A Very Peabody-ish Christmas :)

Hi Y'all!
Just a quickie post... Will and I just got back from Pancakes on The Rocks after work (it's now 2:30am!) cos we were celebrating 4 years of being together {awwwwweee! The crowd sighs!} Who would have thought that the odd couple who had a rather awkward kiss in the work carpark all those ago would be married and expecting a baby 4 years on! LOL! Not me! But it is so lovely to look back and share all those memories during a spontaneous trip to the city for some late night bites (I had the Pancakes, Egg and Hash, if you were wondering, and yes it was delicious!!)
Here is a page I did of Peabody at Christmas- this is the first pic where you can really see I have a little bump. And back then I thought it was big too, hahahahahaha! Now, at 29 weeks, I KNOW my tummy is big! And people (especially at work) have no qualms about telling me that too. Some people have no tact!
Sleep tight peeps!
:) C

Christmas Pages :)

Hi Y'all!
Well Mr Mojo appears to be on an extended holiday with me cos I've been creating up a storm lately! I hope he stays for good, cos it's doing wonders for my New Year's Resolution to reduce my patterned papers by 20%! I've already used (or partly used) over 15 papers already. Sweeeeeeeeet!
This first page is of my gorgeous niece Sienna and her first word (after dad dad and mum mum) which is "bir!" And you know how much I love birds (and owls especially) so I just love seeing her extend out her arm with it's tiny fingers pointed out at any bird she sees (real, printed or jewellry!) as she punches out the word... "bir!" with such enthusiasm {smiles}! Granny made Sienna's gorgeous Christmas dress with Christmas birds sitting on a wire and Felicity has a bird in a cage necklace which Sienna just loves! I had fun digging out a couple of Christmas themed birds for this page :)
The second Christmas page I did (which is no mean feat for me seeing as I never do Christmas pages and I have no idea why seeing as I have a pretty good collection of Christmas items!) is of Will and my first Christmas pic with Santa. And Peabody makes a show in there too! Isn't that snowman paper just sooooo cute! And the American Crafts journal spot I just adore! I did get to use up a couple of older Christmas items like the bottle cap (remember when they were popular- I was still working at Fantasia so that was at least 6 years ago!) and the MM metal stocking. I think it's even older {sigh} it's embarrassing when I think about just how old some of my stuff is! At least I'm finally using it right?! Right????? LOL! And who makes rub ons, like "i believe" here on this LO, in such a boring font? I have a hard time using them cos they're so boring! Luckily it fits the spot quite well here cos it blends in with the snowmen :)
Well I hope you've had a super week! Got any plans for the weekend? I'm having a Birthday Breakfast at Flower Power with my family on Sunday cos Will and I will be in Melbourne for my actual birthday (January 31st, don't forget! LOL!) Looking forward to it!
:) C

Christmas Booty!

Hi y'all!
Did you think I'd forgotten to post a pic of all my Christmas booty? {giggles} Remember my childhood family tradition of laying out all your presents on your bed and taking a pic? Yeah, I'm still continuing it. You don't realise just how useful it is to look back on the pics and think "Oh wow, I've had that [insert name] for ever!!" It's really cool to look back on everything too and see how fashions, tastes, interests have changed over time! :)
Well I finally gathered all my gifts together, and ones for Peabody too, and here they are! I got some maternity tops and maternity underwear (hooray!), cooking books, Fa la la la felt book, Gold Class movie tix, hat, shoes, chocolates etc! Yes I was totally spoiled! And so was Peabody, who got an embroidered singlet, socks, knitted booties by Granny, gorgeous Gymboree socks and bib, a book, photo frame, giraffe toy and more. He/She is spoiled already!
I hope you're having a good week, I'm so glad it's hump day already!
:) C

Last pages of 2010

Yvette recently asked me if I had done any pregnancy pages yet, and I have to admit I have only done the one, and it was this week! So I'm a bit behind on recording anything about Peabody, in scrappin at least. I have emailed myself from work when I think of something scrap-worthy and when I first found out I was pregnant I sat down and wrote a whole page and a half about what I was feeling and how I came to find out I was pregnant (a bit of a surprise, I assure you!) If only I could find that page....
So this scrap page is about something that has been making me laugh lately, and that's the fact that I can look down and see into my belly button when I'm laying down! My bump is very low, so when I lay down it's below my belly button which pushes it up toward my head. I snapped these pics almost 2 weeks ago and I'm glad I got them when I did cos it doesn't quite look like this anymore. Isn't it amazing how fast your tummy changes? It still points at my head but all my organs have pushed a little higher, and I'm sorry but I thought I had stomach muscles at some stage? I dunno where they've gone!
Then I also did another page this week {slapping hand on cheek in shock!} about Will and my Christmas Tree. It's just a little tree, but I love it. This week I very sadly found I only have half a purple Mickey Mouse head glass bauble hanging on the tree! I think the aerial man knocked it off the tree and it broke so he just put it back up again {frowny}. He was supposed to put the plug on the total opposite side of the room so I wasn't worried about the tree! Then when we got home from work it was next to our Christmas tree. So weird! Poor guy had to shimmy himself through the unpacked boxes on our floor in order to get to that tight corner next to the tree, so I guess I can't begrudge him one small broken bauble. I did tell Will he should take me back to Disneyworld to get some more {wink!} He said he would, just don't hold my breath. LOL!
:) C

Our Christmas 2010

Hi y'all!
We hope you had a fun, fantastic, frolicking, family and friend-filled Christmas! Will and I enjoyed our 3 days of relaxing at Mum and Dad's, I was stuffed every day from the endless cups of tea and cakes (mini Christmas Puddings, shortbread biscuits, rocky road etc). On Christmas Day Alicia, David and Xander came down to Wollongong for Christmas lunch and present opening. They didn't arrive until about 11:00am so we had to hold off opening presents until then (so hard! Obviously I am still a child at heart {wink}). Once they arrived though, we had a frenzy of present opening! There is always so much excitement, paper all over the loungeroom floor and ooohing and ahhing! (See Will posing under Mum's amazing Christmas bauble chandelier? LOL) After all the present opening it was on to our traditional Christmas lunch! Dad cooked the Christmas roasts in the BBQ outside (which means the house doesn't get stinking hot and we relax inside with the A/C on! And every time you open the back door you get the delicious wafting smell of baking Pork and Chicken! YUM! {licking lips}. Mum set a beautiful Christmas table in a red and white theme (Marie would have been so proud Mum!) and we even had red star-shaped coasters with each of our pictures on it (maybe in case we had to much Christmas champagne and forgot what we looked like {giggles}). And Mum made her yummy Cauliflour in cheese sauce and traditional steamed Christmas Pudding. So good!! In the afternoon we layed out on the smooth mown park-like lawn under the shade reading magazines and having a snooze! It was soooooo lovely!
Did you see the pic at the top of Xander opening our Christmas present? He was so taken by the ribbon, it was so cute! Then later on as he lounged in his pram he was enthralled by what was inside his gift- Fisher Price spinning balls- where the inside patterned piece spins inside a clear acrylic ball. He stared hard at that spinning bit! And Will tried to get Xander to crack his Christmas Bon Bon with him! It's funny to think next year OUR baby will be almost as big as Xander at Christmas! Sounds so weird!
Well, I hope you had as fun a Christmas as we did, thanks Mum and Dad for having us and letting us relax, sleep, and beat you at Carcasson!! We're off on a coupon date tonight to Mexican and then to the movies, double YAY!
:) C

Merry Christmas to You!!

Merry Christmas from Charlotte, Will and Peabody!We wish everyone a very Happy and Safe Christmas and have fun celebrating with Family and Friends!

This is Will and my first ever Christmas photo together, I wanted to get one with Peabody in it too and asked for a full length one but the photographer said the detail isn't very good if she goes futher back. (I think she really meant that you'd be able to see the shop fronts behind Santa's head so it wouldn't look any good!) I told her I wanted to get my pregnant belly in it and she was sooo excited and said she'd take it down to our knees then. Well it's not full length but I guess it's good enough if it shows Peabody :) Santa asked when the baby is due and when I told him May he said "Oh, May 11th?" cos apparently that is Santa's birthday (or this one at least). If anyone asks you when Santa's birthday is, you can tell them May 11th! I said it was the 23rd and he said that is his Mum's birthday (I imagine he means the original Mrs Claus). {wink!} I hope Peabody doesn't come out as a jolly fat man with a beard, but a little bit of Christmas spirit wouldn't go astray!
We are heading down to Wollongong after work tonight (yes, if you ever have your blood collected on Christmas or NY Eve, remember there are people who have to stay back at the lab to test your sample!) and as I'm the boss I have to stay til all the work is done {sigh} but at least Will is there with me and will help me (such a good boy!) Then we go straight down to Wollongong when we're done. At least there wont be much traffic at 1am!
So a big Merry Christmas to you and I hope Santa finds you!!
:) C

Christmas Card 2010

Well I had grand plans for making a whole swathe of Christmas Cards this year as I have in previous years, but with the move and still being totally disorganised with boxes everywhere after 3 weeks, I only got to finally sit at my desk on Wednesday and begin! I didn't even have a design in mind, I just printed a pic of Will and I from our extended family Christmas on the weekend, then I grabbed all the bits and pieces I had collected with Christmas cards in mind, then I threw them all together in about an hour! Success! Well, I did only make 8 cards, sorry to those of you who didn't receive one... but I only had time to make and write on 8!
I wanted to take a pic of Will and I with Peabody showing but there was never anyone at home when we were (except A Poor- Will's Grandma- and at 83 she's not going to be the best picture taker. I don't know if she's ever taken a photo in her life!) Luckily Dad snapped this pic of us last weekend and, though I'm not in Christmas colours as I had hoped, it did ok for the card :) The BG card is Stampin Up's Wild Wasabi green. I found the mini clear transparency sheets with red foil printing at Spotlight and I loved the felt reindeers I got at Spotlight too. The matching ribbon is from a crap shop at Rhodes and tied it all together nicely! Not my most ingenious or well planned Christmas card, but good enough for me and I hope my family like them too!
:) C

Oh Christmas Tree!

Aunty Julie- this post is for you cos you requested pictures of our Christmas trees and my email isn't working. So here it is! In all of it's unglamorous self! Especially compared to Yvette's beautiful Red and White tree complete with red and white wrapped Christmas presents, and Alicia's Ariabian Nights Purple and Silver marvel with purple organza base and matching presents. Our tree peeks out from the other side of the flat screen TV on the TV Unit in our bedroom, surrounded by as yet unpacked bags and boxes of personal items which have no home. It's a humble life for the tree, but I make sure I turn on the lights every time we're in the room! It creates some beautiful mood lighting! It's the same small tree that moved from Brodie St with me 6 years ago when my sisters got married and we all moved away from living with each other. I'm not sure how many years it had been going before that. So I think it's been quite worth the, like $30 it cost! LOL! The decorations on the tree mostly mean something special to me. They were given to me by family, or I bought them when I was somewhere special, or for some special purpose. It's a tiny tree but I love it! See, size doesn't really matter!
Maybe once Peabody is big enough to put some decorations on the tree we might splash out and buy a bigger one :) But then we've gotta find somewhere to keep it when it's not Chrismas, and those boxes are pretty big!
:) C

Hotel d'Lam goes Griswald

Hi Y'all!
Well tonight was fun! While my Coconut birthday cake for Will baked in the oven I helped Will and his 2 sisters put more Christmas lights on Hotel d'Lam and now it officially looks like a Griswald house! YAY! {happy dancing!} I have been a little disappointed by the lack of lights around this year, has the global financial crisis hit the Christmas light scene? There are even 2 houses covered in lights and assorted blow up personas and additional Christmas crap that you can see during the day, which I pass on my way home from work and I have yet to see them actually turn the lights on! With all that effort I'd like to see some results! Oh, but there is a house around the corner from Hotel d'Lam that is almost more covered than ours! It's pretty cool. I hope we get lots of slow drivers down the street having a look. Will and I already did a little tour of the neighbourhood tonight {wink!}
The lack of other houses with lights has made me even more determined to make sure the lights stay on long at night at Hotel d'Lam! (Hopefully it wont permanently blow the power board in Lil's room, though it has already gone off twice!) The girls did most of the work with Will just helping out with the loopy lights. Isn't it so pretty! If you know what the house looks like in the day time it looks a little more impressive. But you get the idea. Have you put the lights up at your house yet? Come on Christmas grinches! Get in the spirit!
:) C