Positively glowing at 16 weeks

Donna at 16 weeks pregnant, this was taken yesterday. Her birthday was last week and she gave herself a treat and had her hair cut and coloured, I love it!!!! She is positively glowing!!!!

The photo of her in the purple top was taken at 13 weeks, I put this one on again, to do a comparison, between belly shots, I figure you would appreciate this Donna!

Click on the pics and make them bigger for a better look, I love the last photo, definately going into her pregnancy album!!!!

Pay it forward.....and I scrapped!!!!

Ok to the ladies that posted a comment in my previous post, your RAK is on its way today, I am so sorry I have been so slack with getting your little something to you...and don't forget to Pay it Forward in your blog.

I have also been quiet in the scrapping front, have been a little busy these last few weeks! I have however, found my mojo again and completed these pages for my sister's pregnancy album. I am planning on doing a monthly snapshot for her, baby is due in February 2008.

The tag behind the photo pulls out for private journalling.

The photos of the layouts are quite average, the colours are a little off, they really are quite pretty in real life, the cardstock on each of the layouts is the same, even though they look very different here..... I will try and take some better pics in the next couple of days or so and update. The layout of the scans isn't even stuck down yet, that is very slack LOL, but I had to post them together. For products used on the layouts check out my gallery, all the details are listed there.

Thanks for visiting, Leanne.

Paying it Forward......

Ok, now this is a first for me......but it sounds like fun.

This has come from Tess, this is her link

http://treezahs-treasures.blogspot.com/

I am not clever enough to be able to work out how to make her name the link, but hopefully this works just as well LOL. The idea of Paying it Forward didn't start with her, thats the fun of it, see how long we can keep paying it forward.

Here is Tess's little blurb about it - copy and pasted here from her blog!

and also Lis for a RAK on her blog for the Pay it Forward thingy on her blog!!!
So now it's my turn to pay it forward.The first 3 people to comment on this post will recieve a handmade gift from me! But you have to keep it going forward, so you will need to post it on your blog too! (that is if you want a gift from me lol you might not!!!)
Posted by Treezah at 8:22 PM 7 comments

So there you go, if you want a little something from me, be the first three people to post a comment on my blog and I will endeavor to make you happy with something handmade from "mwa" LOL and send it to you.......you in return though need to make sure that you also "Pay it Forward" by posting it into your blog and then passing it on with a RAK to three people (a RAK for those of you who aren't scrapping people is a "Random Act of Kindness", I had to ask Tess what it meant LOL, I had never heard of it before - so you make or give something for "just because", isn't that cool!).

Oh and keep reading and check out the World Record attempt in the post below, it was an awesome day today! Lots of pics to look at.....

Windjam07 - Breaking a World Record in Kite Flying!

Today was so much fun. The kids love their Scouting and being 100 years since the beginning of Scouting this year has meant lots of fun activities to do to celebrate.

So today, was the day, that Scouting had decided to attempt to break the World Record for Kite flying. The record to beat was 627 kites in the sky at once, this had been set by Scouts in the UK, however they needed to have more than 927 kites in the sky to claim the record, this would therefore supercede another unofficial attempt also done by the UK.

Before all the excitement of kite flying, the day started off with some pretty spectacular sky diving.

They succeeded, having managed to get 1127 kites up, the site was amazing and so much fun. The sky was clear, which made the effort even more spectacular. Apparently it takes about 3 months before official recognition, but all who attended are very confident that all went well!

Here are some pics of before the attempt.....

above - Renee and Aaron and another fellow Scout in the middle

Aaron and Rod

Aaron looking pretty excited - LOL

and here they are getting their kites ready for flying....not long to go now!!!!!

Then off to the beach for the World Record attempt, what an amazing site......

Then the official counts on the big screens, they had two attempts......

Awesome, WORLD RECORD BROKEN!!!!!

And to finish off the day, had to get a nice pic of the kids before we headed home.

Once we got home, that was not the end of Kite flying, to fly a kite is so much fun, I remember when we were kids and mum would make them out of brown paper for us, we would spend hours flying them. We luckily have a park across the road from our house, which was a perfect spot to get the kite out again for Aaron. There is something about a boy and a kite, I love the last pic of the day.....total relaxation!!!!

Taeqwondo...not for the faint hearted!

Last week, it was Renee breaking boards. Tonight was Aaron's turn, and he was awesome! He had been pumping himself up all week for this and it paid off!!

He walked up to those boards, measured up, bowed to his instructor and then let it rip. He got straight through on his first attempts, I was very impressed! Then again, I am his mother, of course I was going to be impressed LOL. He was so proud of himself, not once did he ever doubt that he was going to get through them and it showed.

Even Renee was stoked for him, which is really saying something, after all it is her little brother and sometimes in her eyes he is difficult to be proud of - hmmmm real sibling love there LOL. She was full of compliments for him, which was so nice to hear.

Check out these awesome pics.

Little Miracle in the making.....

Amazing isn't it, how we start out, the beginning of something so precious. This is the first photo of my new niece or nephew at 11 weeks, this little bundle of joy is due in February. I must brush up on my baby skills before this little one is born, it has been a while since we have had a baby in the family!

And this is the mummy, Donna, my littlest sister, I know Donna you are probably cringing right now reading this, she so loves to be referred to as the "baby" NOT!!!! Anyway here she is proudly showing off her little baby bump at 13 weeks. I did check with her before blogging this, she said it was OK to post the photo, so long as I keep the pics of her wedding up there, showing her off at her best LOL.

Tough Stuff at Taeqwondo

Taeqwondo was awesome tonight, tile and board breaking, after a night like this you feel totally pumped.

This is Renee breaking boards, getting ready for her Black Belt, which will hopefully come to her at about Christmas time. She was awesome, check out these pics....

Then it was on to roof tiles for the boys, this is the first time that either of these guys have done this, I tell you I was totally pumped after watching this, the boy in the second pic is only 15, they were both amazing! 6 roof tiles, smashed to pieces with their fist!!

Aaron gets his turn next week, breaking boards with his feet, this was enough for one mum to cope with for one night though LOL.

************************************************************************

On another note, Asuka left today. It was a very tearful goodbye, I knew it would be. She wrote us a lovely letter, asking us to read it tonight when we got home, which we did, made me feel sappy again! She was an absolute sweety. She will arrive home in Japan about 7.30am tomorrow morning, she will be buggered, I would imagine. Aaron misses her already!

Saying Goodbye.....

Tonight is our last night with Asuka. There will be tears tomorrow for sure, there always is. We had to go to school today for their farewell lunch. This visit they did things a little differently in that when the student said their speeches, the host families also had to stand at the front with them and they introduced us to everyone. It was so nice to see how each student had become attached to their family, their were tears and hugs and moments of speechlessness, it was actually a little hard to digest at times, really tear jerking, I was bawling before it was even my turn.....LOL. Asuka said some lovely things about us which was so nice to hear, the one thing that made me laugh though was she had mentioned that "my host father likes to eat peanuts", what a scream!!!

Asuka and the other students also dressed in traditional wear, being a Kimono. It was the first time that any of the students that we have had had done this, and we loved it. It was so colourful and the girls appear so delicate when dressed like that.

On the way home it was tough in the car Asuka was crying, it must be difficult for them, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning, must get the waterproof mascara out LOL.

Here are some photos of Asuka in her Kimono, I really love the one of the three girls together, they look so happy.

Last night, we travelled down to Victor Harbour to show Asuka the penguins, they are so darn cute. They go fishing all day and come home in the evening to feed and stay with their chicks. They have about 400 penguins on the island at the moment. Unfortunately it is a little hard to get pics of them, as you can't use a flash, because it can send them blind for about 20 minutes, poor little guys. Victor Harbour is such a beautiful place and the walk out to Granite island is so nice, although it was pretty cold last night.

We came home via windy point, we thought that we would show Asuka the lights of Adelaide, hmm that was unsuccessful we got up there only to discover a nice thick blend of fog and the lights were not able to be seen, bummer.

Here are some pics of us walking out to Granite Island. The red lit photo is actually of a penguin if you can make it out.

This morning, we took Asuka out for some last minute shopping, she loves chocolate, so she asked to be taken to a Supermarket to be able to stock up on some for her friends and family at home. We took her to the lolly section in Big W, it was like she had died and gone to heaven, not sure of the set up that they have in Japan, but she quite liked this one.

I have also sent her home with a jar of Nutella and a tin of Milo, because she loved both of them.

We also took her to a souvenir shop to finish up with, check her out in the good old Aussie cork hat, she loved it LOL

I think that is enough for tonight, am a little weary after a big day.

Leanne

xx

School is fun with Asuka....

This is Renée and Asuka on their way in the bus to Cleland National Park yesterday. This is the first time that Renée has been able to go with the students on an out of school visit, they had so much fun, normally all the exchange students travel up their with their Japanese teachers on their own. I thought it was great that the Aussie kids were able to share this experience with them.

Cleland is home for lots of animals, similar to Gorge (see post below). Asuka loves our animals.

From Cleland they went to Hahndorf where they had lunch. Renée had a great time as did Asuka.

Tonight they have gone star gazing with Scouts, Asuka was looking forward to it, she loves the stars, but said that at home it is difficult to see them with the pollution in the air. That is one thing that all our students have noticed when they have visited, how clean our air is and how wide our sky is, we really do take our open spaces for granted.

Tomorrow she is going to Adelaide city for some shopping, what girl doesn't like shopping, she is quite looking forward to it. I have told her that she will feel like our city is sleeping compared to Tokyo, they have so many people there!