2011 Comes to a Close

Wow...2011 has been a busy year for us and a good year.

With my new responsibilities at work I have done a lot of travel to Australia and Asia this year which has been both positive and negative. It has meant Scott has been in charge of many more parenting responsibilities, the positive and I have missed my family dearly on my longer trips, the negative.

I have achieved my getting fit and losing weight goals and definitely intend on getting fitter and maintaining my current weight through 2012.

I have got a lot more scrapbooking done this year, this has been helped by being on the Harvest Moon design team. It is amazing what motivation a deadline can be.

I have really enjoyed my cooking this year and trying new recipes on family and friends. I now make our own pizza bases and pizza's almost every week, I have learnt to make bread from scratch, which is absolutely delicious. And most weeks I do a menu plan for our dinners which includes some new recipes and old favourites and is a great way to save money at the supermarket.

As I reflect on the past year I am hyped and motivated for the year ahead. To keep me on track over the coming year I have started to make a list of the big and little goals I have for 2012 and I will be adding them in the side bar as motivation and to keep them top of mind.

I have also been thinking a lot about my One Little Word but still haven't settled on my word yet.

Hope everyone has a fantastic New Year's Eve and I will see you in 2012.

Merry Christmas

It is now Boxing Day here in New Zealand and I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope Santa was good to you all. I was lucky enough to get a very cool bright yellow vintage typewriter from my Santa which made me very happy and I have used it already today on a layout.

We had a relaxing day at home with family, spending lots of time outside in the sunshine and eating way too much as we all do on Christmas Day.

Today has been a very lazy day and with the busy run up to Christmas now over I have been able to get some scrapbooking done and have finished my last Harvest Moon layout I started over a month ago.

This is from my nephew's third birthday we were lucky enough to go to in Melbourne earlier this year. All the letter stickers, border stickers, wood veneer banners and button are from the Harvest Moon December kit. Other supplies include Bazzill cardstock, Elle Studio birthday pennant, Crate Paper fabric brad, Sassafras brad and Divine Twine in brown.

After seeing everyones December Daily albums over the last month I will share tomorrow my plans for recording our December. Although I have only got a couple of pages started I have been taking lots of photos everyday and writing down the details of our days in preparation for putting it all together once Christmas was over.

One Little Word

Wow....it has been another busy week and I have no new layouts to share although there are a number of half finished pages sitting on my scrap table.

I have been thinking a lot about my One Little Word : Nurture that I chose this year. I started the year strong and with good intentions to nurture myself and my family. I was living a reasonably balanced life then things got busy and by the end of March the balance was all gone. I had taken on some new responsibilities at work and started the year traveling to Australia every two weeks. I was neglecting my health; eating badly and not exercising, I was always tired and had no patience with my family.

But then when I turned 40 and I saw that photo of myself it shocked me into changing my ways....nurturing myself. Without realising it I have been living true to my One Little Word for the last six months. I have been making an effort to get home from work at a better hour every night. I have been eating so much better, joined the gym, did my first fun walk and have lost 13 kilos. I have also been working on my patience with Ashleigh and making the weekends for family.

Already I have started thinking and planning for 2012. What is my One Little Word going to be? What do I want to focus on? What do I want to achieve?

Sculpt 6k Walk

Today I accomplished the first of my goals for getting fitter and healthier that I set when I started this journey just over four months ago. I completed the Sculpt 6k walk/run in downtown Auckland along with about 2,500 other woman and my six months pregnant sister, Tracey who I asked along for moral support and to make sure I had no excuses for not doing it.

I was pretty happy with my time of 1:06. I walked the first lap with Tracey in 38 minutes and then she pulled out due to very sore feet and I completed the second lap in 28 minutes. Pretty happy with that!

The weather was great to start with cloudy and overcast so not hot at all but on the second lap it started raining and just didn't stop. We waited for prizegiving as long as we could but we were just getting too cold and wet so it was time to leave.

With all the training at the gym and around our local hills it was a surprisingly easy walk given it was all flat and I am really keen to do some more fun walks, probably 8-10 km next time. And I want to use these as training for either the Huntly or Rotorua half marathon, either walk or run, which are in May and June 2012.

There we go I have put it out there. That is my next big fitness goal.

Just an update on my other goal I set when I started on getting healthier of getting my weight down to 65 kg by Christmas. Well, I am almost there, I have only 500g to go and I am really happy with my weight and how I am feeling now. I think I will fluctuate around 65-67kg depending on the week, if I am travelling, what's going on etc but I am ok with that. I am the best I have looked or felt in a very long time.

Be the star...

Here is my second Harvest Moon sneak peek using the Bo Bunny die-cut paper and sticker that I just loved.

The middle photo and be the star sticker are both attached with pop dots to lift them up and add some dimension to the page. I also added some washi tape both top and bottom and stitched some of the Crate Paper buttons to the top die-cut.

These photos were also taken the week we were in Melbourne for Paddy's 3rd birthday. He was given this light saber for his birthday and knew exactly what to do with it. The poses and face expressions were so cute!

First December Sneak Peek

Wow, the December Harvest Moon kit is fantastic and fill of some great product for all the boys, big and small in your life.

It was a great opportunity for me to scrap the photos from my nephew's 3rd birthday which was back in March. He was dressed up most of the day as Buzz Lightyear, which works perfectly with the kit as you will see with more to come later this week.

I have about four layouts planned in my head with the kit and now I just need to make some time to play.

Here is my first double page layout which is a scraplift from the September issue of Creating Keepsakes. In addition to the December kit I added the Basic Grey red star paper and October Afternoon vintage astronaut card from the Studio Calico Paper Moon as well as a few scraps of patterned paper for the circles from previous Harvest Moon kits.

Love it and love this little boy! We don't get to see him much now he lives in Australia and we miss him.