New Editor Update

I am amazed at all the comments I am getting from people about not knowing about this new Editor stuff.
It sounds like people really have been getting bothered and frustrated with blogging!

I am also amazed that Blogger never did anything huge to tell us about this? Although I am sure they did and we just ignored it thinking it was nothing to do with us.

So hopefully you are now switching over to the new editor, you are finding it helpful and easy to use and you are slowly falling back in love with blogging?
I look forward to seeing all these amazing posts sprouting over the wire soon as you all have loads to suddenly blog about now things are working fabulously again!

Happy Blogging

New Editor Mode

As I expected, several of you have commented as to how you can gain this fabulous new editor mode for writing your posts.
So here are the instructions

1. Go to your dashboard
2. Click on 'settings'
3. This should bring you up in the basic tab
4. Scroll down to the bottom
5. Go to 'Select Post Editor'
6. You will find that you have a Green dot next to 'Old Editor' change it to 'Updated Editor'
7. Save Settings

Hey presto you should now have the new editor mode in place.
So go and create a new post and see all the wonderful new things you can do, or more like be able to write a post without having to continously get rid of extra spaces and being able to add pictures where you want and how you want.

Happy Blogging

Paper Craft

I like crafts. I happily, when given the time, will sew, crossstitch and quilt.
I have given paper crafts ago before but have never delved into the depths of that world.
And I am not going to now either.

Back in August I got invited by a friend to join her at a stamping party she was attending. Never been to one before and thought why not.
Now if I wanted a new craft then why not this one. There are loads of little gadgets etc and loads of wonderful bright coloured paper. But they are also very expensive.
Now I like to send cards to people all the time, but I could never justify spending all that money to make this personalised card for someone knowing that they probably wouldn't keep it anyway and then just throw it out!

So for now I am sticking to my current hobbies.

However one of the Committees I am part of had a get together afternoon and we had the lady from the Stamping party come and do a party with us. It had a Christmas theme and was lots of fun, and very easy.
We made a little Christmas Box and also a voucher holder.

You place a voucher in the little inside pocket

I had a lot of fun making them and it was good to catch up with people I know. Now I just have to decide what to do with these lovely items?

Pictures

For the past couple of weeks, if not months, I have been getting a little, if not, very frustrated with Blogger as I have been unable to move pictures around the post. I know I am not the only one with this problem.
I could upload them nicely but then not put them where I wanted in regard to the text I had written.

I searched all through Blogger Help etc and finally left a comment on one of the posts there.
And hey presto, I got a reply, and as expected it was as simple a problem to fix as I expected.
So now I am using a new Editor that is sneakily set in the Settings of my blog (that I didn't know about)

It has lots of fun features to assist me in writing my posts.

• an undo button
• a strick through button (no more having to go into the HTML code)
• Background of word colour change if I want to highlight a word
• a very smooth picture uploader
• quote marks

I can see that blogging just got fun again.

P.S I have just created a post for tomorrow and it was so much fun. I added 2 pictures and it was beautiful. Youi get to add them one at a time where you want them and you also get to write under it without srewing up the rest of the text written. You also get to position the picture without messing all the other text up, means you don't have to go back and resort everything so it doesn't have loads of spaces between the text!

My Boys

We had so lovely family pictures taken last year. It took me a while to actually get them from the photographer and then even more eons till I got it framed, but here is a shot of one of the pictures.

They just make the picture look like it could have been taken years ago with the sepia effect, shame Alex has a logo on his shirt!

Skiing

Last weekend, we had the pleasure of spending a glorious day beside the Waikato River watching the Water Skiing Races.

The boys loved the speed of the boats and watching the people fall into the water at the end.
They also loved sitting beside the river with dad.

checking to see if a boat is on it's way

Daddy and Ben discussing the merits of the boats

Wow, look at them go

The Bridge to Bridge is held every year and we have such fun when watching.

Advent Swap

I joined another little swap this year as well.

An advent swap that was organised over here.

For this one you are paired with someone and then you swap abox of advent presents to be opened daily throughout December, with there being a large gift for the 25th.

My lady is called Simona and lives in Italy. She has 3 boys and loves crafts.

I meant to take a picture of the wonderful pile of presents I had all wrapped for her but forgot until I had packed them all into the box that I was sending them in, so took a picture of the box crammed full of presents for Simona to open each day in December.

So Simona, your box of goodies is now on a Jumbo Jet (only way for it to leave NZ!) and winging its way to you in Italy. I look forward to receiving your box in return and having fun in December posting about all my fun advent presents from Italy.

Good At....?

What is Alex good at?

Lots of things actually, but for this post it refers to the fact he is good at sleeping....as you can see from all the pictures below of him, it is what he does best in the car.

Wish I could have said the same last night about him.

He woke at 3.30am and came into me because his insect bites on his legs were bothering him. He has about 6 sandfly bites.

We do get mossies here in NZ but they do not seem to bother as much as the sandflies do!

The sandfly is native to New Zealand, it is black and is about 2-3mm in size. It lives around water and breeds in running water. Although you do get them in the grass in the back garden and this is where Alex got his from, playing in the yard at Daycare.

Unfortunately Alex reacts slightly to them and ends up with nice red plum size lumps where the bites are! Found this website who talk about reactions to sandflies,very interesting site.

So you can imagine, he was crawling around the bed this morning.

First I put some soothing bite cream on but this did not do much, then I fetched an ice pack to cool the bites down and hopefully stop the itching. This did work but from the size of them I decided to be a terrible mother at 4am and dose him with Phenergan. (Antihistamine drug)

So he then appeared downstairs with me and asked if he could watch tv?!

I tried so hard to explain it was the middle of the night, but realised that he was awake and he wasn't going back to sleep. So I fetched us both a drink, and snuggled with him on the couch with pillows and blankets and put on a soft soothing dvd hoping he would fall asleep whilst watching it. Hopefully with the effect of the drug!

But sadly NO, I started to fall a sleep several times and each time he jumped and screamed and woke me up again as he got excited watching the dvd.

Finally when the dvd finished at about 5.30am I told him we were going back to bed.

This we did and he then slept with me until 8am. He seemed a little dozy when he got up and even still a little dozy when I dropped him at Daycare but I explained that he had had Phenergan at 4am and if he seemed rather sleepy or they were worried about him then to give me a call as I am at home today.

So far I have had no call so I guess the drugs have worn off.

Who knows what he will be like at bedtime tonight, very tired I am hoping?

Going Home

Of course with any good weekend away, then you also have to go home.

Sadly several others decided to go home at the same time as us so took a little longer than usual, but the boys didn't complain.

They did what they always do at this expected junction of the travel....sleep!

2 sound a sleep little angels with sun red arms and faces, absolutely knackered after a fabulous weekend with friends and family.

Labour Weekend

Labour weekend in New Zealand is at a different time to you guys in the North. Ours is the last weekend, more or less, of October.

As usual we went to the caravan and had a ball for 3 days. The weather was on our side and it was beautiful to relax with family and friends and do nothing.

well in Alex's case, be as stupid as ever!

Lots of good company, food and alcohol makes for one enjoyable weekend.

We did leave the caravan once during the weeknd and that was to go to the local RSA (Returned Services Association) to an open day they had. It allowed the kids to run around for 10 minutes somewhere different and to also play on the bouncy castle and little mini ferris wheel. They loved it.

This is also my 800th post on my blog. Man those posts creep up on you when you are not looking, 900 next and then the wonderful 1000th

Going Ons

I have noticed that occassionally for everyone, life just takes over and other things get put on the back burner for a small while.

This is how it has been with blogging in the last month here.
Last year I set myself a challenge to post 366 times in the year. I did manage it and even had more posts than required, but I also had a very busy year last year, what with moving to Hamilton, an engagement, a new house, experiencing the 1st year in our new town, a wedding and a child starting school etc so it made for lots to blog about.
This year has not been so busy and I have also not had the enthusiasm to blog.

I do still get on the computer most evenings, after the boys are in bed, because after dinner they hog it now!
But I seem to only have the enthusiasm to check my emails, catch up with friends on Facebook and read what others are writing in their blogs. I seem to have lost touch with writing on my blog, not that I don't have things to write about, I currently have a list of about 10 things to blog about, so eventually I will get the feeling for writing again and will sit and get them all down for you to find out what we have been up to lately. At least I have managed to get more or less a post everyother day because I have posted more than 183 times so far this year!

I have even managed to redesign my blog with different backgrounds and thoughts on what it could look like, but I will get that sorted when I have several hours to sit and play because I want to be able to change the style to suit different things to celebrate like Easter, Christmas, summer etc.

So till that time, I love reading what you have been up to and I do try to leave comments and eventaully I will post things so you can leave me comments.

Friendship Bag

Back in July I agreed to take part in a small swap for a wee little bag. It was all arranged over here and it all looked simple enough to do!

So during September I made up my little bag to send to me swap person who lived in New York, USA. I had a trial run in August and this is what it turned out like....

A little bag with a nice little New Zealand feel to it. So at the right time in October, well give or take a day or two, I sent off my bag to the person in the US and a week later I received my bag through the post.

Now my bag did not come from the person I sent to, mine came from Germany.

It is so cute, she kindly sent a fat quarter of the material she used on the inside and also a pattern for another style of bag (it is all in German, but sure I can translate it to use it!)

So thank you to the people that organised this little swap and thank you to the kind lady in Germany who sent me this gorgeous bag and little gifts.

School

The school Ben attends is out of zone to where we live.
On Google Earth it is in fact all of 0.7 miles away but driving takes longer as we have to go around the river that runs through the centre of Hamilton.
Being out of zone we had to apply when we wanted to send him there last year. This consisted of a ballot and yes he was successful.
It also means that when Alex starts school next June (7 months away) he will be attending out of zone too.
The school have just done the ballot for the first 2 terms next year this last week, and as Alex will be attending as of the end of term 2, we have had to apply for his position now, all 7 months before he starts school!

Now we never had any worrieds about his ability to get into the school as he more or less walks in due to having a brother there, but still it is nice to have it confirmed by the school that yes he was successful and that yes there is a place for him when he starts school next year.

So even though we still have 7 months to go until my little baby starts school, it is nice to know he will be with his brother at the school that we wanted.