On your marks, get set........GO!

Here we are. Embarking on yet another facet of our farm business. A blog. I know that many many of our friends and family have blogs; some for business and some for personal reasons. But we have never gotten into it. And I don't really know why, because we embrace all things computer related and technology driven on our farm, so something like this is a logical step. Maybe it has to do with time management than anything else. Or maybe it is because I have been battling with creating our website.....that is another story which I'm sure will be updated in moderated language on here!

But seriously, our website is only going to handle so much in order to remain focused on the business. And although our business and family lives are intricately intertwined, it would be nice to keep them somewhat separate for the purposes of updating goings-on. So we have delved into this. Hopefully we can keep it up.

It is our intention to use this forum to give you a sneak peek into our lives that involve more than just the farm business. Yes, we do have interests beyond the farm gate! Mark is an avid baseballer playing for the Colac Braves, and over the past 3 years, I have gotten heavily into scrapbooking. Tom attends daycare and swimming and Bridie is simply content to live on booby milk for the time being.

We have had a few family events over the past 5 months or so, starting with Bridie's birth. For those that don't know, she arrived on Christmas Day at 1.18pm. She just turned 5 months, and I honestly don't know where the time has gone. It seems to have gone faster this time round than with Thomas. Mark turned 40yo at the start of March and we had a huge shin-ding for him. It was a dress up - come dressed as a movie character or movie star - and we had a fantastic night. We had Jack Sparrows, Shreks, Mary Poppins, King Arthur, James Bond, Austin Powers....the list goes on. Mark dressed as Indiana Jones and I went as Marilyn Munroe from "Gentlemen prefer Blondes". Tom went as Robin Hood and Bridie went as Jack Jack from "The Incredibles". Top night.

A couple of weeks back we held Bridie's christening. Like her brother before her, she was christened in Mark's christening gown. It is a lovely family tradition that we have begun and I sincerely hope that our kids will carry it on in future generations.

Tom will be 3 at the start of July. We are tossing up what to give him for his birthday as we already have a few presents bought and put away. We thought of maybe getting a dog and sort of giving it to him for his birthday (it will be mummy and daddy looking after it anyway), but on investigation of getting a particular breed (Australian terrier), it is looking like we won't get one this side of Christmas. I have to say that it doesn't faze me all that much. I can wait!

The next big bash slated for the year is in September for my aunt's 50th. Bernie is much closer in age to me than she is to my mum, so we are more like sisters. I am quite looking forward to this milestone in her life. She is humming and haaaing about having a party....I think she should. I still have a few months to work on her.

Anyway, this is probably enough for my first post, but I thought I'd show you a couple of layouts (LO) that I have recently completed that I love for very different reasons. The first is of Bridie at around 8 weeks. The photo was taken by Wal Slow from South Western Studios in Colac, Victoria. His work is absolutely beautiful and Jan (his wife and business partner) certainly knows how to get the best out of babies and kids. I should also say that this LO is not entirely mine. I have done what is known in the craft as "scraplift" (taken someone else's LO and copied it). Whilst mine looks different, I cannot pretend that it is solely mine. So, hats off to Penny Hackney, NSW (published in Scrapbooking Memories) for giving me the inspriation for this one!



The second layout is one I did of my mum when she was about 6 months old. This layout has been rattling around in my head for some time now; I knew which photo I would use and sort of how I wanted it to look, but I dithered around getting the 'right' pieces for the layout. But I am VERY happy with how it turned out.