ABC Tag

I was tagged a few times and I wanted to answer your questions before the new year, so here it is just in time LOL.

A - Available or single: Totally in love & married to DA MAN
B - Best Friend: I have a few dear friends I cherish but my oldest and dearest friend Angelique
C - Cake or Pie: apple pie !
D - Drink of choice: herbal tea, coke light and apple juice
E - Essential Item you use everyday: My make-up bag ...
F - Favorite color: pink & blue
G - Gummy Bears or worms: Gummy Bears look cuter
H - Hometown: Currently Hoofddorp ;-)
I - Indulgence: chocolate and beauty products
J - January or February: January
K - Kids & Names: 2 boys, Michael & Colin
L - Life is Incomplete Without: Music & Art (in whatever form...)
M - Marriage Date: July 3rd 2002
N - Number of Siblings: 3; a brother and 2 sisters, Casper, Nicole & Anouk
O - Oranges or Apples: oranges (but only those huge ones in the winter)
P - Phobias or Fears: heights in things that move (ie. skilift, ferris wheel ...)
Q - Fav Quote:
Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt.
Laugh like no one is listening and dance like no one is watching.
R - Reason to Smile: The drawings my dh leaves me on the shower door ...
S - Season: spring & summer
T - Tag 3 or 4 people: Liek, Nicole, Mirjam, Mandy (because I think it will make a great scrapsubject for them ....)
U - Unknown Fact about Me: When nervous I chew on my the inside of my cheek .... :-(
V- Vegetable You Don't Like: turnips
W - Worst Habit: I can be quite the busy & loud talker and I am learning to control that better so I can hear what others are saying ...
X - Xrays: plenty uhm my knee (a lot), wrist and appendix
Y - Your Fave Food: Greek, Mexican & Italian
Z - Zodiac Sign: Virgo

A

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to FLORENCE TODAY !

new week, new dare # 4

So many things to share, but first I would like to share our new dare, worked on it over christmas and I really like how it turned out. A sneak preview :



For the rest you know you need to check out the dutch dares blog .....

I've been tagged a few times, had a wonderfull & relaxed xmas and I will share all this with you and more (and I hope you will share too ....) tommorow !.

Happy days to all

Our First Dutch Dare Winner

Yesterday my friend Martine picked a name from a bowl that contained all participants of the dutch dare # 1 and 2. And the winner is Marjolein (dutchie in Canda) ... so happy for her !
I will make a nice RAK for her and send it out right after januari 1st as maildelivery and customs over there is swamped ......

So keep playing along as we have plenty more to come .......

My theme song

Your Theme Song is Back in Black by AC/DC

"Back in black, I hit the sack,I've been too long, I'm glad to be back" Things sometimes get really crazy for you, and sometimes you have to get away from all the chaos.But each time you stage your comeback, it's even better than the last!

What's" Your Theme Song?

I ran, I survived, I am going on

I ran, did the interval thing as Wendy recommended (absolutely never did it before always just dit it) and it only took me about 10 minutes longer than usual. So my first run around Graan voor Visch took 40 minutes, I'm going again tommorow.

We got so much done this weekend, my bathroom looks so much better all in cottonwhite color, we made our new years card (since we aren't going to be on time for xmas cards, we opted for ny cards), put the christmas tree up and cleaned up a bit.

And I learned a lot about judas priest (DH had a heavy metal phase and had it on his ipod), that you can actually run well on paul oakenfold, that we truly are a Bob & Wendy as we work well together, we really treasure these weekends together and not only for the things we can get done, that I can actually crop with other people present (thanks Flo for the lovely afternoon!) cause I got 8 cj pages halfway done and that according to Colin we have a naked tree and his grandparents have a dressed one .....(yes that is LO material !).

The concert we went to was Oletta Adams' christmas show and it was great. Before the break it was her own repertoire, after the break christmas songs. (And if you know me better you'll know I love xmas songs but am only allowed to play them nonstop on both christmas days ...) My mother loved the concert, I could tell because of all the elbows she was giving me ... I love surprising her like this because I know what kind of music touches her and makes her happy and she deserves it ! A great ending to a great weekend !

about cooking & painting (long one ...)

Don't you think this guy is such a sweetie ?



and we have his new book

You see Friday evening we had a Christmas dinner ith DH's work at a castle in woerden ! Well sort of as we got a startercourse every hour starting @ 20.30 (thank god we had a snack @ 18.00) a dj who played music made way before he was born ..... a speech and a lot of employees that I didn't know ... Thank goodness I remembered a few from last times. Anyway they always give a gift at the end and this year it was the kookbook, hmmm I have a feeling about what's going to be in the xmas package this year.

We got in rather late so our plan to start sanding & painting bright and early in the bathroom sort of went up the river really. Tonight we will be pampered by our friends Cor & Irma with dinner and a nice evening so we can pretty much work until we get hungry and really have to go. **edited**Bathroom is almost done, just one more coat of paint & we took a raincheck, C&I forgot our appointment so we went out for falafel which we hadn't done for ages**

Tommorowmorning I'm going for a run (yes you read it correctly) as my sweet friend Wendy has given me a great goal to work for. The Nike Ladies Run 2007 ! I've been in the first, second and third edition but haven't been for quite some time .... And this will be just the thing to get my rythm back (well I hope since I signed up for the 10 km .....LOL). I hope some more of my friends, who run too, will join in, actually I expect one to join in because it's mandatory .... We'll see April 1st (and it won't be a fools day ), here's a bit of proof that once I was a bit of a runner, can you spot me anywhere ? LOL





After I've caught my breath I'm going for a crop at my friend Flo's house, oooh full day of scrapping I hope to get something done, but hey you know me LOL. And then off to a concert with mommy and I can't tell you where we are going as I don't want to spoil the surprise for her, I'll let you know on monday though.


And how you might wonder can she do all this with 2 demanding M&M's ? THEY ARE NOT HERE !!! LOL. They are spending the weekend with their grandparents, it was time for their monthly sleepover. This time in the new house so Michael was pretty excited ! So here's a little shout out for my parents :

Thanks you guys for doing this for us, you know how much we appreciate it !

my quote of the week # 3

Y'know, you can't please all the people all the time...

new week new dare # 3

The new dutch dare # 3 is live, I took inspiration from this painting from Rembrandt van Rijn - The philosopher in meditation ...

Hope you get inspirations from our dares and play along cause that's what scrapbookings all about fun !

My dudes ROCK

Yesterday I had an unexpected crop at my house with a group of scrappin' galls from my yahoo group. They were supposed to go to a wellknown scrapstore but due to circumstances this had to be cancelled, I offered (after checking with my guy first) my living room and giant croptable. I didn't know everyone, so it was fun to put some more faces to names as they came in around 10.30 ! We chatted, had some of my clubsandwiches, Andrea brought some nice cakes, some of us scrapped, some of us scrapped a lot (well you know in which catagory you can place me LOL), I showed off my new cricut and we tried out some designs/sizes and had fun playing, some LO's were made, xmas decorations, cj pages and a few diaries for 2007 and they swapped a lot of gorgeous circle journals ! I even got an idea for one, so who would like to play ? Just let me know and I'll figure out how they workith sending around and all that !

I forgot to take some pic's but thank god Paule & Marinka brought their camera's ..... Here are Paule's pics:

The dudes were great they went simming in the morning, to the grandparents for drinks and then came home. I thought they would go play outside for a while, but no they wanted to chill, play in their rooms (and ours) so they did. Ate chips, played computer games, ate cookies, read books, ate ice cream (hey I got the sheets to prove it....), watched a dvd and Ed even got to do some IT stuff. Every now and again Colin would pop down to check out what we were doing, we didn't see Ed a lot (only for the food & drinks) and even Michael came down after a while (since he did want to pick his own ice cream ....) but only for a very short moment.

The last girls left around 17.00 and we treated ourselves to patat (french fries) and some yummy things to go with that (so today we had to cook for a change as 2 days of fast food is against the rules LOL), we read the Wizard of Oz (a short version) and they were in bed by 7 pm (we were in by 8 pm).

A good day for all....

with a little help from my blogfriends

Yay tonight I am going to scrap the next dutch dare .... Finally after a week of only doing admin I get to play, having some photo's printed this afternoon and then it's just me, my supllies (lol do you know how much I have ....)and well uhm inspiration I guess....

Since my head is full of stuff that needs to be done, I need to delegate some things.... how about a little dare ...

I dare you to find me THE perfect new font for my all new and improved (but yet to be made) website & logo.

Requirements are easy really, it needs to be readable, free, hip, funky, fresh and not on another scrapwebsite (oh and better than the ones I have found so far) so it will to go with the new site.

The prize .... hmmmmmm I am going to start collecting some fun things like ribbons, buttons and ehm oooh I have so much fun stuff to share so I'm not telling you too much ....

my quote of the week #2

"Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times."

so watcha think ???

With a lot of help, thanks Francine & Ed ... I have a new banner ......

Aren't these FAB ?

Seems to be my new word nowadays FAB ....

You know Francine came over for a photoshoot, and she ROCKS at it. Here's some of my favourites (hard to choose from so many of them (93 !) ... BTW she didn't chop off parts, picasa did ....LOL.

I've been real good with my list of chores, halfway through my admin and mess. Hope to get some more done tommorow and next week...

We celebrated Sinterklaas this weekend, and as I was wrapping everything it struck me that we didn't buy a lot of pressies this year. Actually not at all, now we are also celebrating christmas but we only got the boys one gift (and ed's parents added a present and for christmas my parents added a present) so the bag of pressies was half full. Wow last year we had 2 .... it just struck me that this year we were very consious in what we were buying and made a list, rather than just randomly buying and then ending up with too much. We only bought games btw for everyone, I got twister, Ed a plugnplay commodore, Michael junior scrabble and spongebob for his gameboy advance (well it's a loaner from his uncle but I don't think he's giving it back ....), Colin "koetje Boe" and a 2nd hand vtech laptop (he's getting a bit more expensive gift for christmas, so that's why this as a cheapie pressie ....). The boys were really happy and didn't even notice getting less presents as they both got something that was on their list. Didn't make very good pictures so I'm not sharing LOL.

Tempted by Elwira I did the tarot test

hmmmmm like this outcome I must say ......

You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

World Aids Day

Did you know December 1st is World Aids day ? I do as the aids foundation is one of the charities I support !

Uhm hello anybody there ?

My dare # 2 lo "THIS" is now officially finished, I had to post a "half-finished product" for the dare as I thought that would be better than none at all. But I'm happy to report that I finished it, just one day to late. Let me know what you think !

And now for the next few evenings I will have to do all the things that have been lying around, like admin, adding products to the shop (some hambly rubons ....... lovely colored/clear buttons, christmas colored velvet ribbon & scottish ribbon with soft pastel colors coming right up !), sending of some orders.

Oh and in the daytime I will have to get my messy home back into shape ....

Some more sharing

The new dutch dare has been posted and I love how everyone has their own interpretation of the dare. Mine isn't quite finished, I was up until 00.30 as I didn't get my eureka moment until 23.45 and then I was on a roll, unfortunately that's a little late for me. I will be finishing it of tonight !

Something else I wanted to share with you is that I received some sad news yesterday that the sister of my friend passed away after being severely ill for quite some time. She was much too young and left 2 children and a loving sister behind. We are sending lot's of love and hugs to my friend & her family and our thoughts are with them a lot !

So much to share

with you but I will spread it out over the week. Don't want to overload you with lots of fun projects, photo's etc.

So for today I want to congratulate the lovely and talented Birgit with this LO I made for her . Hope you like it, I added a little Hambly for your viewing pleasure ;-)

All about scrapping this weekend

I have loads of scrapping to do on the evenings this weekend, make a birthday lo, make 8 pages for a cj (wel we know I can't get that done in a weekend), make a lo with one of the beautifull Hambly Screen Print overlays I got in (can't wait for the rubons to arrive hehe) and make a LO for the dare by tuesday (maybe it's best to combine the last 2) ....

Today is cleaning up day since my girls are coming tommorow for a nice lunch and lots of scrapping (let's hope I get something done that I mentioned above while they're here) !
This afternoon a big opening of the remodelled building Ed works at with 2 surprise guests so the boys (yes Ed too) will be having lots of fun.

Dutch dare blinkie

We've had a lot of response about the dutch dares, and all good but ... we've also been asked about the cute blinkie. Can you post it when you post a dare ? Well we aim to please and my DH made a blinkie especially for YOU dutch dare lover to use whenever you like and where you like.

This is the url for your downloading pleasure :

http://www.memorylanescrapbooking.net/images/ILoveDD.gif

Keep playing with us, cause that's what it's all about sharing the fun !

Alliance Away

Ok maybe you've read about the scrapbook alliance away of how wonderfull it was, the bonding, the laughs, the cries, the scrapbooking, the food etc. on other blogs, but ...let me tell you the initiation was hard work ! I paid in blood, sweat and tears and I'm not only richer through experience(although I am missing Flo's pressie, I hope when I unpack more I'll find it ...) but also poorer, the fee to get in was ridiculous. Didn't know I had to pay so much, but hey all in the name of getting published right ? it was all worth it. Oh and I was so surprised when our secret guest showed up for a surprise workshop, so amazing how she inspired us to embrace our imperfection and go with the flow....

LOL just kidding hehe, so happy it was organized, Anita you rock ! and I wish I could be in the UK to give you and your sister lots of hugs right now ! Girls thanks for being patient taking my picture, next time I'll be the supermodel like you beautifull darlings ! Thanks for all the sharing, like Bonette said, we are all richer to have such great new friends.

The projects we all made were great, even the last minute ones ;-) and I was amazed about the speed of some people, as you all know I am a scrapbooking snail .... but I finished some mini albums. So thankfull that my husband is such a cool dude and has no problem staying home with the kids ... again ... again and uhm again ... so I can do what I love. He rocks too !
I am awaiting my dvd with photos (yes I packed almost everything I have but forgot a dvd/cd to burn the photo's) but it should be here tommorow with thanks to Birgit.

So I will share my fave's but here's a great group photo of FAB scrapbooking babes:

WOW

The beautiful HAMBLY SCREEN PRINTS have arrived (7 kinds of different overlays !), check Memory Lane Scrapbooking out tommorow evening !

FRANCINE took FAB photo's of us on Friday !

ALLIANCE away was awesome !

More tommorow ....... as I'm soooooooooooo tired ................

Scrapbook Alliance

I have been looking forward to this weekend for some time .....

I have been asked to join a great group of scrapping babes for a weekend away. We will be eating, scrapping, laughing, getting to know each other and scrapping some more. For me the focus will be on finishing boxes full of unfinished projects and that will be so great because then I will have time to work on all those ideas that have been brewing for some time.

Now most of the girls have prepared for the weekend and have packed accordingly, but me for those of you who know me well know I hate to go away (daytrip, holiday or any other activity outside of my house) and not have the necessities with me .... So this is what happens (and I didn't even add my suitcase in the picture ...) .....



But hey thank god we have a big car (peugeot 307 SW) so I can bring everything I like (and even pick up a girl or 2 on the way (hehe Corinne & Flo you have been warned) oh but I'm leaving our cat Dash @ home .....LOL.

CU after the weekend !

ps. Thanks so much everyone for being so enthousiastic about the dutch dares blog, it makes all the hard work worth while and we hope that it doesn't end there and that you all join in the fun .....

Out of the closet

To satisfy all the curious blog palls I have out there, we're out of the closet..... come on out and play !

Are you the curious type of scrapper?

Just when we thought we had it all here in the Netherlands…. Flower fields,
waterways, tulips, clogs, bicycles, canals, cows, windmills, cheese, more tulips and a rapidly growing number of scrappers... We realized there was only one thing missing.....

Wanna find out what it is and satisfy your curiosity? Be on the lookout for a post here on Wednesday!

Dutch Halloween ?!

We have our own kinda halloween thing over here and it's called St. Martin ..... No spooky things though but this day is celebrated in the evening of November 11. Children go by the doors with paper lanterns and candles, and sing songs about St. Martin and about their lantern in return for a treat, very similar to the American tradition of Halloween. The boys made cute lanterns @ school & the creche, we practiced the songs so they were all ready !

Since it was quite cold last year I really bundled the boys up for their walk, Colin was so excited as this year he knew what was happenning. Last year it was all new to him but he went along with it because he loves to sing..... It was quite windy (storm even) but at least they weren't going to be cold !



Ed always goes out with the boys,this year we went with some new neighbours, and they had loads of fun. I stay at home to give candy to the kids that come by our door (and I love it !). They started out at 18.15 and stayed out for an hour at least ! This is what they came back with



I warmed them up with some tea, they ate a few treats and after brushing their teeth extra good they went to bed @ 19.30 (wow it's really late mommy, it's so dark .... haha)

Happy Birthday to .....

the lovely and talented Corinne Delis and especially for her I created my first freestyle lo..... so whatcha think ?



Have a great day C and I hope you get spoiled a little more. BTW I have to tell you a little secret, from the first time we "met" you reminded me of someone but I haven't told you this yet. Hope you think it's a compliment but you remind me of this actress (Stockard Channing).

A Secret project

Something is bubbling @ Memory Lane Scrapbooking…. The design team has thought up something fun and it’s taking more shape everyday. We’ve started it up and it will be launched next week so for now it is our little secret project … for now… but not for long….

Welcome to the world

Little Liam Conner Anderson











My favourite niece Patricia gave birth in the UK on November 1st to a small healthy boy ! So happy to hear (and see) they are both doing very well !

TOOT for my dt member

Mandy; she won an organized scrap room through a contest that a dutch magazine called SCRAP! had organized. How awesome is that .... ??? Plus you can find her in the latest Creatief met Foto's (another dutch mag) with a cute mini album about cats. So happy for her (and a little jealous since my scrap studio is still nowhere near finished :-( but hey I will have to go over to hers I guess LOL)

I've been a bit busy

But with what ? Wel even though I had a weeks holiday I have been working my b.... off.

All products that I bought recently are all in the webshop, all the new workshops are on the site, most of the demo models have been made and oh yeah I've been playing with the boys every now and then too ...

Did some scrapping with my friend Wendy & Martine on wednesday evening but can't show it yet.

On Thursday we went to the theater with the boys to see the musical "Kikker in the clouds" which we almost missed due to a power shortage. Luckily the power went on right before the second show and we were allowed to exchange our tickets for that show (we had tickets for the 1st show). After that we went to dinner @ Burger King so great fun for all.

On friday my friend Martine came round with her boys and we made some altered mini books with them and cupcakes. Great for the boys very tiring "workshop" for us haha.

Oh yeah and I finally sind up as a member for a wellness company of which I really LOOOOVE the products. As I am usually the tipe of try before you totally get hooked (just like with the items for my shop) I tried a lot of their products and they are really good. If you're interested in learning more about them take a look at the Melaleuca products and if you'd like to try some let me know. As a member I get a discount on their products.

Now I've heard most scrappers are stuck with scrappers block, lost mojo and such, fortunately I'm not one of them. So how are you and you're mojo doing ?

rollercoaster

Yes my life is a bit of a rollercoaster now and then, but I'm talking about the real thing here (a small one though).
We went to the Koningin Julianatoren (yes again LOL), but hey the weather was great and it's only opened for a bit longer and instead of a visit to a Zoo, which we usually do together we went here. We had a blast with our holiday pals, thanks for a fun day Yo, Freddie, Charel, Tijmen, Tobias, Henk, Mariska, Jurre & Milan !

Since you've seen plenty of photo's from our last visit I thought these would be fun to share as we didn't go near the rollercoaster last time.....

309 euro's

and this is what it looks like ......



haha and I spent it all in one place too (2 skirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 shirt, 1 blouse and 1 gilet kindathingie) haven't spent this much in one shoppingspree ever I believe ! One thing though, I didn't balance out the top's and bottom's so I have to get some tops next month. Oh and some black boots too. And some new pj's for a weekend away next month.... OOOh so much fun things to buy and not enough budget....

13 is the magic number

Some things I haven't gotten around to sharing yet and this is the first one :

Michael had a sponsorrun last friday (the 13th) to raise money for a monkeybar of some sorts. He ran 13 laps, we were very proud and made a lot of photo's of course. Still amazes me on how many parents are camera less on these kinds of events. It is usually us, the headmaster or a teacher and 1 or 2 more parents .... Wel we made enough photo's of the other grades to compensate LOL. Here are some pic's to give you an impression .....

My girls

You can check out my new design team here ....

Happy Birthday Francine !

Happy 23rd Birthday ;-)

I scrapblifted your "Alsjeblieft" LO, hope you like it !



Journaling:
Even before your mom started Scrapbooking you were trained for the camera. Once we had joked, say cheese while taking your photographs and since then you called out cheese for every photo. Sitting on the queens throne in front of Alice’s curious labyrinth @ Disneyland, it was taking us a little longer to take a decent photo, lots of people kept walking in front of the camera. So after a few tries and you patiently calling out cheese, you started yelling it louder and louder and other tourists were laughing with us … because you looked so cute and were having so much fun yelling cheese from that huge throne!

So cool

Was hopping along by favorite blogs and I found this on Nat's blog !
An instruction for a freestyle stampworkshop, you really should check it out !
I am definately going to try all this looks like so much fun ! Thanks Nat for all the great interviews and things like this !

impressed by an oldie

Been so busy this week trying to get everything organized to present the new dt & a newsletter, update the shop, think up new workshops oh and do some scrapping too LOL. So that's why I didn't post a lot this week.
I should be presenting the girls next week if all goes well ... so stay tuned for that.

Last night I took my mother to a Janis Ian theatreconcert and she had a blast ! (i could tell because when she kept poking an elbow in my side, a sure sign she's having fun & is excited....)



After the concert she came to the lobby to sign cd's & ticket stubs how awesome is that. Never seen prince, lenny or mary j blige do that.... anyhoooooooooooooo this scrapbooker didn't think of bringing her camera (didn't fit in my mini purse) and hey who expected a photo opp. @ a concert ? So I used my mobile (but hey the lighting is just horrible so so is the photo ....) and I will probably use the above photo from internet to scrap about this.



A few things that I thought was so great about the concert were, it brought me back to my childhood (my mother always had music in our house, she was quite the hippie until I was about 12 so Janis Ian and Carol King are no strangers to me ...), she told all kind of stories inbetween the songs and this story is one that touched me in particular, that her voice is still as amazing at 55 as it was when she was in her 20's. I was very impressed !

Birthday lift for Revlie

This weekend was Revlie's birthday so a bunch of her friends made her a card or lifted a lo of hers. I started this on Sunday @ Francine's and finished it last night.... Really happy on how it turned out !



Journaling is in dutch about how I felt about certain things on a moment in time in 2006.

De laatste kaart die ik verstuurd heb:
Een gekochte voor mijn peettante.
Wat was mijn lunch:
2 bruine en 1 witte boterham,
met smeerkaas en kaas.
Mijn lievelingsliedje van dit jaar:
Ordinary People – John Legend
Wat ik nu aan heb:
Een spijkerrokje en een zwart hemdje met geborduurde bloemetjes en zwarte sandaaltjes.
Mijn favoriete tv programma:
Alle CSI’s, Desperate Housewives, Extreme home makeover, Grey’s Anatomy, L&O Criminal Intent, L&O special victims unit
Het parfum dat ik draag:
Alec van Ariane Inden .
Mijn laatstgelezen boek:
Clean & Simpel Scrapbooking van Cathy Zielske
Iets dat ik net geleerd heb:
Sommige mensen zijn niet zo aardig als ze lijken.
Van binnen voel ik mij:
Jonger dan ik ben !
Mijn laatste telefoontje:
De moeder van een vriendje om te vertellen dat we naar het strand waren geweest en daarom niet eerder hadden gereageerd op haar voicemail.
Wat ik vandaag gedaan heb:
Naar het strand in Noordwijk geweest met mijn vriendin Martine en de boys. Lekker gedouched met Michael & Colin en samen gegeten.

He wants to be an artist when he grows up ...

But my baby (well baby... he's 5,5...) already is an artist!

Love this quote ... # 1

There's a framed poster in the hallway at the school where I work, that makes me smile every time I walk by it :

je begrijpt pas iets helemaal wanneer je het aan je grootmoeder kunt uitleggen - Albert Einstein

translation :

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother - Albert Einstein.

Found the translation here.

Tough decisions have been made

Over a yummy lunch (if I do say so myself) !



Check your mail ladies !

Deadline is approaching

The deadline for the Memory Lane Scrapbooking design team call is approaching rapidly and I'm happy to say we have some great entries so far !! Very curious to see what we will be getting in the mailbox over the next few days !

This Sunday we'll have to make some tough decisions @ our design team lunch as we all have our fave's and since I have no number in my head as to how many this could be a fun outcome LOL. But mainly we'll be having some serious fun at this lunch & crop !

Saturday & Sunday update

On Saturday, after the Elsie F. workshop we went to the beach, although the weather was a bit strange we decided to take the chance, and it was great ! Michael brought his friend Tijmen and they had lots of fun and we found some great crab(parts) and seashells.



On Sunday we went to the Koningin Julianatoren a fun park for kids (big and small) and had a great day. We were unexpectadly surprised at how affordable this park was, the food and snacks and you get coffee and tea for free ! Next time we are definately packing lighter ! The park opens @ 10.00 but that's only the entrance, @ 10.30 the big mouse Jul comes and cuts the ribbon so that all the children can enter the park. And you know what WE WERE ON TIME, woohoo. For those of you who know us personally you know that is quite an achievement ....... So that's why I HAD to take a photo of my watch ..... Michael was in his sulky I am not treated equally and I'm tired mood stoday, so he's not too happy on all the photo's but thank god these were just a few moments throughout the day. The boys went in just about all the rides they could go in, and were really tired at the end of the day. The park closes at 17.00 so that's a reasonable time and we could be home at a normal time. They didn't fall asleep in the car but on monday morning I had to wake Michael @ 7.30 and Colin got out of bed @ 7.45 !! Here are some photo's:



I was a bit freaked out in the pherris wheel (yes I know it wasn't a big one), I just don't like to be high in the air going very slow and rocking a bit. It either has to go real fast or stand still ! So Ed was having a ball taking photo's on which I tried to look normal but was not happy at all.

Elsie

The Elsie workshop "Culture Study" was so great. She's actually not like you would expect from her photo's & lo's, almost shy. She has a very soft voice, really modest and very complementary too.
I didn't finish the album yet, as it was quite a project in so little time but I really enjoyed making it. Will show it soon (I hope) but I may take it with me to my scrapbook retreat in november ....

Some of the people that make me happy !

The next day things always are better, and so they are for me. THX everyone for the sweet messages, tears and smiles were seen and my afternoon became better and better. Here's some of the people that make me happy (photo's courtesy of my sweet friend Wendy, sorry for some of the chopped off parts courtesy of Picasa2....)






And I'm working hard on collecting all the stuff for the Elsie workshop on saturday (@ 10.00) but I'm also working on the homework for my 1 week in my life book. Hard work in the prep scrap department as you can imagine.

Here's some pic's I will be taking with me .....

E C H O

I am so grumpy (chagrijnig), Gone to bed too late for too many nights in a row, my own fault I know, but I really can't do it or this happens..... The weather sucked all morning totally everything I was airing is soaked, I am not getting any comments on my blog for 2nd post in a row, I am overweight (ok only 3 kilo's but hey on me those xtra kilo's always give me an xtra row around my waist), my house is a mess even though I have been spending every free moment to unclutter, we forgot the little diary for the crow at my mothers so I had to return it to school without it and I am so behind on all kinds of projects and I'm taking it out on everyone (ie. my mom and the kids). Boy do I feel like a great person today ....
**** ok I'm such a dope, people have been leavind messages, I appearantly installed that i want to moderate the comments, I had like 17 posts.... gotta find where I can turn that off. My first smile of the day when I found this out .....and then tears as I was touched by so many sweet posts ***

Funfilled weekend for all

On Thursday Michael brought home a friend who would be staying over, meet "zwaai de logeerkraai" ( Zwaai the stayover crow) school project about caring for a guest. Zwaai was lucky as we had a sportsday (see him hanging in the bag ?) on friday and then the M&M's went to grandma Xena and grandpa Jan for the weekend so he was sure to have loads of fun just as the kids alway have.


Saturday was fun for me as Martine and I were at the arts & crafts market in Hoofddorp to promote MLS and scrapbooking, even though the new scrapbookstore opened in Hoofddorp (hmmm never received any news of this although I had registered at SAG ....) and the market in Rijswijk was open on this same day we still had a lot of great people that came by !



I had a school reunion in the evening. We met at a tapas restaurant in Delft (this is where Angelique and I went to school at the time), then went for drinks and later dancing. Had such a wonderfull time, and while looking at school pictures it turned out we could have invited a much larger group because it turned out some of us still knew more classmates than they thought they did. So we will be planning this again but bigger, and I hope in the meantime we'll repeat this evening !




And my dh, he enjoyed the quiet .....

So how was your weekend ?

Growing up too fast

Wednesday was Michael's first swimming lesson again since the summer holiday started. He almost had his first ribbon before the holiday but had to practice floating on his back. And on his 1st lesson he got the ribbon, a proud moment !



Saturday was his last ski lesson, and he was skiing so much better than the at the beginning of his advanced course. So controlled, another certificate and medal in the pocket !!



Michael called me at work on August 16th to tell me one of his front teeth was a bit wobbly. Today September 10th he pulled it out during dinner because it was in the way while he was eating. Wow toothfairy time already and he's only 5,5 ....







He's growing up fast ...