Well hello there 2013

I don't think i have any readers left after my dreadful lack of posting in the last year (only 9).
Catching up just wasn't do-able so i've decided to let go, you can't always be a 10 and that's ok too. This is what I've learned in 2012 ! Since my word for 2012 was Embrace I'd say that I chose pretty well.

I've decided not to make new years resolutions for this year, rather I've chosen to make a bucketlist, much more fun and less pressure to live up to (inspired by the greatest blogger & mom I know). Some of the things I have been thinking up/pondering about whether to add to my list are getting a small tattoo (hey I'm 42 so why not) and trying insanity workout (DH found the program) = to be continued ....

Definately going on my bucketlist are ;

• Help sea turtles
• Watch baby sea turtles make their way to the sea
• a trip to NY without the kids (dudes are not happy with this one)
• a trip to NY with the kids (LOL)
• joining Geef jij het door (the whole family is joining btw)
• completing granny a day for a year (cheating a bit on this one since I tried this last year so I already have a few)
• joining in and sticking to it FMSphotoaday 
• take part in a 5 km run possibly 10
• organizing a small local creative market
• Visiting all the Dutch Islands (Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog)
• Mudflat hiking (Wadlopen)
• cuddle a seal
• see some of the worldwonders The Aurora Boreali,  Great Pyramid of Giza,  the great barrier reef, Grand Canyon, Stonehege, pyramids, Colloseum.
•  Book a Romantic trip with my big dude
• Vacation in Hawaii, Mauritius, the ABC Islands
• Actually make things I pin

 I like my list so far, what do you think ?

~ 9 years old ~ Oh my !

Congratulations sweet cuddly boy of mine, every day you become more independent, easygoing, smarter, humerous, happy and special  !

Our Wedding day

10 years ago I married my best friend and we shared that special day with friends and family, looking through the wedding day pics I remember it wasn't the perfect day I had envisioned (not good when you're a controlfreak) but spending it with loved friends and family made it perfect for me and I let it all go..... I have been in  <3 with my husband longer than I have been without him, pretty special !

 

Forever in my heart

A sketch for the Dutch Dares goes online today and I scrapped a very special photo of my grandmother and me on my wedding day. Today she would have turned 92 but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. But she is forever in my <3, the only grandmother I had and i think about her and miss her every day.

I really like how it turned out, haven't had that in a while. I put the eulogy that I held at her funeral in the envelope, words I never want to forget......

11 already ???!!!

Congratulations sweet son of mine, every day you are becoming more wonderful, goofy, happy & special person !

My Nanna ~ Mijn Oma

My nanna (Ali Rosbergen - van der Ende) passed away last friday, she was 89, and we will be saying our goodbye's to her today.

It's hard to be honest I've been numb since friday .... I will miss her, she was the only Oma I had and for the boys it's their first loss to deal with so that's pretty difficult too.

I've had many sweet messages when i told people via FB, and one person said this and I thought it was so true as I did feel that. I hope when I have grandchildren I can make them feel this too, I know my parents make sure my boys do !

Grandpa's and grandma's are special, they are unconditionally proud of their grandchildren and as a grandchild you feel that.

This is a totally spontanious picture a friend took on my wedding day as I was chatting with my oma.

Organizing a household

So we've been trying hard for the last year to get our house decluttered and more organized and I must say (I haven't thought this for the longest time) but we're making progress. It's a very slow and painfull one you see it's going way to slow for my taste... But even with baby steps we will get there one day.

One of the things that helped us get on track this last year was a menu planner. After using it this past year and me switching to low carb food the planner just wasn't working as it could so we adapted it, made a dry erase version by putting it in a frame and there you have it our menu planner 2.0. If anyone's interested I can email it to you so you can adapt to suit it to your lifestyle.



We also made a home management binder ( I was so inspired with the ones I saw on pinterest) in which every bit of info we could need that is at our fingertips (which would normaly be everywhere and nowhere) . Things like emergency contact numbers, finance info, insurance refund forms, stamps, id & library cards, discount coupons, school information, fave take out menu's, adres list etc.

We also made a new calendar for 2012 ourselves. The family planner that we usually bought changed in format and we didn't like it one bit. We couldn't find one that was similar or if it was that fitted our budget (purchase and shipping costs :( were too much) so again we made one ourselves. It's based on this calendar below (i will show our version as soon as we've assembled it) and if you're interested I can email it to you, again so you can adapt it to suit your lifestyle and family names.



And instead of buying the boys a weekly planner, they will be getting a dry erase version (still in concept) with their chores on it so they can check them off and re-use it the next week. Less paper :) Will share when they are done.

Gwen McCrae Keep The Fire Burning

22 years and we still keep the fire burning

One little Word

I am aiming to work hard on my one little word this year, I chose the word EMBRACE.

I want to embrace that I cannot be perfect, embrace that I can let go more and let the flow take me along, embrace my loved ones more, embrace the fun things in life more, embrace the slow proces of decluttering my house (Rome was not built in a day i am told), embrace blogging again (looking at my stats I have been blogging less and less since 2006 when I started), embrace that I have to say NO even if people don't like it (i cannot be friends with everyone), embrace my blog more, embrace my body more, embrace 2012 !

What's your word for 2012 ?

Dutch Dare #85 a Q&A

I have no clue if there is anyone still reading my blog (leave me a comment if u do ) since I've been slacking in the blogdept bigtime .... ???

I blame facebook, goodreads & pinterest, it's so easy to keep everyone updated with my life through short bursts of info and/or pics there that I forget to update here ....

So there's a big gap between june and november which I will try to update over the next week !

Until then I leave you with my most current layout for the dutch dare of this month, a Q&A that was a lot of fun to work with !




If you like to scrap, please join our dare and show us your work. Who knows you might win a guest dt spot or a fab RAK !

Give away @ the vintage pearl

Trying my hardest to win a certificate from the vintage pearl, they have a fab giveaway going on, you can win a gift certificate of 75 dollars ! I would <3 to win her messy nest necklace and square names with <3 necklace. I never win give aways so I've got my fingers crossed !

If I could choose again I'd still choose you...

Happy 22nd anniversary babe !

May update

Stuff that happened in Daan's life this month (photo & info overload):

Ed finally tried his first cakepop and was surprised he liked it more than my cupcakes .... pffff

Queensday was a bit of a dissapointment, my total score has never been so low; 4 boxes of embroidery floss & 2 tupperware items.... I'm going to Alkmaar next year with Corinne Delis ;)

I went to the Beautician for the first time in years, i used to go every month but since the kids this became less and less. It was only a basic appointment but I definately want to go again and for an extensive one soon !

My paypall account was hacked, that is not a joke people ... It takes all kinds of hassle to get this fixed !

The boys took part in the peanutball school tournament, they won :) Although Ed, who played coach for both their teams, told the boys all games were a draw ;) They loved being the best in their team and sometimes it feels great to rock and show off for your classmates.

I went to the springmarket in Heemstede with my mom, sun was shining, it was fun ! Said hi to Danielle Muit-Krusel who was working there and ran into my friend Leonieke, it was a huge market with a wide variety of stalls.

We gave the garage a good reorganisation, basically it was a lot of trash and putting shelves in to give things a new place; we can finally fit all of our bikes.

We watched a bunch of movies; Toy story 3 (1/2), the hobbit, TRON, transporter 3, SITC 2, Soulmen, the wolfman and Cadillac Records.

We spent the weekend in germany for mom's bday, it was great to spend some time with my aunt & uncle and their kids. We went siteseeing, shopping and had a bbq. Funny thing was that my brother and his girlfriend drove up with us and the kids went a day earlier with my parents, turns outthere's no difference between having them on the backseat or our kids LOL just as quiet ... They really should stop making out in public, but since they're so young & in love and such a cute couple, they're forgiven ....



Colin <3 any kind of school sports activity that is offered so when they asked who wanted to be in the waterpolo schooltournament he couldn't wait and they did real well, they came in 3rd ! there were about 29 teams in their age category (but since Colin skipped a grade he was by far the youngest) so that's awesome ! He was really tired as they started around 18.00 and the last match was @ 22.00 ....



Made a bunch of felt hearts, cause i fell in love with Revlie's forest of felt hearts. Just need to find some time to attach them to sticks to make a forest.....



At 40 years old I still have never been to the Zuiderzeemuseum, so we wanted to do something cultural and took the kids. It was fun, and not so busy so we got a great tour in one of the fishers family homes, the kids got to lie in a bedstead and play some oldfashioned kids games.



The kids had a schooltrip to Archeon, i volunteerd to go along accompanying Colin & a few classmates. We saw almost everything there was and did some fun things like make fire, drink tea from a fire, make pre historic jewelry, repair pots, played a viking game, archery, make a felt bracelet and speer throwing. I gave the kids some extra lunch because the lunch provided wasn't enought and I was the best, according to the kids....



The boys had a day off from school and since Michael was going away for the day so we went out for lunch with Colin at a goatsfarm in Amstelveen, he got to feed them bottles, play a little on the playground and we had a good walk in the woods. But mind you goats are not only cute, playfull and they like to eat your clothes ...




Colin & I both got glasses, Colin needed them for school and watching tv from a distance. Appearantly he has trouble reading beyond 4 mtrs, the letters are distorted to him but he refused to admit it even after tests. He can grow out of it but for now he has a pair at school (orang/black) and a pair at home (green/black). I got mine as I kept getting headaches at work because of my increased computer screen work. Here they are :



We had a spontanious dinner with Michael's bball team, wow that was a big group but we sat all the kids at one table and all the adults at one and it worked out fine @ a wok restaurant.

You know what can really make my day ? When I pipe a perfect rose swirl on a cupcake, makes me smile every time I see the pic



That's it for May folks, sorry for not keeping up weekly updates ...

Scrapping can heal

I'm making a mini album about my childhood, just scrapping some feelings, memories and sometimes that's just as healing as therapy. This is my second page and I think it's funny that I even dared to put this feeling to paper, but it makes me laugh and it's real !




This page was for the sketch dare over at our dutch dares, for some inspiration come check out the great pages the team made !



This is another page I made a while back but forgot to share, hope you like it, photo's are from a photo shoot from last year (Corinne Delis).

Oh and I also helped my mom make some new cupcakes, but you can find those at my other blog ;)

Scrapped for the Dutch Dares

More scrapping going on, really happy about my breakdance LO ! All made for the dutch dares blog, some schetches some dares, if you're into scrapping check us out for lots of inspiration ....

I needz me some glasses

So my frequent headaches that I've been experiencing the over the last 3 months appearantly have to do with my increased computer work over a workday. I need glasses to solve my teeny reading problem (light compensation and cilindric problem).

I went to the optician and took some pics of the options I had



But I just wasn't happy, pricewise and modelwise.

So I went to visit another optician and have some cuter & more affordable options that I really like. Now to make the decision ... Which one do you like best ?



Thanks for helping ;)

Happy Easter !

I've been feeling creative again :) I'm scrapping, baking and making a cute felt project. Here's my latest cakepop creation ; chicklets cakepops. Have a great Easter weekend everyone !

43 no way

Yes way, but still as sexy as ever ....



Happy birthday babe !

He doesn't want to have a party :( but we are going out for a celebratory birthday dinner (as per our tradition the birthday boy get's to pick a restaurant) and he didn't want a gift yet, he has his heart set on an original Red Sox jersey so we will buy that when we are in the States.
To make him feel special today, pleas give him some ♥ on his blog or on facebook. Thx !

Recharging scrapchica style

Since I've been scrapbooking I've met lot's of fun, warm & creative women but with a few I've kept in touch more than others. We'd see each other at scrapworkshops, chat online or get together for an evening every now and to scrap. Yet with so many busy lives we rarely all could make it to a date at the same time.

So last year I decided we should try and solve that so we tried to find a date (www.datumprikker.nl works wonders for that btw), I found a great house near the beach and the waiting game began.

Until this weekend that is :)

We laughed, cried, almost peed in our pants, chatted, created, posed (lot's and lots of great photo's came from this), primped, ate too much, exchanged gifts, cooked, baked, did whatever we wanted, lost sleep and still recharged our batteries.



(photo's by Delis Photography, collage by Marsha)

A weekend that brought each and everyone what they needed whether it was some time to finish things, start things up, experiment a little or just work on a project without being disturbed ... And that's what it's all about, 8 different women connecting and being themselves and everyone being ok with that.

Thanks girls for an amazing weekend, let's do it again next year !

Scrapped with help of a sketch

My scraproom is not finished by a long shot but I've finally started scrapping again, but it's a slow proces as I'm having a hard time getting into the groove of it but I'm sure it will come easily again.



This sketch was for the dutch dares, check it out and join in if you like as there is a prize involved and you have a chance to be a guestdesigner too.