Kim Archer | Mindful Living

{thanks Mishell}

For a lovely lunch, lots of laughs, conversation and entertainment! We need to do it again...soon!

{heidi swapp}

For those of you who know me you would know how much I admire Heidi Swapp - both as an inspiring person and also as an artist. So it was a HUGE deal for me to meet her in Melbourne last year.

And it was an even BIGGER deal for me to receive a wonderful parcel of goodies from her new range of products the other week.

In true Heidi style, the products were packaged in a huge pink box, tied with spotted ribbon and finished with a gorgeous flower!

It was hard to know what to use first and I resisted the urge to use it ALL on the one layout.

here's the result:

{happy birthday little sister}

Belated birthday wishes to my sister Debbie who celebrated her 33rd birthday on Anzac Day in true Aussie style - by going to two-up.

As a kid Debbie was always the one running from the camera. She would never get in the family photos. Rarely lined up with my cousins and I for the obligatory photo at my grandparents house and went to extreme measures to avoid a photograph - like locking herself in the family car when she was only about 6.

So we have very few photos of her as a child.

And on searching for photos of her as an adult, for this post, I couldn't find many either!

The best I could come up with was this one. A favourite of mine but taken three years ago!

Happy birthday Debbie! See you on the weekend!

{circle journals}

I had the pleasure of receiving a gorgeous circle journal in the mail last week.

It was from Julie Love, a scrapbooker whose work I really admire and a girl I have gotten to know since we both were selected for the Scrapbooking Memories Masters team.

It was wonderful to see her work in real life and to touch it and see the wonderful workmanship she has and all the detail she puts into her creations.

Here is her beautiful circle journal.

Julie's theme was IN TEN YEARS TIME and certainly had me thinking. Thinking about how old I would be *shudder* and how old Ken and the kids would be in 2015. Thinking about how long I would have been married. What the kids may be doing then and what I may be doing. It was a fun exercise.

Here's my entry.

I asked each of my kids what they thought they might be doing in ten years time and it was interesting to hear what they had to say. They were all very definite with their answers.

Brandt can see himself owning his own building company, buying his first home, not married and travelling around Australia. He will be 24.

Jamison has wanted to be a chef for a long time so he said when is 20 he would be doing his chef's apprenticeship and living away from home with friends.

Capri said she will still be best friends with Kate and Bridie and be working for McDonalds part time while she is at school. She will be sweet sixteen!

THANK YOU Julie for allowing me to be part of your circle journal. I had a lot of fun contributing to it!

{spinning around}

Who would have thought a swivelling computer chair could be so much fun?

Capri and Chelsea certainly occupied themselves for ages spinning around and around.

And Roxy came along for the ride!

{last days of summer}

{pizza boy}

He did it!

Brandt got a job. We are very proud of him as he took it upon himself to find a part time job and after an interview, written exam and a couple of training days he started officially today!

His first shift was for three hours today and he said he was very tired after working for so long (?) and that he must have made 60 pizzas!

He also had a bit of a mishap in that he sent a pizza through still with a plastic stilt in the middle - a big no no and they had to fish it out before the ovens melted it into the pizza (mmm yum)

Looking very grown up in these pics. In fact I hate that he looks so grown up! Where's my little kid gone? What happened to him? Someone has replaced him with this grown up teenager with long hair, cool clothes, hip and happening attitude, a part time job and aspirations to save for his first car!

It's all too much!

camping out

After I had Chelsea and Jake to stay last week my sister returned the favour and Jamison and Capri spent the night on her property.

My sister isn't a scrapbooker so there were NO photos!

But she tells a great story!

Jamison and Jake were determined to sleep ALL night in the tent out the back. Now my sister and her family live on 24 acres of land where they can't even see their nearest neighbour. And at night it's dark! Pitch dark.

She gave them until 10pm to call it quits and sleep inside.

But they were determined, and worked diligently to set up their camp site. All nice and cosy with sleeping bags and doonas and snacks the boys were set.

Both boys pride themselves on being very brave. Both boys are actually scaredy cats!

They lasted an hour!

One hour out there in the pitch black night by themselves!

Apparently Jamison told Jake about a nightmare he had had a few nights before, got himself all worked up about the dream, scared the wits out of Jake and they both fled inside!

I wished I had a photo.

Just one photo!

Even just a pic of the tent!

Damn.

sleepover

With my kids happily visiting with my sister it was time to catch up with my good friend Fiona and stay overnight with her and her girls at their beach house north of Newcastle.

Lots of chatting, sharing scrapping magazines, eating chocolate and enjoying each other's company!

Thank you Phoebe for my beautiful bracelet and drawing!

Thank you Miss Em for always being so entertaining!

Thank you Fiona for the laughs and frivolity!

I had a great time!

freshly washed hair

Capri's hair drives me nuts.

These photos were taken the morning she had had her hair washed.

Nice and clean. Curly and long.

But it doesn't always look this way! Thank goodness for ponytails. They cover a multitude of sins!

As the week goes on I scrape her hair into a ponytail and you can't tell its really a mass of knots underneath! Her hair is too curly to battle with it each and every day.

And thankfully a bottle of conditioner and a comb restores her hair to its crowning glory each week!