Family Home

It was really great to have the kids home last weekend. Very busy but special week.

Scrapbooking wise, I haven't done a real lot this week. Sarah has been home for a weeks holiday (well really a study break). Life has been hectic for her at work at the moment with a promotion and therefore she has had to train someone to replace herself. Meanwhile she is also trying to complete some study, so as she was coming home last weekend and then had to be here again this weekend for her friends 21st, she decided to take a week off and come home and try and catch up on some study as well as trying to get an assignment done.

We have had a great week, both her and I booked into one of Ali Russell's a scrapbooking classes at Embellished on Monday night. This is the first time we have had the opportunity to go to a scrapbooking class together and we were both very happy with our layouts, which I will share below.
The photo on my layout was just a random shot we took when we held the camera out in front of us. Really happy with the way it turned out.

Sarah's used a blurred half photo of herself she found in my box of photos and considering that she doesn't often get much of a chance to scrapbook these days, she did a great job. I think the class really inspired her to get a bit more done.

She enjoyed it so much that when on Tuesday night while I scrapped with a friend making cards. she decided to cover a little journal that I had here. I guess you could kinda say she scraplifted my CJ cover, but it looks terrific, and she made a special pocket inside to keep notes, and then used my flourish stamps to stamp each page of the journal. She is so fired up we went off to Spotlight on Thursday to buy some more little notebooks so that she can make some more as gifts. She wanted to get half a dozen but unfortunately they only had one journal left. Here's hoping she can find some back home in Brissie.

Meanwhile, whilst she was busy covering her journal, my friend Ann and I made some cards. Now I have to say this was a totally new experience for me, and I can't say that all my cards are original. I have to say though that I have been really inspired by Ange Churchill's cards, and the "I love you" card is a scraplift of one of Ange's cards. Ange does classes every Wednesday night at Embellished. As yet I haven't managed to make one of her classes but I hope to one day. She has truely inspired me to give card making a bit of a go, especially since Gayle Murray (from Scrap of Faith) also issued the challenge a couple of weeks ago to make a card or two out of your scraps each time to scrap a layout. The designs of my "Hello" card and "Miss You" cards were also inspired by cards I have seen else where. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I saw them or whose designs they were, but I am happy with the way they have turned out.

This week I also managed to finish my "Sign In" pages on my Scrap of Faith CJ. Have just on finished my pages now and then I can get it posted off (hopefully by Monday) Will take of photo of my pages when I finally manage to get them done.

That is about all I have to share scrapbooking wise this week. Have to say though that last weekend was a pretty awesome weekend for us, with all our kids home. This doesn't often happen so it was very special. Now the reason they were all home too was pretty special as Chloe decided that she wanted to be baptised. Sarah was going to be here already as we also had our woman's retreat last weekend, so she had planned all along to be home for that but then when Chloe decided that she wanted to be baptised, Pete flew home especially to be here for her. It was a very special afternoon as our whole church family got together to witness it and I was so proud of Chloe as she stood and shared her faith journey with everyone. This was an awesome thing for her to do as she absolutely hates public speaking. She even had a couple of her friends from school come along to witness it too. We managed to get a couple of family photos, so I thought I would share one. Not only have we managed to scrapbook together this week, the girls and I have had a chance to go shopping, do some baking together, watch a movie, and just generally enjoy hanging out together. We even got to stand outside on Wednesday night and marvel at the eclipse of the moon, and gaze at the star filled sky. What an awesome God we have.

The other exciting news we got this week was the announcements of the winners of the " 2007 International Secondary Schools Digital Design Challenge" Steve entered the school and a few of his students into this competition, (he did this whilst we were on holidays) and the school tied for Overall Winners of the competion with two of his students taking out first place in the architectural category entitled "Spiritual Space for Function with or without Water". Both of these students also took out the "Best Overal Design Award" for the whole competion. As you can imagine, Steve has been on cloud nine since the announcement was made on Wednesday. The local paper here is even running a story on it. I am very proud of you Darl, I know that you share a passion for seeing your students do well, and you spend way above the hours you need to going back to school to help and support your students. I know that they love the course and are highly motivated, and winning a competion like this really is the icing on the cake for you all. Congratulations also to Jack and Miranda as well. You guys deserve to be very proud of your work.

Chloe has a big day ahead of her today. About 10 days ago she was called in for a group assessment with Woolworths, last week she got called in for a second interview and then found out that she had the job. She is going to be a Service Cashier and starts tomorrow. She has about 14-15 hours of work this next week, and she is so excited thinking about the wonderful pay packet she is going to get. Chloe's only means of income previously was the odd $10 here and there for ironing or odd jobs that she did at home. Both Steve and I are very thankful that she will now be earning her own income - think she might be in for a bit of a shock - doesn't go as far as you want it too. Will have to take some photos of her in her work Uniform when she gets it and post next time.

Sarah and I have some serious shopping to do tomorrow whilst Chloe is at work. We have Father's Day presents to buy, birthday presents to buy and awedding presents to get. Hope we can also find time to fit in a coffee also.

I really want to thank all you lovely people who stop by and say hi and comment on my blog. It is so nice and encouraging to see your messages, and I want to let you know that I appreciate the fact that you take the time to say Hi.

So many things to be thankful for this week

1. Loving and supportive family

2. Wonderful church family who are there to support and encourage us.

3. First day of spring today - new life - new growth, may it also be like that in our lives.

4. Fun times together as a family

5. Music in our hearts and souls.