a lovely day out

Today was a lovely day. I went to Wisley with my mum, my aunt and Matthew. They have a scultpure trail so you wander round, enjoy the sculptures but also enjoy the lovely surroundings and of course today we were lucky because the sun shone!

Rear - Dustmotes
Front -  Pause for Thought and Thought Waves

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One of my favourites - The Wind and a girl

Three Wings



My favourite sculpture called the Wedding Guest. Front and back shots.

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Matthew with Auntie Janet

Matthew spots an aeroplane.

Hide and seek.

Sisters ( even matching clothes!)

Matthew with my mum.

My sunglasses - Upside down - Anyone remember Dennis Taylor?

Here are a few of my favourite photos. I promise my next blog will show some of my layouts and more of my Learn Something New Everyday posts.

Whipsnade zoo photos

Birds of the world display ( parrots and toucans)

If you go down to the woods today....

 We were lucky enough for one cheetah to be up close.



I love this shot!



My boys!

Matthew loved the sealions.

Watching the elephants

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Elephants on parade




In with the lemurs



10 things about my birthday

1. Today I was 40
2. I went to Whipsnade zoo with my husband Simon and little boy Matthew.
3. Matthew's favourite animal was the elephants and spent ages waving to them.
4. Matthew said ' bear' for the first time to add to his ever increasing list of words.
5. My husband bought me my sexy red laptop.
6. I enjoyed spending time with my work friends on Thursday to celebrate ( something I don't do often enough)
7. My birthday started last Saturday with a trip to The Wizard of Oz and finished next Saturday when we are having lunch at my crop.
8. I share my birthday with fellow scrapper Gaye Williams and the sexy Colin Firth.
9. My birthday represented modern times - I had so many texts and Facebook messages - but still had some snail mail cards and pressies - perfect!
10. 40 is going to be fabulous!

what ive learnt this week...

No pictures today but I want to keep recording my 'LSNED' thoughts otherwise I wont be able to remember them when it is time to record them in my scrapbooks.

Yesterday was a lovely day. Matthew and I did a little shopping, then went to a friends for lunch and a visit to the soft play and then my mum looked after Matthew for a couple of hours ( although he slept all the time - the joys of soft play exhaustion) whilst I went to visit a good scrapbooking friend who had a little baby boy just over 5 weeks ago. It was lovely to see them both but what it made me think about was how much my own little boy has changed. Matthew is walking, running, dancing, saying a few words, babbling like crazy and is no longer really a baby. This really is the cutest age ( but I think Ive said that before). Thank goodness I take photos and scrapbook as it can sometimes be hard to remember what he was like at 5 weeks old; what our routines were like; what was going well and what the thing I was worrying about was ( because I must have been worrying about something). Time plays tricks on your mind. Time does fly - it really does and I cant believe my little boy is 16 months old, but there are some things which I cannot remember that well. Seeing Michaelanne and little Jimmy reminded me to appreciate every moment!

Today was my first proper day back at school for this term. We had inset on friday but today was my first day with classes. Last year was a weird year for me. I was on maternity leave until Christmas and then picked up a bunch of classes that other people had been teaching and in other people's rooms too. This year I have my own classes from September - a chance to instill my way of doing things with the students from the beginning. I also have my own classroom so can organise things how I want. My classes today were really lovely, my classroom is beginning to look fab ( still more displays to do) and it reminded me of why I love teaching. Im sure in a couple of weeks Ill be tired, or a student will have wound me up but on the whole I love my job!

LSNED and layouts

Here is a little update on my learn something new every day and some layouts from the last week.

Yesterday I went to see the Wizard of Oz, it was a birthday treat from my mum. We had time to do a little shopping in Oxford Street first and I learnt something new. That is that I really dont like this seasons colurs. Now I love shopping and can usually find lots of things I like. But this year the colours are very muted autumnal colours. They are nice colours - but just not for me. Where is the hot pink, purple, aqua etc that I love?

Today I learnt that I am falling in love with my new laptop. Another present - this time from my generous husband. Last week I was getting a bit stressed getting it all set up and worrying that I wouldnt be able to use it properly ( i like to have something to worry about). But today, whilst my boys were out swimming) I used it to do some of my lesson planning for this term and found myself getting much more condident using it. Ive still got things to learn but it feels like im making progress.

Ive done a little scrapping too. The first layout I did last weekend. This uses a Shimelle sketch. The title ' its Tractor time' is something that one of Matthew's toys says and during our week in Somerset he couldnt get enough tractor time!

The second layout is photos of Matthew playing with the diggers in the giant sandpit on holiday. He just loves big boys toys!

The final layout is of Matthew on the beach. There was some drizzle but we stayed put and really enjoyed ourselves. Another Shimelle sketch and I must admit Im really pleased with the final product.

learn something new every day ( LSNED)

Ive signed up for Shimelle's Learn Something New Every Day class. Its a month of prompts to get you reflecting on what you learn on a daily basis. Some people make a mini book with a page for every day and every thought. But Im strictly a 12 x 12 scrapper so I think i'll probably just do some layouts of my best thoughts or maybe some weekly summaries. For now though Im just trying to think about what Ive learnt in the first two days of September.

Thursday was easy. I actually learnt loads of stuff. I went to Horton Park Farm with Simon and Matthew and they had signs up about animals. I learnt some new facts and here are two of my favourites:

I also learnt that cutting Matthew's hair was not too bad but also that next time I will do it better. Ive never cut his hair but it was getting really long. If it wasnt for his beautiful curls it would have been too long weeks ago. But his fringe was getting too long and some of the curls a bit mad and fuzzy, and when it was wet it was just too long. So I washed his hair and settled him in front of the tv for a hair cut. I think it looks ok. Next time I will keep the fringe a little longer ( it shrunk as it dried), and maybe keep a little bit more curls around his ears. But it will grow and he still looks gorgous to me.

I also went to my crop Thursday night and tried to learn about Hipstamatic. I think i understood but as I dont have an iphone, I dont think it really sunk in. I did have a fabby evening with the girls though.

Yesterday was different as it was back to work. I learnt lots of useful but dull work things about using Office 2010, and other work related things but its hard to take a back step and think about something meaningful youve learnt when you been busy at work.
Even as Im typing now Im learning. I think one of the most relaxing things to be doing is drinking a cup of tea and writing stuff down. Having a blog is quite satisfying. Maybe thats my something for Friday! ( I wrote this blod last night but didnt quite get it published).

And so now it is Saturday morning. Ivee already learnt today that getting my photos into my blog isnt that easy and I need to find a better way of doing it. But hopefully Ill learn something more positive in the course of today.