking to.  But now in hindsight, when I am not totally embarrassed by his actions I can have quite the chuckle over it!  Mind you, he had better not try it on again as he might think it was worth it as he definately got a lot of attention out of the incident.

To make life fun this week, I was trying very hard to get my scrapbooking deadlines up to date and a certain infant was doing his best to make it difficult.  I did get one day where he snoozed the day away and I was able to complete a mini album and some cards, so once again I am up to date and it is such a good feeling!  My problem is that i have a couple of creative ideas and since that day, the little fella has decided that sleeping without being held is a no go zone!!  In fact only now as I type this post has he slept during the day without being held, but I was holding him for 45 minutes before I put him down! 

Now while he was sleeping I snapped these couple of pics to show just how much he is filling out. 

He has gained almost 1.5kg since he was born.  He even sports a baby double chin and his thighs are well and truly filling out now!  I even managed to get a couple of smiles out of him this week!  I look at these pics of him and I swear it could be Ethan as a baby!  Sometimes I also see a lot of Lachlan as a baby in him as well, especially those lovely lips!

I have also had a couple of LO's up on the Color Combos Galore site in the last few weeks.  When I first saw the colours, I inwardly groaned as I am not a girl who enjoys working with earthy tones, but I still accepted the challenge and created these 2 layouts.

 

 

When I printed out these colours they were a little different to what they look like on the screen but you get the idea.

We are heading into a record breaking week here in Adelaide if the temperature forcasts are correct!  A heat wave in November!  We have not even got to Summer yet and they are predicting a week of temperatures over 35 degrees celcius!!  That is just plain cruel in my opinion!  It will be the hottest week on record for November if the forecast comes to fruition!  Lets hope they were wrong, there are some records I am happy not to see set!

Just to finish on... if you could see my little girl right now, sitting on the chair with me, trying to put on Ashtons tiny 0000 shorts!  Seriously too funny for words!  TFL!

I Survived [just]

Well 7 days straight of Paul working nights and I managed to survive!  I have to confess to not a lot of sleep, in fact most nights I could only get about 3 hours sleep, so I wont say I was very good company!  But we all came out the other end alive!! Ashton doesnt believe in sleeping more than 3 hours at a time, often only 2 hours before his hunger clock awakes him!

Tomorrow a nurse is coming for a home visit for his 4 week check up!  I think they took pity on me having 5 kids and arranged a home visit rather than me having to go to the clinic!  Now who am I to complain!!  I will be very interested in how much weight he has put on.  He is now developing a double chin and little baby rolls of fat on his legs, so I am guessing he has put on a bit of weight.  The last time he was weighed he was just under 2 weeks old and he was only marginally above his birth weight, but now that he is over his jaundice he is gaining weight rapidly, well I think he is by how he looks!

I havent taken any pics this week, all too hard due to the lack of sleep issues I was having and often I find photo shoots a little stressful as children and babies are rarely co-operative and I didnt think it would be wise to put them through me getting very frustrated with them!

In fact all last week was about making sure life was kept as simple as possible.  I let the housework take a break, other than doing the dishes and a few loads of washing, but the vacuuming was allowed to wait until this week, as well as the bathrooms!!  I have also been so very lucky to have the ladies from church bring me meals all last week!  It couldnt have been timed better as it was one less thing I had to think about each day and the kids have loved the variety!!  Even better, 2 more weeks of this luxury to go!  I could not thank these wonderful ladies for all their generosity enough right now.

Scrapbooking has taken a bit of a break this week as well, but I have some projects I need to do, so I really have to get back into the swing of things, but right now it is easier to not think about it too much.  I did have a layout for the Prima BAP go up on their site.  It was a double LO sketch and I have to confess that I followed the sketch pretty closely as I just wanted to get it done!  It really is a great way to get LO's done when you are feeling time poor.

 

I had a funny conversation with Cameron this week.  We were driving home from school and he tells me that he wants us to have another baby!  I say, arent you sick of having brothers and a sister yet?  Cam: "No, I love having a baby brother"  Me:  "Are you going to have lots of kids when you are an adult?" Cam: "Yes" Me: "Do you know how much hard work it is having so many children? Do you realise it is you kids that make me so busy and stressed out?  Do you really want to have all this?"  Cam: "It will be fine Mum, I will get my wife to do all the work!!!"   Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!  What are we doing wrong??  How can I be creating such a sexist little monster and Lachlan has chirped in at times with similarly sexist comments in the past!!!  I seriously hope that Cam was just trying to stir me up, but sometimes things said in jest often have a hint of truth to them.

IF i DIDN'T SEE IT I WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!   Ashton rolled over from his tummy to his back!!!  He has only just turned 4 weeks old!!  What the????  He could hold his head up from the moment he was born and both Paul and I have been very careful when he is on the change table as he is very wriggly and can get from his back to his side, but tonight I had him on his tummy due to him being very unsettled and he rolled from his tummy to his back, 5 times!!  Yep, I kept thinking it was a fluke but by the 5th time I had to concede this little boy is a very early roller!  TFL,

Full House

All of last week, Lachlan was on school camp in Canberra.  I will admit to being a little concerned with him travelling such a long distance on a bus, but he was so excited.  There was one major advantage to him being on camp.... no fighting in the house.  It was so incredibly quiet all week!  But then Friday came along and it took all of 5 minutes and the fighting errupted!  In an instant I went from being oh so glad he was home to wondering how it was possible for peace and quiet to be shattered in such a short time frame!

Now that the house was full of all its residents, I decided it was time to take a couple more pictures of the kids together!  Unfortunately the youngest member of the household was not overly co-operative.  Actually lets just say that the 3 younger members all had there tantrum moments just to make life more complicated!!  But I at least have a reasonable photo of all of them together now!

 

Now when I see them all grouped together like this I realise I really do have a bit of a tribe happening these days!

Then little miss had to get in on the action all by herself!  Or maybe it is just me that can not resist capturing pictures of her!

 

I just adore this pic of little miss innocent!!

   

So I took a few pics of Miss K, I just couldnt help myself.

   

The little mischief makers!  They pretend they are sweet and innocent but I know better!!  Then it was time for the oldest and the youngest to get photographed together.

   

How little is Ashton!  He is definately getting bigger though.  His little belly is getting quite pudgy now and even his arms and legs are getting a little bit of fat on them!  My cow like capabilities are paying off!!

And then I see him here, perched on Pauls hand, and suddenly he looks so very very tiny!! Or Pauls hand is just very very big! LOL!!  So this  is this weeks update on little mister Ashton who is now 3 weeks old!  My goodness time slips by so very very fast.  Part of me feels so sad that this newborn stage will slip past before I am ready to let it go, but part of me will enjoy getting more sleep at the same time.

On the scrapping front, I have almost done a layout this week!  Well it is designed and sitting on my table, waiting for me to get some time to stick it all down!  I have been printing off so many photos lately, I just wish I had a little more time for myself to be able to scrap them.  I did however scrap this one on my indulgent weekend prior to having Ashton!

 

As can be seen lots and lots of prima flowers on this one!  I think I have flower issues and guess what.... I dont care!! LOL!!  I have even done a double LO for Prima with pics of Ashton and I have used flowers on that as well.  He is a baby and that makes it fine in my opinion! LOL!!  But dont worry, I am not planning on using pink in his ablum!  I cant go quite that far!  Once again, TFL!!

Baptism By Fire!

The past fortnight has been relatively easy due to the wonderful help of Paul while he has been on leave for two weeks, but that is all over today!  Back to work he goes and I get to see just how life is going to treat me with 5 kids!  He only has to work today and tomorrow this week, but then come Sunday he starts a 7 night straight graveyard shift!  Talk about a baptism by fire for me!  He leaves for work around 10pm and doesnt return until around 8am the next day.  Then sleeps until about 5pm.  So I have to do all the night time getting up to the baby, as well as get all 5 kids ready for school, drop them off and then keep the house reasonably quiet while he sleeps!  I am DREADING this shift starting!  The only reason I can manage 5 kids half the time is because of Pauls wonderful support with them, so this will be a very tough week!  I will survive!!  I hope! LOL!!

Well, I didnt get any pictures over the weekend like I was hoping for!  Time just rushes past so quickly sometimes!  But this morning, Ashton was very awake and reasonably happy, so I decided to take a couple of pics of him with Miss K!  I also took a couple with a Christmas hat on them as I have some Christmas themed layouts that I have to do in the next couple of weeks.  So here are some updated pics and little Ashton even has his eyes open for them!!

 

The next two are the same picture but 1 b&w and the other colour.  Which do you like the best?  I thought that the yellowish colour in the pictures may limit the paper choices so edited most of them in both colour and b&w so I can choose which will be easier to scrap.

 

Now for the Christmas themed pictures!

 

 

Look at that adorable little face!  I think he is going to have big blue eyes like Ethan.  Most people think he looks a lot like Ethan as a baby!

 

She is still miss photogenic, but she isnt as co-operative as she used to be!  I had to work hard to get that smile as she was insisting "I dont like it" referring to the hat! 

I can also share a couple of layouts from Color Combos Galore challenges!  The first one was based on a green and yellow combination, which at first I couldnt help thinking of the Australian Cricket team when I saw it!  I had to banish that visual from my mind before attempting to design a layout!!  I have scrapped a few of the pregnancy pictures that Paul took of me.  This one is about the last 4 weeks always seem to take the longest!

 

Then I did a layout that was journalling based.  I just really wanted to capture the story of Kaitlyns obsession with dogs.  At times I feel it is just so important to record the story so I dont forget later on and this is one of those layouts.  The combo was a yellow, blue, red and white one.

 

I have even managed to scrap a couple of layouts this week!  I have to admit to not feeling overly creative at the moment but the deadlines dont go away so I have to work through it! 

Have you ever missed the perfect photo op because you didnt have your camera??  Well, on Saturday it was my nieces birthday party and she had a party at a swimming centre.  Well, Miss K no longer fit her size 1 bathers from last year, so I had to get her a new pair.  I ended up buying  a size 3 thinking I could get a bit longer use out of it.  Well it fit her perfectly, but you couldnt get a cuter photo opportunity with her baby butt cheeks poking out the sides of her swimmers, little dimples and all!!  She had a ball in the water and is a little too fearless for my liking!  I think this little girl needs to learn to swim, pronto, as she is way to confident in water for a little cherub who can not swim!  I am looking forward to getting some pics of her in those adorable bathers though!!  OK enough ranting from me!  TFL!

Time Stealer

Despite spending so many hours of the day awake, I am actually accomplishing very little due to a very resourceful time stealer!!  He is packaged in such an adorable cute bundle, sweet and innocent, but oh so effective!  I think you can easily forget just how many hours of each day are taken up with feeding, burping, nappy changing and settling a newborn!  No sooner have you completed the cycle and it seems to be time to start all over again!  But one look at Miss Kaitlyn and I am abruptly reminded how short this stage is, how quickly they grow and within the blink of an eye that tiny helpless newborn morphs into a bossy little toddler!

Ashton is still very good, he still seems to have one stint each night of 4 hours sleep, so for that I am very greatful.  He is still a little jaundice and I have had him to the drs and today the dr thought he was looking a bit better which is good.  Ashton even managed to pee all over me at his drs appointment!!  I had to walk out of the clinic with the baby capsule carefully concealing the massive wet patch on my pants as it looked like I had peed myself!!  Boys and their fountains are such little treasures!

I have not taken any more "good" pics of Ashton this week but have plans to set up and take some more tomorrow with all the kids.  Lets hope the best laid plans do not go astray!  It has just been so hectic this week with school going back and having to get back into the routine of it all again.  But tomorrow I have plans to get some really lovely shots of them all together.  Fingers crossed my plans come to fruition.

On the scrapping front I can share the news that I have been chosen for the Aussie Scrap Source DT along with the very talented Kathie Link and Louise Nelson who bring so much diversity to the team.  I had 3 LO's up today on their blog!  Part of me thinks I must be slightly insane to take on such a venture at this time of complete bedlam in my life, but I try really hard to manage my time and committments effectively and so far am all up to date!  So here are the 3 LO's I had up on the blog today.

 

We were asked to do 3 layouts about ourselves or products we loved.  This one is just some random and possibly little known facts about me.  Like the fact I was born at home, I arrived so quickly Mum never had the chance to get to hospital.  Another random bit of info is that I was run over when I was 4yo!  Obviously I survived the ordeal!

 

I just love the new Crate Paper line and was thrilled to be able to work with it.  Dont you just love the unusual mix of colours!  I also wanted the layout to be a bit about me as well, so this is about how I always wanted a daughter, but in the end having one made me realise just how much I love having a girl, like a dream fulfilled!

This is my favourite of the 3 LO's and I had to use the beautiful and feminine papers of Websters Pages!  I feel like I have been pregnant so many times it has become quite normal for me to be in this condition!  LOL!! 

Well, my computer time is at an end, there are little rumbles eminating from the time stealer!!  Once again he is staking his claim on my time and the cycle of feeding, burping, changing and settling happens all over again.  These are the simple joys of motherhood!  TFL!!

Besotted!

I know I should be getting used to this whole new baby thing since it is the 5th time, but how on earth can one wee little baby capture your heart in such little time.  The pure innocence, their dependence, the cute little expressions and just their tiny helplessness completely sucks you in!!  Little Ashton has one of those cute little faces so full of expression.  He has the grumpy little old man look down pat!  Just so very cute. 

He has been so very easy (exception being his second night in hospital where he cried out every 15-20 minutes all night leaving Mummy completely sleep deprived and terrified she was going to have a very difficult baby) but since coming home he has been a little angel. He has a feed around 11.30pm and then goes through until 3.30-4.30am before his next feed. Totally do able for me as getting 4 hours of sleep in a row is enough to keep me sane!!

I want to try and capture photos of him growing up, hopefully weekly for the first couple of months because they change so very fast.  These are a few pics from Friday, not quite one week old yet!

 

Look at that very cute little face!! Total angel!

 

Even when sleeping he can manage a frown!!

Look, I even managed to get a little smile!!  Dont worry, I am not deluding myself that he did it in response to me, just his internal wind!!!!

How about this for a facial expression!!!  I have decided that those gorgeous posed photographs are VERY hard to capture!  Sometimes they object to being posed, even when they are supposed to be asleep!!

  

These were my favourites from the quick shoot!  He is a bit jaundice and the midwife is coming back tomorrow to check how he is and if he will need a blood test or not.  So fingers crossed he will be fine, but he looks quite reddish in all these pics as that is a sign of jaundice.  His little hands are almost blue in comparison to how reddish his face is!

Here are a couple of happy snaps of the children with their new brother.  They literally fight over who can hold him.  Miss K is the worst offender as she has taken to throwing the biggest tantrums when I say no, it is one of the other childrens turn to hold Ashton!!  Luckily she has yet to try dragging him around the house like one of her dolls, but I bet she is thinking about it!!

 

Exhibit A ..... Kaitlyn not holding Ashton, but Oh so wanting to.  Please note the photograph does not show the tantrum that followed, but evidence around her eyes in this next picture shows there was great amounts of crying before her position on the chairs changed!!

These were taken on day 2 in the hospital.

 

Here she is saying shhhh bubby, shhhh, just like a little Mummy!!!

 

Now that we are all home, this is what makes her happy!!!  How proud is she to be a big sister!!  I walked out from the kitchen and saw her with Ashton asleep like this on her chest and I had to grab the camera for a photo!  Just adorable.

I have had a couple of layouts that I did a week or so back go up on the Prima blog.  This was my October BAP for Prima.  We were all challenged to use the Tropics line, which is one of my favourites as I love all the bright colours of this line.  What amazed me was how so many of the DT were able to create quited muted layouts using these papers.  Well, I didnt try and mute it down at all, mine is bright all the way!!

 

I just adore creating flower collages from Prima flowers.  I love to mix up the sizes, textures, shapes and colours of the flowers and end up with a fresh and vibrant bouquet!  I also used glimmermist to colour the prima lace that I edged the circle with. 

I also want to take the time to say how much I appreciate all the well wishes that people have left on my blog for Ashtons safe arrival.  It has been so lovely to read the messages of congratulations on my sweet little mans arrival and I thank you all very much for this!

And Baby makes 5!!

Well my little bundle has arrived!!  And I have already taken lots of pictures!  Oh I am sharing just a few for now!

So lets start with the details:

Ashton Peter Koczwara

3100gms or 6lb13oz, 48cm length and 34.5cm head circumference.  He was born at 11.34am this morninging, Sunday 4th October 2009!

Lets say his arrivial was not without an enormous amount of pain and suffering on my behalf as he decided to present posterior!! Grrrrr!!

I went into labour at 5.30am while Paul was still at work!  I was quite calm with my call, telling him to come home and that was around 5.55am.  Paul was home by almost 7am and we literally threw the bags into the car and left the moment he got home (his Mum was looking after the children) By the time we got to the hospital the midwives took one look at me and thought I would be done within the hour.  But they were wrong!!!  That posterior baby boy sent me to hell and back in the pain department.  I was too out of it with pain to bother with counting contractions etc but Paul said they were coming every 3 mins, lasting 2min 30sec each and giving me only 30 seconds of rest in between.  After about an hour and a half of that, my eyes were rolling in my head, I couldnt keep my head straight, could not talk co-herantly or hold eye contact.  I could hear them but I was literally so delirious with pain I was shaking and all of the above.

Somehow I communicated I couldnt keep going like this with a natural birth and an epidural was arranged.  I think Paul was very relieved about this!!  Mind you the epidural took an hour to work completely.  Which is very frustrating, but once it did, bliss!!!  The next 2 hours sailed along easily and Ashton arrived safely at 11.34am, to a happy but very exhausted mummy!

So here is the evidence, including this shot that was taken within moments of him being placed on my chest!  Cheesy little fella he was!!

Stretched out for his measure!!

He looks so much like his other siblings as babies in this picture

 

The details

A few hours later, look like we have a hand chewer!

 

Lachlan with Ashton. Who was so excited he was telling the neighbours next door!

 

Cameron with Ashton. Poor Cameron has a bad cold and we kept sending him to wash his hands the moment he coughed!  He didn't argue!

 

Ethan with Ashton.  Little Ethan was totally besotted with his new baby brother, but he just had one problem, getting past his little sister to get a hold!  She is one bossy piece of work!

A couple of Kaitlyn with Ashton

 

Oh she looks all sweet and innocent in this picture holder her new brother but I am one very worried mother as she takes posessiveness to new heights!  According to miss K, "he's my dolly!!!, Go away!!" Hmm I have visions of her trying to drag poor little Ashton around the house by an arm or leg in the future!  I am going to have to make sure that this little girl is not left alone with her brother in a room!

So this is our new and expanded family of 5 children!  Wish me LUCK!!!