Monday 28 February 2011

layouts. :)

Ok so done with disney. :) No actually done much since. lol. Been clearing out the garage and selling off lots of bits. Also selling kids garden toys as getting new stuff for their birthdays. :)
Anyway, since Im dull and have done nothing worth talking about I thought Id show you some more layouts I did on the twilight retreat. Before going I didnt have many photos printed so gave Mark a memory stick with loads on and asked him to print some off. Yeah should have been more specific. He printed all christmas ones. Did I have any christmas paper packed? No of course not. So had to quickly grab a christmas kit before I left. So you might notice a lot of the layouts use the same range of papers. lol
Nice simple one of Cameron in the snow. :)

Love this photo, I was trying so hard to get a nice photo of both kids in front of the chrismtas tree. Cameron was a little too excited though and would NOT stay still!

More snow photos

Meeting reindeer. I had to bribe Caitlin with cake to make her stand here. Not a fan of reindeer I think.

Running out of paper on this one. Was the best photo from my lot. Decided to make this page mainly about journalling. :)

Well off to have 4 vials of blood taken tomorrow. joy. HATE needles so not looking forward to that!

Saturday 26 February 2011

Disneyland last day :(

Wow its took me a long time to blog about this holiday! lol. Anyway onto our last day :( and a huge stroke of luck. Caitlin LOVES the micky mouse clubhouse, and other playhouse disney shows. I'd seen online they had a new live playhouse disney show in the park and knew Caitlin would love it. Turns out its only shown on one day a year, our last day! I've no idea why its shown so rarely but was thrilled we were lucky enough to catch it. We got good seats too as Mark was allowed to use disabled seating. :)





Bless Mark. During the show they dropped confettie leaves from the celing, at the end of the show without even being asked he went about collecting them for me, knowing I'd use them for scrapbooking. :)
Another ride that was open on our last day was the crush coaster. This was the biggest ride of the week at 45 minutes. Kids were great though and waited patiently. How tired does my mum look. lol. It was a long week.

Now we were warned beforhand that it was not a ride for kids but thought we knew better. We were wrong! lol. Its basically a rollercoster, but the seats spin round like the watlzers. The whole ride is in the pitch black with flashing lights and is bloody fast. Cameron loved it of course, little daredevil he is, poor Mollie was a bit shocked though, and Mum was less than impressed. lol. She doesnt like rollercosters anyway.
Some photos from movie world



Had to document these. Now at home my kids wouldnt touch popcorn, no chance, no way, obviously put it into a disney cup makes it taste different. lol. We actually bought them these on the first day, but refills were cheap and it was a great way to keep them quiet while walking around.

Note the dress change for caitlin, lol. We were really lucky with the weather all week, only having the one drizzle for a short time, but the last day was really hot! I had a thin top on and could feel the heat on my back, been a long time since thats happened. lol. Anyway since I packed for british weather I'd originally put a wool jumper on Caitlin, so I let her pick a t-shirt to change her into. :)

Photo of all four of us. :)

I like this photo, even though it looks like my mum and hubby are a couple. lol. As we'd done all the rides, and it was such nice weather we took the kids to the park in the pirate area, as it was raining last time we were here.

They loved it, running and climbing. I think because obviously I've been quite strict on letting the children roam for fear of losing them they were happy just to run about like loonies.

Cameron next to the runaway mine train poster.

And home time. :( Kids were asleep by the time we hit London. Which was good really as the eurostar back was rattling all over the place. Dinner was SO weird too! I had olive loaf, cold chicken on what I think ws mushed up carrots, and cream chese in a pasta shell. :s Glad we got a mcdonalds before we left. lol

Wednesday 23 February 2011

WOYWW

Ok so whats on my workdesk. Actually something different to the past few weeks as I finished those layouts that were just sitting there. lol.
Now I know this isnt technically on my workdesk but the lighting there is dreadful and it will be on my workdesk in an hour or so. lol. This is a kit I recently recived on a swap on UKS. I asked for brights and thats def what I got!

Sometimes Ive got a bunch of rubbish in swaps but was so pleased with this lot. :) Its really something I would use and I love the glittered papers and buttons.
Now whats on my actual desk. Way back when I first started scrapping, and I had a bit of money, I would see a range I liked then buy a stupid amount of it. Case in point this, the Kaitlin range. now to be honest I still love it, and love that it has the same name (just spelt differently) to my daughter, but two sheets of each paper was in retrospect, a little much. lol. Asa result Ive done a fair few layouts with it and still have a big pile of it I'm trying to use up.

This is the second layout I've done with it in two days though so thats a good start I think. :)
On the subject of layouts, I never did get to show you what I did on the Twilight retreat. :) These are two of my favourites. The scrapping aim of the weekend to me was to use up as many of my old kids as I could as I had quite a backlog! I dont think this was a very old kit, I had a few from early last year. lol.
I LOVE these pictures of caitlins. :) These were taken for her passport, she sat still and was so well behaved but I think its an unwritten rule of passport photos they need to look dreadful. The big flowers were given to my by Ali (I think) And I love them, they're just white and take ink/paint/misting SO well!

Another one of Caitlins. :) A fellow twilight addict Carin is a designer for Bo bunny, (My fave manufacturer, isnt she lucky!) so was kind enough to bring a few papers for us which she wasnt using. I thought these just went SO well with this photo of Caitlin in her tinkerbell outfit. Looking every inch the grumpy fairy. lol.

You can't see it too well here but on the bottom card it reads 'You make everything more beautiful' I like to be sarcastic. lol

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Disneyland day 3 (part 2)

After lunch first stop was the ride hubby had been harping on about since we booked. The star wars simulator. I didnt think Cameron should go on it. Daddy thought he'd be fine. Yeah, tear streaked cheeks after the ride told me mummy was right.

None of the kids would pose with us. :( Thought they wern't supposed to get embrassed by us untill they hit their teens!

Kids started getting sleepy now so we went to where they had the lion king show last time we were here. Was a bit gutted to find out they didn't do that anymore but they had a big cinima screen set up showing cartoons instead. :) Mollie fell asleep bless her while the rest of us watched old cartoons. I'd never seen the first Mickey mouse cartoon before, 'Steamboat Mickey' but OMG! I'm going to guess the RSPCA wasnt about much back then. lol. I think I prefer the more recent ones.
Rest over we went to play 'Buzz lightyears laser blast' Like most disney rides theres a few bits to walk through first, obviously themed to whatever ride you're going on. Makes sense really as if theres big queues it at least keeps the kids entertained. My mum however hated it, frequently moaning 'You need to walk 6 miles before you're even on the bloody ride!' lol. With Buzz there was a big buzz lightyear statue which moved and explained the ride to you. It was actually quite impressive as though you cant see it in the photo, his face was a moving image progected onto the statue, so was very realistic.

Cameron LOVED it anyway and was very keen to get his own Buzz lightyear gun after the ride.

As it was our last night we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the rainforest cafe. I'd seen it every time we've been and always wanted to go there but never have for some reason. Must say the food wasnt really worth the wait. lol. Was no different to what I get when I go to the harvester. The setting was really what you paid for. There were fake vines all over the walls and celing, with animals poking thier heads out everywhere. There was also a huge fountain right beside our table and big fish tanks everywhere. Kids loved it. :)

Poor caitlin wasnt too fond of these elephants though. I managed to convince her they were just statues, she finally sits down on Marks knee and the elephants come to life! Throwing their trunks about and trumpeting. The photo was taken just as they mopved, love the surprise on her face. lol

Back to the park for parade photos. :)





WOYWW tomorrow so will do our last day Thursday. Been nice reliving it when been home for so long it feels.

Saturday 19 February 2011

Disneyland day 3 (part one)

So day 3 and we went back to the main park. Mollie was excited about seeing the castle again while Caitlin loved the mickey mouse made from plants. No idea why she was fansinated by it the whole week!

Love this picture. Cameron insisted on carrying around this map and 'directing' us. He was looking at this statue and I told him to turn around for a picture. It wasn't untill later I noticed he was posing in the same way as the statue. lol.

The photos outside the castle. Got to be done. :)

This is my favourite photo of the week. :) Those with kids know how hard it is to get them to look at the camrea and smile at the same time but look I did it! lol.

We went on a couple of rides, the kids loving the spinning tea cups and not being too impressed with the 'It's a small world after all' ride. The queues wern't too bad really so we were lucky and didnt have to wait too long for anything. The weather was also ok so decided to take them into the alice in wonderland maze. Ok, seriously HOW is that a kids maze?! We got SO lost! Even with Mark being able to see over the walls we had no idea where we were going half the time. lol.

After a quick rest n the Queen on hearts throne we carried on and met the chesire cat. Caitlin asked what it was, 'A cat' was my reply. She gave me that 'Dont be so daft mummy' look and said 'No its not, its a plant, Bella's a cat.' Well silly me!

Eating at the park is VERY expencive. The meal the night before (main meal, pudding and drink each) cost just under £150!! So we decided to eat out twice and go mcdonalds the rest of the time. lol. One of the meals out just had to be a charecter meal so we picked the lucky nugget saloon. While we made our way over there we bumped into Mickey mouse. Now as you may have seen Caitlin is less than impressed with the charecters so far, so I was thrilled to convince her to stand beside micky with me and get our photo taken by my mum. Yeah, seriously, this is us and Mickey, as taken by my mother. I should have gave the camera to Cameron.

Well obviously the powers that be wanted to make up for my dissapointment. Since we've last been here the resturant has changed their paying policy. Before you would eat then pay after, now its a buffet with a set price for adults and kids, but bizarly you pay in a little booth outside the building down a little ally. How weird. Anyway the woman who served me was very flustered and confused, and accidently didnt charge me for any of the kids!! £60 off, woop woop! :)The food turned out to be really nice and the kids LOVED having all the charecters come up and see them. Even Caitlin was a bit more ok with it. :)

After lunch was by far the highlight of Camerons holiday. Funnily enough it involves a train. lol. As mentioned before when I told him about the holiday there were two things he loved, spinny cars and runaway mine train. now Ive been on the train before and at 3, thought Cameron was too young. Obviously when he walked past he dissagreed and pulled me over. Not wanting to be the bad guy as he was so excited I said he wouldnt be allowed as he was too small. Let disneyland be the bad guy I thought. However I didnt take his fathers bloody tall genes into account did I! guy measured him and he was easily tall enough. So on we went. Cameron was SO excited and even though we had to queue for nearly an hour he wouldnt stop laughing and talking. I laughed too at one point. Queue jumping is all over the place at disney, frence seem to think they dont need to wait in line for some reason, well Cameron in his excitment was plaing with the rope used to keep the queue in place when some guy came up from behind us and decided to join the queue further on. Well just as he went to climb over the rope Cam pulled it up, guy tripped and went flying. Everyone cracked up! I didn't tell Cam off, infact I told him well done. :)
Well as much as Cameron has Marks tall genes, he certainly has my daredevil genes as he was laughing all the way round on the rollercoster. And I swear it wasnt me who told him to say to mark 'Im braver than you daddy.' Honest. ;)

Friday 18 February 2011

Disneyland day two (part two)

And back to disneyland posts :) As we were all tired from walking around we went back to the hotel for a bit before dinner. We picked the Seqoia lodge because me and Mark had been there a while back (pre-kids, lol) and I loved it. All big log fires (nothing smells better than a proper log fire I think), bird songs and a swimming pool. I didnt think we'd use the pool much as out of 3 adults and kids present, I was the only one who could swim and Caitlin and I were the only two who were not scared of the pool. Cameron and Mollie both hate them, Mark can't swim so hates it and Mum has a full blown phobia. Seriously, think Gillian Mckeith and bugs and you have my mum. Its her own fault really, when she was a kid she jumped in the shallow end of the pool, or what she thought was the shallow end anyway. She ended up almost drowning and my uncle had to jump in and save her.
Anyway, I was quite surprised when we decided to go to the pool for a bit. I was plased to see they had a pile of arm bands and float circles to go around the kids weists. Caitlin was off like a shot. Shes always been a water baby but I was so proud of her trying to swim by herself. Cameron took more convincing and at first would not let go of Mark, but lots of 'Look at what your LITTLE sister is doing' got him going too. :) So of course Mollie not to be left out jumped in too. After being shown a few moves by me and Mark the kids were all soon swimming by themselves!! Ok so it was just a doggy paddle/breast stroke but I was still thrilled. :) I was proud of my mum at this point to be honest as she was struggling watching all the kids swimming about knowing if something went wrong she couldnt help. But they all loved it!
So after all the swimming we went into the disney Village to look for somewhere to eat. We settled on this medievil place which looked quiet. Turned out to be ok food but had really nice ale. lol. My mum ended up a little tispy and messing about with the wipped cream from the kids puddings, putting it on my nose and her nose. lol. The kids found it all veru funny. :)

After dinner we walked through the village a bit. For those who have not been there before its basically lots of disney shops and resturants. Caitlin actually asked for some photos to be taken! Who was I to say no. :)
First with sleeping beauty.

Then with the prince, who Caitlin insisted was sleeping beautys daddy. Then finally the big creepy elephant head outside the rainforest cafe. :)

Think the first full day tired out the kids. What do you think? lol

Wednesday 16 February 2011

WOYWW and a bit of a break from disney posts :)

For a bit of a break on disney posts I thought Id do a WOYWW. I used to love doing this when I blogged regularly so hope to get into it again. :)
Well yesterday and today i had a big stash clear out and moe around. But more on that later. First I want to show you the new addition to my desk. :)
I LOVE this tinkerbell clock! Mark bought it for me in disneyland as my Valentine's day gift. It glows as well but hard to photograph that. The tinkerbell book is also a disney buy. :)

This is the reason for my move about. :) Spotted this on a facebook for sale site before our holiday and the woman kindly gave it to us as she was moving and didnt have room for it. Its supposed to be the other way (on its side right now) but the middle bits were perfect for my 12x12 papers and holders, with boxes of flowers, ribbons etc down the side slotting in perfectly. I was stupidly pleased with this, particularly before we just had a desk so the space underneath was just wasted. Having the extra storage means I have moved a few things about, so have more surface space. :)

So this is now my desk. :) Note the lilies my mum bought me for organising the holiday, Smells so nice while sitting on my desk and NOT scrapping. lol. The layout which is currently sitting there has been there nearly a month now. Gonna finish it tomorrow as going to my mums tonight. She recently bought a Wii so Im taking over 'Just dance'. Hoping to burn off some of the disney food as its weight watchers meeting again tomorrow! Going to be a miracle if I've not gained anything. lol. Oh well, it'll all come off eventually.

Back to disney posts tomorrow. :) Might show some layouts I did on the twilight weekend soon too. :)

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Disneyland day two (part one)

Now I started taking photos. lol. After a little lie in (woke the kids at 8:30) we went down to breakfast. Well we tried to, on the way we bumped into this fluffy individual. :) Cameron and Mollie were happy to pose, Caitlin again having none of it. lol.

Breakfast was a typical french fare. Lots of pastries, cold meats and cereals. I ate a daft amount of croissants. Weight watchers out the window! Caitlin had 6 yogurts, honestly 6. Normally limit her to two at home so think she thought she'd won the lottery. lol
Rather than tackle the disneyland park our first day we thought we'd see some of the shows in movie world. To be honest the adults were still worn out from the previous days travel!
Kids posing with the broom from scoerers apprentice, NOT fantasia like my mum insisted. lol

There were loads of bits around the park where you can have you photo taken with statues of characters. Really is a scrappers dream. lol. These are some people (not sure what to call them, agents I think) from Monsters inc, was disappointed there wasn't a Boo statue as Caitlin loves boo but hey ho.

The first ride we went on in Movie world was spinning cars from Cars (funny that, lol) When I first told the kids we were going to disneyland and showed them the booklet there were two rides Cameron wanted to go on, the spinning cars and the runaway mine train. Luckily I told him he's too small for the mine train but was SO excited when he saw the cars. Cant say I was too impressed, they were the exact same as the diesel ride at Thomas land but apprenthy them being cars and not grumpy trains makes all the difference.

This is the new area based on toy story 3. Everything is huge so you feel like a toy (as you can see) There wern't many rides, in fact all we went on was a slinky dog roller coaster, but there were lots of photo ops.

Cameron was VERY impressed to see that the bench he's standing on in this photo is shaped like a bit of brio train track. I was less than impressed with myself when I realised Id put Caitlins jeans on him that morning. Woops. Told you the adults were tired. lol

On the note of tired we decided to watch some shows and headed to Animagic. I saw this when cameron was a baby and LOVED it. Glad to say its not really changed much, it's basically a pitch black show but all the puppets and characters are covered in a neon material which lights up in black light. The kids loved it as it really does look like the fish are flying around above you rather than being on sticks held by guys dressed in black.
After a quick lunch, during which my mum moaned CONSTANTLY that a callipo cost £2.50, we went into the animation center (not called this really but what I call it) The kids love it in here as you can colour in, put your own voice to cartoons etc. Caitlin sat at this touch screen computer for AGES colouring in Thumper (blue and green) and Flounder (red and purple) not quite the traditional colours but she was happy with them. :)

Now to say Mollie is a fussy eater would be an understatement. No sauce, nothing added, everythings got to be plain. So after not eating her plain burger at lucnh we went in search for more food for her. Eventually settling on popcorn, lol. However on our search we bumped into this guy :) One thing I have to say about disneyland is that all the characters were SO sweet and really went out of thier way to pose with the kids and chat to them. Mickey was no different, dancing with Mollie and giving them kisses (Caitlin hid behind my mum) I think it makes such a difference to the kids. :) I've since found out most of them are english which might explain it a bit, lol. When its busier and the french take over its apparently not quite as friendly.

I'll end today's rambing with some pictures from the stars and cars parade. First parade the kids saw and really enjoyed it. :) Next day is the big 'Once upon a dream' parade. :)