Home again!!

Hello friends!!! I've missed you!!!! I'm home again after a month away. I did have a lovely time and will update you with some fun pics next time but just wanted to pop in and say hi now.

I got home to a heap of emails yesterday, 2232 to be exact. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw how many!!! But the majority were junk and spam. I'm so tired of emails that tell me how much more attractive I will be to women if I had a bigger male body part (didn't know I had one!), or how satisfied my partner will be if I go buy some viagra... apparently. Or "I'm Liliana and I am looking for a husband, I am beautiful and would make a great wife"... or how many emails telling me I am the lucky lottery winner... or the ones from Nigeria telling me they want to give me millions of $$ in an unclaimed inheritance, if only I would just give them my bank details (oh yes of course I will!).... or the ones from banks that I don't bank with telling me about my account... banks in countries I don't live in, oh and the Italian Post seems to like me. Delete, delete, delete. But it takes time.

I've had something yuk happen though with all this spamming. Some spammers have got hold of my web address and are using it to send out spam emails. I have checked with my web host and there's nothing they can do since the spammers aren't really using my name but it just appears that way. So people are getting junk mail that looks like it is from me, some of it porn, which is just great (NOT!). One night I got 300 emails in less than an hour, many of which were emails returning to me undelivered. Only, they weren't from me originally, they were spam. I hate that whole side of the internet.... grrrr!!

Anyway that is not what I wanted to write about, I got side tracked!!!

So last post I mentioned Leroy became scared of the water again... I guess the photo shows he's over that already! All it took was his three older cousins to be playing in the water for him to go straight in. No fear. Yay!!!

And lastly.... what's this you see???? Can you guess why I've put this picture here????..............

I'm going to get around to visiting everyone, but it's going to take me some time! Still taking down Christmas decorations after being away a month~! My google reader had 667 unread posts and it crashed on me!

It's nice to be back and thanks for stopping by again!!!

Big hugs,

Boy it's a hot New Year already!

Happy New Year blogging friends!!! I've returned home for a flying visit. Back on vacation in less than 12 hours. So I thought I'd keep you all posted on what I have been up to! Be warned, it's a long one!!! Well, it's got to last the whole of January!

Firstly though I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has commented on my blog, I will get around to visiting you when I get back from my Summer holiday (vacation) at the end of the month. I had 226 unread posts in my Google reader and that freaked me out slightly, I couldn't even scroll through them all, the computer mimicked me and also freaked out. LOL! So I'll have to catch up a little more slowly on what you have been up to but rest assured I will!

Christmas has already come and gone, can you believe it? We had a lovely day at my parents' house, cousins visited etc, lots of food and fun, the usual stuff. Boxing day at my in-laws' farm, when it was warm enough for the kids to go for a swim in their pool! Then away to the beach! I've just added a new Summer themed music playlist to get the Summer mood happening, and hopefully send some warmth to my friends who might not be enjoying a cold Winter.

I hope you all had a great NYE, ours was a HOT HOT HOT one. Hottest on record in my state, ever. It got to about 42C which is about 108F, and was still above 30C (86F) at 5am!!!! All my new Summer clothes I bought in Queensland are getting good use! Oh speaking of Queensland, they are getting flooded, loads of rain, and here down south it's a scorcher! Maybe our states should swap names, (Queensland is known as the Sunshine State). I hope my friend Kathy isn't getting too wet up there!!!

There's a carnival at Phillip Island each Summer, it's a bit rickety and dusty and dirty and the same stuff each year but we enjoy going, Leroy especially loves the dodgem cars (I think my US friends call them Bumper Cars?), and the clowns no longer frighten him.
He tried his luck with Naomi the clown and he did so well! I was so busy photographing him before I realised he got only 2 less than the highest score!!!

Such a happy little guy to win a big tiger!

My parents' house at the beach is great. It's fresh and bright and bigger than their home in Melbourne! LOL! Lots of visitors stay at the same time. We've got a full house of 8 adults and one kid this week.
Ernie has been resting. He works so hard every day he deserves a break. Note the sarcasm! He sleeps, eats and walks. Man if I ever came back to life after I die being a dog in our family is the way to go!
Lots of markets popping up all over the place at the Island, if it's not a craft market then it's a trash 'n treasure market (the quality is too horrible to call it a flea market!), or a Church Fete, Farmers Market etc. This one is right on the foreshore in Cowes.
That's about as close as Leroy's been wanting to go to the beach lately. Not sure what's up this year but he doesn't want to go near the water, yet he used to love it. Got to work on that one when we go back tomorrow!!!


Then a couple of days ago it was my little guy's time to turn 4. I can't believe he is four now.... it's just too hard for me to fathom that my little baby is a boy, a proper big boy. Not to mention he is hugely tall for his age, so tall he's off the chart for his age, and at 3 was the average height of a 5 year old.... but he's still my little baby...


He was given some playdough by the neighbours at Phillip Island so I made him a little birthday feast. I remembered Ali did something like this with her boy a while ago, it's fun!!!



Leroy got a temporary cake on the actual day, sad that it was a lamington scroll!!! But he doesn't like to eat cake and it was the only one I could find to buy.... I love that photo of him waiting for us to finish singing Happy Birthday, you can see the anticipation!



Last night I was up late putting together all the bits and pieces for his party which was today. I got green plastic noodle boxes and added cowboy themed stickers I made from wallpaper that Donna emailed me a scan of! Fun and easy!!!


So you want to see the cake....?? Remember last post I left with the thought of a tractor cake.... I did look up online (thanks for the tips!) and I looked at Leroy's toy tractors and I decided I'd just make one up. So I baked three cakes, crazy me thought I had square tins but I had round ones so a lot of the edges were trimmed off, oops!

Oh and I dyed the actual cake mix so when you cut into the cake it was bright yellow. That was a fun surprise.
Voila, here it is. It's a bit lop-sided but held together with plenty of wooden skewers underneath and it travelled and stayed together well enough. Leroy liked it. Thank goodness!!!

Today we had his party down at a farm about 15 mins from my home. It's a small farm in the middle of a big park, they have fruit trees growing which they use to feed the animals, lots of grass and places for kids to play, a barn for shelter from the rain or in our case today, the SUN, picnic tables etc. It's a really lovely place. I forgot to take a photo of the sign out the front that said Beware of Snakes. Hmmmm that one didn't thrill me....

One hot and tired birthday boy! It was a cowboys and cowgirls/on the farm theme, kids could dress up if they wanted. Leroy went as far as the hat, it was too hot for the vinyl vest and chaps!
I wore my newest cowgirl hat and roasted even in a thin cotton summer dress. It got to about 35C (or 95F) today. I was trying to work on getting rid of the tan lines, since I'm a bridesmaid in a strapless dress in a few months. Didn't work though, I was inside the barn most of the day. Here I was playing DJ while Pass the Parcel was happening.



Leroy chose a fire engine Piñata - and had a good bash at it. Gosh they make those things out of HARD and THICK cardboard!


Even Greg had a go at piercing it to help the kiddies out, who by this time were all on their third turn each! Cute little Harper above wore such a sweet outfit and that pink hat with fluff was so darn cute!!!
Little Yarralea with Greg's help got a whole heap of lollies and treats out of the Piñata. Check out her so very cute cow print skirt!!!


Then it was time for a walk down to the Ranger who was waiting with food for the kiddies to feed the animals with.

Leroy had so much fun today, playing with his friends and opening gifts - he'll hopefully sleep well right now. I for one am totally pooped - my shoes broke (new ones!) so it was difficult to walk and keep them on at the same time, and too hard to walk around barefoot. I did try to but when someone said there was a huntsman spider near my feet I screamed and ran. I know they are harmless but they look scary!!!



Now I did say it would be a long one didn't I!



I've also come home to fabulous mail and received tags and awards too....



I hope I remember everyone here! Karin at Creative Chaos surprised me and sent me an amazing snowflake ornament! I haven't photographed it yet with all the madness in this house but you can see them here on her blog. They are truly the prettiest things ever!!!.



Miss Holly Doodle did some shopping for me, and then surprised me by sending me some lovely Christmas gifties, gorgeous millinery roses (velvet, my FAVE!) and trims and pom poms and lovelies in general, way back in December! I opened up her box and used some stuff immediately then put one thing here and and a rose on that dress and suddenly I had separated everything and hadn't photographed it. Now my mind is mush and I don't want to leave out some of the lovelies from a photo but am too brain-mushy to remember each one!



Amelia the lovely lady who has been buying my paintings and work for some time now sent me another sweet giftie notebook (with a shoe on it of course!) and a lovely birthday card for Leroy. I'm amazed at how thoughtful she always is!



I received Christmas cards from some lovely bloggers too!!! One in particular is Ann (Ancient One). I can't find the link to Ann's blog or find her email addy (she won a giveaway of mine a while ago), so Ann if you are reading, thank you so much for thinking of me!!!



And Jenn & Jacqui sent Leroy the cutest book for his birthday too, all about adventures at Phillip Island. What is really funny and totally ironic, is that when Leroy was a baby I actually wrote and illustrated a little book for him and called it something similar. I can't find it for the life of me though.... I'll share it with you when I do~ The one the girls sent is so much nicer than the one I did though!!!



Oh and I won Jo's giveaway!!!! How fabulous is that!!! I'm so excited, I can't wait to see her fabulous work in real life!!! I got to choose but I asked her to surprise me.


I was given this fab new award by Miss*Laurence, the award creator herself! She's so wonderfully talented, my chin is often on the keyboard looking at her amazing textile work. I'm so honoured to have been given this award!!! I'm going to pass this along to one person because my brain is still mushy and thinking of 10 is just about 9 more than my brain can cope with~! So the "You Make My Day Award" is going to Jenn of Sweet Eye Candy Creations. For obvious reasons, she is one blogger who makes my day! Her blog is sunny bright and happy, just like her!

I was also tagged by Heather at Jeweled Elegance to share 10 weird/interesting things about myself..... hard work since I think I'm pretty boring and weird/interesting do not agree with boring! So maybe I could think of one thing.... hmmmm no not that, it's not interesting enough.... maybe... no that's not weird.... oh gosh this is hard!

1. Until I had Leroy, I had never needed to go to hospital in my life, except a quick visit when I stuck a 'pussy willow' (you can find info and a photo of pussy willow here) up my nose and it got trapped and they had to take it out with big long tweezers..... I was about 6.... never stuck a thing up my nose again after that!

Oh so sad, that wasn't interesting or weird! Oh well! I'm passing this one on to Alison Gibbs, let's see if Alison can come up with 10 things?! Good luck!

Ok well I'll leave you now, it's just way too long a post for you to read, you've probably skipped down to this last paragraph! I'm heading off again in the morning so I'll see you at the end of the month! I'm not taking supplies or crafting materials either! Just books.... lovely books...

Take care and enjoy yourselves!