Toys toys toys!

Although the day started off with excitement for our little ones because it is Queensday, suddenly it turned a bit sad because when we left the house we discovered that the passenger window of our car was smashed. Obviously someone thought they could find something of value in my car. I do have a TomTom (portable navigation system) but I NEVER leave it in the car... So all the broken glass was no fun for them (WHOEVER??) and NO fun for us!

But it was 7 am and I didn't think anyone could help us out at this early hour. And we were on our way to the flea market for some good buys! So we decided to leave it for another hour and take Andy's car to the village.

It was a lot colder than I had expected so the boys were cold but hung in there because of all the goodies... They got a new (well second hand of course...) skelter, a lot of new Disney books, videos (as everyone sells them for 15-50 cents only) and this Peter Pan Treehouse.... I have a few small movies....this is one:



After this we visited my mom on 'her' market. She sells antiques and brocante and was selling this in another village on another market (as every place has it's own market on Queensday).... We had planned for a BBQ today but we skipped it and cooked the meat in the kitchen... too windy.

Hopefully I will get back to scrapping tomorrow as I have the day to MYSELF...wow!

Happy birthday to me... and Queensday tomorrow!

This movie was taken exactly one year ago (April 29, 2006) on my birthday and I still think it is ever so funny! Last year it was also Queensday on my birthday because it is never celebrated on a Sunday. In the morning of Queensday we always visit the local flea market where children sell their toys (of course only the one they outgrew or never play with).... My boy found this drumming gear. He had been asking for this for a long time (although he was only 3 at the time) and now we found one for $4.... a bargain! He loved it so much... Today it's behind me in the attic and he barely plays the drums anymore. But yesterday, when he sneaked out of bed and I was here behind the computer... he came upstairs and played the drums! Like he knew it is going to be Queensday really soon....

So it's my birthday today!!! I turned 39... so still in my 30s! ;)

I wasn't going to celebrate it but because it was on a Sunday a lot of people dropped by anyway. Petra (aka Milo82) also dropped by and wrote a really sweet part on her blog about it.


At This is the life I read a really good explanation of Queensday so that is what we are going to do tomorrow!



Have a fun day tomorrow!!!

Leslie Feist video and my ScrapScreet prize!

Hi again!

Woohooo... yesterday when I came home after a rather confusing day there was a package for me from the States! I totally forgot about it! I am on the April cover of Scrapstreet Magazine... or better... my little boy is!

For this I won a prize too, as if being on the cover wasn't enough!! I chose a paper kit for a change and it came in the mail yesterday ... Here it is, it's actually 2 I think... I had a look at the website and I found out they are called the Main Street Disney Kit and the Bonus Kit:

Lucky me... I have 1,5 week off work because of the May Vacation here..!! Hopefully I will have some spare time - home alone, lol - to scrap.... either paper or digi!

I told you about Leslie Feist and thought it would be fun to share some more music to buzz her again! Here's one of her videos, the song is called 1234... let me know what you think!

So my vacation started today! Tomorrow I am going out with my oldest son, we are going to a large playground or small theme park called Oud Valkeveen. He loves a day 'alone' with me and so do I, fun to hang out together!

more buzzing.... sweets!

Hello friends!

This weekend was a busy one but it was also very relaxed... The kids were excited because it was daddy's birthday... of course they had made their crafts and I bought them each a small gift to give in the morning. I had bought him a dvd-recorder but it didn't arrive until later in the day as it was delivered at home...

Another package got to our place on Saturday, it was a buzz kit! I have posted before about Buzzer and I get to buzz sweets (or candies... I am not sure which word you prefer :) )... I thought one package would be send to us but it was a huge box..... Look here:

Can you tell my boy was happy with his sweets, lol! Of course he snagged a few but I have to save some for later this week so that he can take them to daycare... after all they have to be tested and it is for the word-of-mouth advertising... I can tell you... they are GOOD! Unfortunately not (yet?) available abroad so it's just us Dutch who can have these ;0)

I made this LO with Carrie Stephens new freebie Inflorescense. As I said, it's free so if you don't have it already, it's still there for you! I also used Framecluster no2, a freebie from Welli Designs and Time Life by Jessica Bolt. When I am writing this I see a huge freebie on her website and its absolutely gorgeous so it's worth visiting her blog!!!

Also worth visiting is the Ztampf shop. Today I purchased a few things from the Balinesian collection, I bought the papers, the wordart and these elements:

We visited Bali in 1999 so it's time to scrap those memories!

Back to our weekend, we visited our little friend Thomas, who celebrated his 4th birthday! And today was very laid back, we played with the boys... made puzzles and did computergames... they also played with our neighbour's grandchildren for a while. In the afternoon we cooked our meal on the barbecue and had dinner outside... It's only April!! The weather in April has been great, I am NOT complaining!

Have a nice day, or evening!!

Ever heard of Leslie Feist... or Buzzing?

A few weeks ago I first heard of Buzzer. It's a website where you can join the community and you will be selected to Buzz... So now you still don't know what I am talking about, huh? I guess buzzing is the hype in marketing right now! It is just word-of-mouth advertising. They send out a special product to a group of buzzers (it can be candies, it can be music, a book or a drink... anything) and they trust you with the product. If it's good you buzz it... you tell your friends put it on your blog or share it with your co workers (if it's the candies... well, ok then :). This way a product will be hyped by buzzers... or at least that's what the owners of this website hope will happen, lol...

I have been selected to buzz new candies (for the Dutch amongst you, it's RedBand) which will arrive by snail mail on Saturday. No digital candy, or I would have shared it right here with you :).... But I have also been selected to buzz some music. And I thought I'd share the music with you... let me know what you think!

She's Canadian... she's trying to become more famous in Europe. Her name is Leslie Feist! One of her songs is My Moon, My Man... I hope you can listen to the song by clicking it, and I hope you like it... let me know what you think! Have you heard of her before? Post a comment and let me know!

Funny: Sex and the City... who are you?

You Are Most Like Carrie!

You're quirky, flirty, and every guy's perfect first date. But can the guy in question live up to your romantic ideal? It's tough for you to find the right match - you're more than a little picky. Never fear... You've got a great group of friends and a great closet of clothes, no matter what! Romantic prediction: You'll fall for someone this year... Totally different from any guy you've dated.

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

It's a small world!

Hi!

It's a small world is not just my son's favorite attraction in Disneyland Paris... but it's also very true! Today I realized I have totally neglected my Digiscrappen Hyves website!

I read some of the entries and realized we have some new members! One of them is Nikkie and I thought her scraps look familiar. Then I realized I have been on her blog before thru' Ellen's blog... you two were both scrapping about the Efteling! I linked both blogs in my 'blogs I read for inspiration' list.

What else is new here.... I think we have decided to a daytrip during the Spring Break in May. Mauro is off school and I am off work that week so there's enough time to go somewhere. Just for a day or so since we're off to Greece in June already! Yesterday the boys' saw the Movieworld Germany commercial on TV about the new 'Nickland'. I had a look at the website today and found out that kids pay the price of their age on Friday (and under 4 are free)... So we will only pay 4 euro for both kids... sounds like a good deal! I urged Andy to take a personal day on that specific Friday...lol!

I want to get one more LO done tonight so I better rush off now... almost 8.00 pm already! Ow and off to Ikeagoddess because I saw some awesome freebies I don't want to miss out on, have a good day!

More royalty!

Hi!

This is what I did today!

My last post was about royalty, today I had another 'royalty day'! In december I (or rather St. Nicholas) gave my mom 2 tickets to a guided tour of Paleis Soestdijk (Soestdijk Palace). This is the palace where our Queen mom Juliana and her husband prince Bernhard lived during the years they were married. They both passed away in 2004 and from 2007 the palace and the gardens are open to the public (for a periode of 3 years, in the mean time a new destination for the palace has to be found).


As I child I passed this palace many times. When we headed for a walk in the nearby forest of Lage Vuursche or when we were just touring the area by car on a Sunday afternoon. My brother and I (and I guess also my mom, lol) were always curious if the royal family was home, this was indicated by the royal flag on top of the palace. If the flag wasn't there, the royal family was not in the palace. Also on Queensday there were parades in the gardens of the palace, they were broadcasted on television, I don't think I ever missed one!

Reason enough to be curious to see the interior of the palace, so we had a guided tour today. It was very interesting to see everything and hear the stories about the royals that have lived here. Also interesting to see that Queen Juliana moved in in 1937, had new furniture then and hadn't changed a bit of furniture since then. Personal things have been removed by the royal family but some furniture is still there.


It will be difficult to decide what the next destination will be for this palace. Now that I have seen the interior I cannot imagine Willem-Alexander and Máxima living there with their 3 daughters. A LOT would have to be changed to modernize it!

After I came home from the tour and running some errands, I hodge podged! Or I tried! I saw this on Traci and Gina's Hodge Podge Blog and contest no. 2 is up so I entered this one:

Credits can be found here

This is all for now, going to pick up the kids from daycare!

Her name? Princess Ariane!

Hi all!

So now you know. I was home this morning because Mauro had a doctors' appointment. After he'd gone off to school it was exactly the right time for a special TV moment. The royal prince was going to announce the name of the new princess for the local authorities of The Hague. It was live broadcasted so... curious as I am, I was there.... :)

The prince called her Ariaan so there was confusion about her name. Now it's finally clear that she's called Ariane Wilhelmina Máxima Ines (and not Inez....). Second and Third name after her great-grandmothers and Inez after her aunt (one of Máxima's sisters). So now they have 3 girls. As a mother of 2 boys (and sometimes 3...) I cannot imagine what it's like to have 3 girls ... perhaps for the better, lol!

Now on to some new layouts:

The first one is special, this happened 2 days ago and scrapped it the same night. My little boy was so sad and is so happy he can stay over at grandma's tomorrow night!! The other two LOs are Easter photos.

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Well I hope you like them.... the last one I made for my guest CT for Wendy Zine (www.elementalscraps.com), I am her guest for April! More CT news: the one who is responsible for my addiction is Ilona Havenaar and she is now a designer at Divine Digital! She asked me to be on her CT and I said yes, under one condition... I need a cool blinkie... Do you think it's cool enough?

That's all for now, I have one more CT secret coming up but it still hasn't been announced so please be patient!!

Easter & Scrapathon....

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

While HRH Princess Máxima is giving birth to her third baby I have time to post an update... Sorry I have left you all without any updates during Easter... we just couldn't find any eggs, lol!

Seriously, I had to catch up with some family time after being away most of the week last week for work. We had planned several things for the boys, like going to the Zoo on Monday but in the end they didn't want to go! So we didn't! We did go to the Easter Egg Hunt at a local Castle, Kasteel De Haar:

I have photos but they're still on my camera so you have to be patient :). My little one (3) was very disappointed he didn't find the GOLDEN EGG but we did have fun. It was very crowded and you had to pay entrance fee which will go to restauration of the castle, so it was a good cause.

On Monday we didn't go to the zoo but instead there was the Utrecht Marathon where we headed. We didn't have to go far, it was right by our house, in the village we live in. There were also events for the kids so we had an icecream and they enjoyed themselves there. Today Mauro had an extra day off school so we decided to take the bus (instead of the car) into the city and do some shopping. We never really did that together, most times we go all together or I go alone. He enjoyed this 'special day' with me and so did I.... too bad it's back to work tomorrow!

Have a good night!

I am back ... Happy Easter!

I am back just in time to wish you happy Easter... I had a couple of long, long working days (but that included dinner, the bar and a lot of 'sweet meet breaks' with candies and cake).... Nevertheless I would like to wish you happy Easter from all of us

Isn't this cute... all you do is upload a photo at Dumpr and you can make funny things with your photos! Just try it!

Toot ... this is incredible!

OMG... can you believe this? My little boy (and my LO) is on the cover of the April Scrapstreet Magazine? I entered a contest for the cover but I never actually dreamt of winning it... I didn't even know either, not until I had a look at the new online magazine and realized that this was MY layout!
Gotta run.... we're organizing a huge simulation game for the people who do our training so I will be in a hotel the next couple of days... it's fun!!

Sooo quiet

Hi!

I have a busy week ahead of me because I have to be out of town for work for a couple of days... To get some energy out of this weekend, Andy took the boys with him this afternoon, take the big brother home and on the way visit grandma and granddad ... what a great idea. Cannot believe how quiet the house is after a weekend with 3 boys around... I mean 3, 4 and 15 are NOT the figures of the amount of decibel they produce, lol! But I have to say, the trouble the oldest is causing in school is (luckily) not showing in this house, usually he keeps quiet here... (it is because I let hem on my computer ;) ???

For the past 2 hours I have been exploring Digishoptalk, they were down for maintenance for the past 24 hours but now they are back up... I like what I see sofar!! I did this LO, so typical for the relationship Milan has with his granddad, he loved being away with them last week. In fact he didn't want to come home (but when he got home he was happy, *** relief ***):

Credits can be found here

I received my first kits from Wendy Zine!! These are for sale at Elemental Scraps. Look at them:

The second is my absolute favorite, probably not surprising... all boys!! Hope to get some scrappin' done tonight! I won't be able to get any done the rest of the week, or at least until friday when I have a day off (or a very long weekend because it will be EASTER!)....

Have a great Sunday!