Last Day of Spring!

Yes, today is the last day of Spring! Which makes tomorrow the first day of Summer as well as the day to start your Advent Calendar! So if you haven't started your Christmas shopping you'd better hop to it! It's easy for the time to slip by as the Christmas Decorations go up in the shops end of October so by now we hardly even notice them! Not the kids however, Ronin just about fainted from excitement seeing the giant presents and decorations hanging throughout our local Westfield! I must say though, considering that Singapore is less of a "Christian" country than Australia is considered to be, they leave us for dead with the decorations! The main streets were totally decked out, the big department stores had obviously spent a mint on their windows and frontages. There were Christmas trees on every corner, people dressed in Santa suits (yes, in 32deg with 100% humidity!) everywhere! Everywhere we went were new and beautiful displays! I was gobsmacked!

Anyway I was checking out blogs the other day and read that it was only four weeks until Christmas and I nearly fell over! I hadn't even had thoughts of what to get or begun any shopping or preparation! Which is not new of course, I'm usually out shopping the week prior to the big day, and I'm known to have many very late nights making gift tags and whatnot to get my Melbourne and Sydney gifts off in the mail in time! My kids were totally over-spoiled last year so we had a talk with Santa and made sure it didn't happen again this year! I'm sure they will get lots of lovely presents, and hopefully what they want!

My MIL, Sandra, looked after Ronin for the day while I did all my shopping on Monday. And I mean ALL! Anything I didn't get I got off the internet when I got home, except for my four Melbourne nieces' prezzies. Tay and I are choosing those together after the dentist visits tomorrow in town. I still have to get a few things for Chris, he's the hardest to buy for! And he informed me last night that he will not be able to get home before the 18th-20th so I'll be doing my own prezzie shopping as well! I still have to do all my Christmas baking, and make all the handmade presents, and one or two tiny things, but this is the most organised I've been in many Christmases so I just have to keep up the momentum!

I even managed to get some scrapping done this week! I was delighted to find a package from the US waiting for me on my return from Singapore, full of lovely Hambly Overlays, My Minds Eye Transparency frames and American Craft stickers (including the yummy Thicker Stickers). I also had a pile of lovely new papers from The Scrap Heap to use so I was well inspired to print a few of my Singapore photos and get them scrapped. I also scrapped all my Aussles and other layouts for the Newsletter which comes out tomorrow! Congratulations and best wishes to Christine and Beryl who open their new shopfront on the weekend at Unit 10, 39-45 Cessna Drive, CABOOLTURE Queensland. I know a lot of the Aussielayouts and SWIG girls will be checking it out - wish I was closer, should be a fantastic weekend!

I've included some of my new layouts from Singapore. The Rainforest one features a photo of a curly vine taken by Chris on the Dragon Walk through the rainforest on Sentosa Island. The quote I got off the wall outside the rainforest creature walk-through exhibit at Singapore Zoo.

I was a bit of a Japanese Tourist, never without my whopping big camera in my hand! They all got quite sick of me taking their photos (as you can see by the extremely fake smile on Chris's face in the "Crazy" layout!!!) - oh, except Taylor, she very rarely tires of being photographed!

As you can see, Ronin had a lovely airbrush tattoo on his arm, as of yesterday completely worn off prompting him to ask me (again) to take him back to Singapore, as he needs another one!

Taylor also had a tattoo, a coloured one of a fairy, on her upper arm, but it was quite faded so she removed it with nailpolish remover a couple of days ago. She has been very busy with preparations for her dancing concert including dress rehearsals, and I don't think she wanted the tattoo ruining the look! Everything is all ready for the concert next week, many thanks to my dear friend and neighbour the lovely LIZETTE (also a talented scrapper!) - thanks Lizzie! Just have to get some new ballet shoes for Tay (as per usual at concert time her shoes either are lost, wrecked or don't fit!) and we're all done!

OTHER BITS!
* Wasn't it fabulous Damien Leith won Australian Idol (I voted for him!). I have the single already and play it all the time in the car! I know my Mum and Dad will be happy, they loved him too! And I'm sure we'll be seeing something from the lovely and talented Jessica soon too! What a fabulous, talented Top 12 they were this year! It will be exciting seeing them start to appear on the scene in the coming year! Congratulations to them all!
*I thought the TomKat wedding was waaaay over the top. And I heard it cost about US$3.5m! That's the yearly budget of a small country! I would have thought a quick cheap wedding would be the way to go for Hollywood stars - their marriages only seem to last 5mins (hey Jessica, Britney, Pammy???)

AND FINALLY!
Congratulations to my wonderful SIL and BIL who are expecting their first baby in June - stay tuned for more news and pictures when it is more widely announced!

Merry Almost-Christmas Everyone!