Love You Forever

It's Saturday and time for Lauren's Sketch. I honestly forgot it was Saturday....this week has just been crazy, both good and bad. It started off horribly with Sonador's passing, then we had to explain things to Ethan. Tuesday was better and the anticipation for Christmas was wonderful and exciting. The kids were so thrilled that Santa was coming, they could hardly wait. Christmas was busy and then it was back to work yesterday. Ethan had labs and wouldn't you know it, Ethan's platelets were low and he needed a transfusion, only problem was that St. Louis's clinic was closed and the only option there was to wait until 5:00 last night when their CARES unit opened. So we opted to go to our local hospital, but the platelets wouldn't be here from the blood bank until around 4:00....so we decided to stay here since St. Louis is about 3 hours away! Ethan had a reaction to the Benadryl and screamed for a half hour straight. He gets this as a pre-med for his platelets. So we finally left there to head to my sister-in-law's birthday party and they had been there since 5:00 and we got there at 7:00 and they were still waiting on their food! To top the night off, we went back to their house for cake and pie and everything was going fine until we were getting ready to leave. Ava was sitting on the floor in the hall and was talking to another friend and she leaned back and hit the door to the basement and it wasn't latched and she fell backwards all the way down the wooden steps to the concrete floor. Luckily she just got a couple scrapes and a lot of tears. This was terrifying for me. I think my heart stopped. I tried catching her, but felt helpless as she fell down every step. That ended our night, but the kids were still determined to go camping when we got home. Ethan put his tent up and said it smelled, so he and Daddy slept in the bed, but Mommy and Ava got to camp. Hope all of you have a good weekend. We're hoping ours gets off to a better start than how our week ended.

Don't forget to check out everyone's cards:
LaurenMeader
Tamara Harder
Maria Levine
Dawn Easton
Kirsten Dubosque
Kristy Vernon
Kim Gasper
MacKenzieBruckler

Tribute to Our SONADOR

Yesterday was a very sad day at our house. We lost our horse Sonador. This was Ethan's horse for his Make-A-Wish and he was more than just a horse, he brought so much joy to our lives at a time when we needed it most. We couldn't have asked for a better horse. He was so kind, gentle, loving, and truly Ethan's best buddy. Oh how he is missed. We don't know what happened, but just found him yesterday morning lying out in the pasture.

We had to break the news to Ethan last night and that was so hard. We had to explain death and all the "why" questions. He took it better than my husband and I. We are taking this really hard as we treated Sonador as part of our family. We never knew we would have a horse and actually doubted getting one, but from the day we got him, we loved him with all our hearts.

Here's to you Sonador. We will miss you forever. As per Ethan's request. GOD please don't let the old people up in heavan touch Sonador. (That brought a little laughter to last night). Ethan is just the best boy ever and he had the best horse. Sonador is now at peace in our back yard behind the kids playground. They understand he is up in heaven now eating all the hay, horse treats, and carrots that he wants. LOVE YOU SONADOR!

Santa Visit and Saturday Sketch!

It's Saturday and time for Lauren Meader's Sketch. This is what I came up with after I flipped the sketch. I just got this set from SU and I love it! I've wanted it for a long time and am so glad I got it. Won't it be cute for a scrapbook page title! I found this patterned paper in my stash. The colors I used were pure poppy from PTI and bashful blue from SU. I cut the snowflakes out with my Pazzles. I didn't know how it would cut with them being so small, but it worked perfectly. I added some bling to the whole thing with my 2 way glue pen and my favorite, dazzling diamonds.. It's such a cheery card and we definitely have snow, lots of ice too!

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Last night my husband and I took the kids to see Santa (for the second time because Ethan forgot to ask him for something!). They just love seeing him and aren't afraid at all. Of course I had my sanitizer in hand....there are lots of germy kids! Ava wasn't even afraid. They asked him for lots of things and even waved good-bye. For $2 you could take your own pictures too. I just love this picture! Too bad Santa couldn't show up for all the pictures I want to take of my kids!!!

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Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We did end up traveling yesterday, but then had to turn around and go to our local hospital in the hopes of getting platelets here. It didn't work out as planned though and we are heading back in this morning to get platelets for Ethan. I'm just praying that we don't end up in the hospital with any type of infection for Christmas. What a bummer that would be. We are enjoying the Christmas festivities. Our first Christmas is this Sunday and then we have a couple more spread out throughout the week.

Thanks for checking in. Be sure to stop by to see all the other gals cards too.

LaurenMeader
Tamara Harder
Maria Levine
Dawn Easton
Kirsten Dubosque
Kristy Vernon
Kim Gasper

MacKenzieBruckler

A stamping award and early morning ramblings!

This award requires me to list five things I'm addicted to. Addictions?

A friend of mine that I've met through the "Blogging" world nominated me for this and I usually don't play along with any type of forwards or things like this, but it's 5:00 am, I'm up and thought, why not!

Go check out "Mindless Creativity" with Kristen to see her wonderful work.

1. stamping - definitely my #1 stress reliever!

2. sweets - any kind, but chocolate is probably my favorite

3. shopping - it's therapeutic

4. Diet Dr. Pepper - I don't do coffee!

5. stamping blogs - I love to surf for new ideas!

Thanks Kristen.....it was fun playing along.

I awoke this morning to a tree limb that sounds like it is going to fall on our house. We had a "HUGE" ice storm here through the night. The fun part is that I have to head to get Ethan his labs at 7:00 in the morning in case we need to head to the hospital for platelets which is 3 hours away on a good weather day! Oh fun fun!!!

I've been working feverously on my Christmas cards and should get them finished today....depending on if I have to travel or not. I also made a Christmas present for my sister-in-law. Over the summer my kiddos seemed to have lost her coasters while playing with them at their wedding present opening. So I made her some new ones out of tiles from Lowe's. If I'm home today ( "if" ) then I'll snap a picture so you can see. These were super easy and I think they look really cool.

Off for a few more zzzzzz's.....at least until 6:00! Have a great Friday! Only 6 days until Christmas! Oh the kids are so excited.....in fact, I took them to see Santa yesterday and here is their picture. I read online that you could not bring your own camera.....only to find out that if I had brought mine I could have paid $2 and used my camera! I have a really nice Olympus E330 DSLR.....oh well. The kids probably wouldn't have behaved so well if I had brought mine. Guess I'll share this picture later today too......blogger doesn't seem to want me to add any more pictures!

I LOVE you Beary Much!

It's still Sunday and I have "2" posts for today! That doesn't usually happen, but I figured that I better post while I had a chance....the kiddos are still sleeping and I got my card uploaded, so why not! Then I have to get off of here and work on my Christmas cards!!! Here is my VALENTINE idea! It is actually a camping stamp set called "Under the Stars" by Stampin Up! I love this set, but thought it would work perfectly to hold a little banner! I added a little bling with some of my Martha Stewart glitter. And....I have a picture of my little Ava girl. Here is her outfit she wore to the cookie exchange yesterday. The cutest part about it is that her tights have a little bear on the butt. I was showing her butt to everyone yesterday.....too cute!

So don't foget to look at my "other" post for today. I'll be back sometime this week to show you my workspace....it's almost finished. I just need a little paint on my island! I love how it turned out! Have a great Sunday and start to the new week!

Masculine Card

Papertrey Ink's release Party is tonight.....I always find something that I like! I can't wait to see their new Heart Prints set this month....I love hearts and this set looks really neat. I love the idea of the coordinating punches to. Have you seen Lauren Meader's new templates.....looks like PTI is going to start carrying those cool tubes to go with them too. I think these would be fun to play with and create some neat gifts. My card today was what I submitted for the Guest Star Stamper contest at PTI. The challenge this month was to do a card for one of the following categories:

-Best Teacher's gift

-Best Masculine Card

-Best use of any Papertrey set released before October 2008

I chose to do a masculine card, but I guess it would actually fit both categories of a set released before Oct.2008 too. Pond Life is such a versatile set. It's great to use for grown men or little boys. I'll load up another card that I made with the cute little turtle in this set. I loved how this card turned out. The bright colors aren't usually my style, but it was a really fun card to make.

That's it for this Sunday. We just got back home from church and going out to lunch. Never a dull moment here that is for sure. Ethan had labs yesterday because we were worried about his platelets and his hemoglobin levels. His platelets have dropped quite a bit, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we end up heading to St. Louis this week for a transfusion. We'll just play things by ear though. He is still full of energy though. Those of you that don't know about all of these medical terms, platelets are the part of your blood that helps it to clot....well Ethan's was 36 and most people are around 200-400....so what does Ethan do at lunch today. He pushes his chair backwards and luckily there was a lady sitting behind him, so her leg took most of the fall of his head. I was so mad because I had just told him to quit doing it and there he went and almost hurt himself really bad.....kids! The bad thing about Ethan falling is that it is dangerous to hurt yourself with low platelets in fear of bleeding and not being able to stop! Try to explain tha tto a 4 year old! Ava threw such a fit that my husband had to take her outside for a little "talk". She behaved most of the time after that. Some days are just trying to say the least!

I'll be back tomorrow to share a cute valentine card. I'm heading to make it right now and then I HAVE to get my Christmas cards done. Lots of things to do. Tomorrow I head back to work for my second week back. 2 days doesn't seeem to work out too bad.....5 days in between really gives me the break I need and keeps a good balance between family and work. Thanks for stopping by. Have a good Sunday!

Lauren's Saturday Sketch!

Seems like forever since I have gotten to make a card. I really enjoyed this weeks sketch from Lauren. Make sure that you check out her site, especially over the past few days. Her new templates are wonderful and she has so many cute ideas. For my card I used some new paper that I picked up last weekend on our shopping trip at Archivers. It's by Basic Grey. Isn't this tree paper cool! I thought it would go great with PTI's 2008 Holiday Tag Collection. I added a little dazzling diamonds to give it some bling. I used SU's riding hood red and PTI's Ripe Avacado card stock. Ava hadn't posed when I took the picture of my card, but she decided later on in the night that she needed to, so up to the top of the steps she went!



Today my Mom is having a cookie exchange at her house.....the 5th annual. It should be fun. I made "extra easy" cookies this year. I just took Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie packages and then made drop sugar cookies with a Hersheys Candy Cane Kiss in the middle. They are really yummy! Who says that cookies have to take all day to taste good!!! The best part is that I set each of my kids with 2 bowls in front of them, one for the candies and one for the wrappers.....I bet they unwrapped over 3/4 of the candies before they got bored, can't beat that!

Here's Ethan posing with one of my many "BELIEVE" signs around my house. He's doing great, feeling good, full of energy and just loving life. We are so happy to be home and are enjoying every minute of the holidays. Hopefully we won't go back to Philadelphia until January.

Here's a picture of my tree before the kids started adding their ornaments. I actually made my flowers this year. I bought white poinsettas from Wal-Mart and sprayed them gold for about a 1/4 of the cost it would have been buying them already made from Hobby Lobby! I was into a "gold" theme this year I guess. I love this time of year. I have up so many trees, big and small. I think I have up 6 trees all together!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far. It's supposed to be in the low 50's today with up to 45 mph winds......fun, then on Monday it is only supposed to be 19! Thanks for stopping by.

Be sure to check out the other ladie's sites for Lauren's sketch.

Tamara Harder http://tamarastamps.blogspot.com/
Maria Levine http://riacreations.blogspot.com/
Dawn Easton http://www.TreasureOilerDesignz.blogspot.com/
Kirsten Dubosque http://www.kirstendubosque.blogspot.com/
Kristy Vernon http://www.kvernon.blogspot.com/

Kim Gasper http://stampinintherain.blogspot.com/

MacKenzie Bruckler http://midnightscramper.blogspot.com/

Howdy Partner!

Isn't Billy just the sweetest little cowboy. This stamp reminds me so much of my little Ethan. Ethan wanted to know why he had a stick horse though.....every real cowboy has a "real" horse!

I used my copics to color Billy in. I used to love to color with crayons when I was little.....didn't know I would get to continue doing it now that I'm big!

Today was a good day at work. The morning was a little busy getting the kids ready and out of the house, but it was nice having to "think" about different things for a change. The night seems to go by quickly, so I'm very thankful that I'm only working 2 days per week, plus with Ethan's lab schedule, we don't have time for much else.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great Tuesday!

It's been a busy weekend.....no cards to share, at least I don't have pictures taken of them yet. This past week was a busy one and I got to go Christmas shopping on Saturday so I was out doing that all day. It was fun and I only have a few more people to buy for! I wanted to share a picture of my kiddos though......aren't they cute in their Santa hats?!? Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with my card that I made today and let you know how my day goes tomorrow......I'm going back to work! This will be the first time I've been back in almost 2 years! I'm very excited, not really nervous about work, but wondering how the morning is going to play out getting the kiddos ready and out the door in time. I'm sure it will all work out just fine. Hopefully I can still remember a little engineering!!! Enjoy your Monday!

The Weiman Family....

I have this tune in my head from the "Adams Family". Ethan's teacher asked for all the parents to create a scrapbook page of the kids and their family. This is what I came up with. The layout was actually taken from a blog banner on Kimberly Crawford's site. I saw this and thought it would make a nice title for Ethan's page. Here is what I ended up making. I love my Just Rite Curlz Delux Kit. I love how easy these stamps are to use and how you can customize your pages. I was doing this during the wee hours of the morning and I have a TON of pictures of Ethan and our horses, but I didn't have any of the pictures with him and his horse, so I had to go with what I had.....maybe my husband will read this and get me a photo printer for Christmas!!! (Hint)! The colors I used were PTI Kraft and SU Not Quite Navy and Baja Breeze. I love these colors together. I better run. My kids are taking off to get themselves dressed......it's always interesting to see what they pick out for themselves to wear, espeically my 2 year old daughter!

BELIEVE.....Tags

I saw this idea over on Taylor Vanbruggen's website and I knew immediately that I wanted to make some that said BELIEVE. I really had fun making this. I have some close up pictures so you can see the details. I used my Pazzles Inspiration to cut out the tags. I left about a 1/2" flap along the edge of each tag so I could connect them together. I scored each piece so it would bend too and create and accordian type set of tags. I used a ton of stuff on these. They probably took about a couple hours total to make, but I love the way it turned out.

The letters are from Just Rite Curlz Deluxe Kit. They are on sale right now, buy one get one free. I love this set. I used it all of the time. It comes with smaller letters too and they work great to make personalized tags. The patterned paper is from Lizzie Anne Designs. It's on sale this week too! The striped ribbon is from SU. I used some tiny greenery that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. All the buttons are from Archivers. The large snowflakes I cut with my Pazzles Inspiration too. The great thing about the Pazzles is that you can make things as large or as small as you want them. If you are a computer savy person, I would highly recommend this machine.

Thanks for stopping by. I have a scrapbook page to share that I had to create for Ethan's pre-K class and......I changed my Christmas card, one last time.....I'll be posting both of these later this week. Here are some close up shots of my tags. I attached almost everything with hot glue except for the paper. I used my tombo mono for that. If you have a pazzles and would like this tag template, contact me and I'll send it to you.

Warm Winter Wishes

Here's a "very" quick card for you this morning for Lauren's Saturday Sketch! I used the Snowfall set from PTI and my big snowflake is cut from my pazzles inspiration......oh how I love that thing! The little snowflake is from my Martha Stewart punch. It's a very simple card, but I love the layout that Lauren had for us this week.

My little girl isn't here this morning to hold my card.....she's at Grandma and Papa's with her brother. They spent the night last night, so I quickly made a card this morning and now I'm off to pick them up! Have a great weekend!

Hoppy Birthday! A Copic Color Challenge!

Little by little I've been adding to my copic marker collection......why, well, until today I would have said because everyone raves about these, but I just don't understand why. Yesterday I got the colorless blender.....I didn't have that and NOW I understand why these are all the rave! I inked up some of my Pink Cat Studio stamps and got to work. Little Billy is just the cutest. This is from a set 14 Billy Stamps called Billy Plate 1! Check them out here if you haven't seen these before. I needed a little something to get my mind off other things so off to making a card....that always seems to help.

The copics that I used for this G07 Nile Green, E00 Skin White, B24 Sky, YG06 Yellowish Green, B21 Baby Blue, Y21 Buttercup Yellow, and 0 Colorless Blender. Paper is from SU: Green Galore and Pacific Point

Ava girl is always right beside me stamping and did her usual pose! I have on red today so she had to have on red too. Note her hair bow too. This girl has more hair bows than any other little girl I know. My Mom makes these.......if your interested, just drop me a note and she'll get them all made up and ready for Christmas.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. THANKS for all the comments yesterday. Joining in on the Papertrey Blog Hog was a lot of fun.

Ethan Update: Ethan is doing well. He is 6 days post his 2nd MIBG treatment and is feeling great. His counts are holding up well and he is full of energy. It's supposed to get to 52 today so we are planning on spending most of the day outside. Gotta run and feed our horses......thanks for stopping by.

Floral Frenzy Challenge......PTI BLOG HOP

I got the chance to make a card for Papertrey's Blog Hop this month. I read the challenge just yesterday and loved the idea of using felt. I love how the flowers turned out....I just free handed them on the felt and cut them out. Not too bad for my first attempt. The buttons just made the card I think. I seem to be using this color combination a lot lately, pure poppy and dark chocolate.

For those of you that follow my blog, you'll notice that my daughter, Ava, helped out with picture taking again! She is too funny, she runs to the steps where I take all of my pictures and can't run there fast enough. I have to literally move her to take a picture of the card and then I hand it off to her to model, just like Vanna White!

Most of you that follow my blog know that my son has cancer, so you can imagine the times that my kids have seen shots (pokes to them). I was sewing the buttons on with a needle and Ava was almost in tears because she was afraid I was going to hurt myself. It was too funny. She didn't understand why I needed a poke to make a card.

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

Hello Kitty!

It's Sunday.....but I have my Saturday Sketch finished. This is Lauren's stocking template from her new line of My Timeless Templates at PTI. I decided to try and make something for Ava's room to set by her kitty Christmas tree. This is what I came up with. I used my Just Rite stamps to create Ava's name and border and the flowers were punched from an old punch of mine. I created the kitty freehand and pieced it together

I like how it turned out and it is really easy to make. I made a 4 1/2" h x 2" w box for the inside with my scor pal. I even sewed with a needle and thread for the tips of the stocking. The colors I used are pink pirouette (SU), pure poppy (PTI) and white. The ribbon is pure poppy saddle stitch from PTI. I think this would be cute with some red tissue paper.....I'll have to grab some tomorrow at Hobby Lobby! They have their wrapping paper on sale 50% off so I'm heading there to get some for my kids Christmas. They have a paisley paper that I want to get for Ethan.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

YES......we are home from Philly and loving it. Ethan is doing great and we are so thankful for that. If all goes well, we should be home until after the new year!!!

IF THE SHOE FITS, WEAR IT!!! I just went upstairs to help Ava pick out her jammies and I stepped into the bathroom for a minute and came in to her room hearing her say "It fits!" She put on the stocking!! I said "NO" and she cried because she thought she was in trouble!!! So I guess Lauren's stocking is about a size 8 in case anyone was wondering!

We're coming home Chicky!

We're coming home Chicky! Oh how we can't wait to get home tomorrow (actually today....its' just a little early and I'd really like a little more sleep. Ethan is getting to leave Philly today after finishing up his 2nd MIBG treatment. Everything has gone fairly smoothly. This is definitely a difficult therapy to deal with both as the patient and the parent.

I didn't get to participate in this week's sketch for Lauren, but she has created something sooo cute. Our task was to create something using her "free" stocking template from PTI. Lauren's stocking is adorable and I'm considering using that idea for some gifts this Christmas too. I did get to do some online shopping while out here in Philly. I got a few things from the Site to Store at Wal-Mart......what a great way to get the gifts you want and save on shipping and waiting in lines or finding things in the store.....you just go there and pick everything up when it comes in. Can't beat that.

I'm hoping to be back tomorrow with something to share. I did bring my Christmas card supplies and worked on things a little last night. I have glittered stars on my card so I sat in the Ronald McDonald House family lounge here at the hospital and added sparkles to my stars, a little to the floor too.....the room needed a little bling too! I'm anxious to get all of my cards made and in the mail.....hoping to get that accomplished this week. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for checking in. I tried revamping the look of my website a little. It was super easy and "FREE" Just click on the link in the upper left if you want to try too. Happy Saturday everyone!

New Stamp Area (Under Construction) & Philly Update

Since we have nothing else to do at our house, I decided to try to revamp my "corner of the world". This is my stamping area and what you see is a new island that my husband just built right before we left for Philly. It's not painted yet and still needs some more stools and organization, but I love it. My island is 44" wide by 54" long.......it's huge and I love it. Idealy I have the side that has the one stool for right now set up so the kids can play and the other side is where I work. I have storage all under the other side, but it's not real organized yet as I had very little time to work on this last week. It's so nice though because this used to be a 3/4 wall and I felt like I was trapped in the corner and now I can see out. I share this space with our dining room and we actually have toys on one half too so it's a room with a lot of purposes, but it works for us! Hopefully when we return from Philly I can finish the space. I need to patch a little paint on the wall and just "put everything in its place"! One funny thing about the building of this is when my Dad came over I had everything piled high on the dining room table and underneath the island (I guess it is really a penisulla), was open, so Dad told my kiddos that this was their new playhouse. Well, when Ethan woke up from his nap and saw that I had filled up his "play house", he was in tears......thanks Dad. Papa had Ethan and Ava convinced this was for them! Too funny!!

Philly Update:

Ethan is getting ready to have his MIBG injection today. He has surgery this morning to place his catheter. A funny story about last time was that when he got back to the room, he discovered that he had a "tubie" coming out of his wiener.....in Ethan's words! Needless to say, he hated it. He's doped up on versad, a sedative, so he's not all there during this process, so that helps, but he says the darndest things. Last time he had this treatment he told the Doctors that came in that He already had his tubie in his wiener, so don't try to put one in! He's too funny. He's asleep right now and slept good all night. He's just hooked up to fluids and the "fun" will begin today. We are praying that this treatment puts him in remission again. I know some of you read my blog for the "crafty" part and others read it for both "crafty" and "family" stuff......so you get both!

Here's a picture of my husband and Ethan at the Liberty Bell on Tuesday. I think Ethan was expecting so much more......all he wanted to do after he saw it was go!

Hope to be back with some cards later in the weekend. Best case scenario is that we return sometime on Saturday......that would be so nice! Thanks for stopping by.

Ethan and Ava (Lily and Billy ) Sledding!

When I saw Lauren Meader use this new set, Lily & Billy Winter Plate, from Pink Cat Studio, I knew immediately that I wanted it. It fits my kiddos perfectly and looks just like Ethan and Ava sledding in the snow. Isn't it adorable. I used the colors pink pirouette and bashful blue from SU. The ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. My snowflakes are punched with the Martha Stewart snowflake punch. The scallop punch is from SU. I added some "bling" with my dazzling diamonds. I can't seem to get enough of these lately. I also added a little more scallop to the edge with my fiskars edge punch.

This card is for my little girl, Ava, who is just 2 1/2 with a very "vibrant" personality. She's not looking forward to her Mommy and Daddy and brother leaving for Philadelphia this week so I made her this card. She loves my cards and loves to run around holding them. Ethan has his MIBG treatment this Thursday so we will be gone all week and Ava has to stay home with grandparents. She's getting too smart in her young age and knows all too well what is going on.

Yesterday was Ethan's benefit and it was just wonderful. There were over 1000 people there and it was just a very great day. It was more than I could have ever imagined. So many thank yous to our friends and family who made all of this happen. Ethan is doing great and had a wonderful time playing all day long yesterday. Here's a picture of him at the barn setup they had to take pictures yesterday. Isn't it adorable. I have to share one of Ava too as she is always helping me take pictures of my cards!

My posts will probably be few and far between with our trip to Philly this week. Have a great week! Thanks for checking in.

Oh.....one more thing, I've had a few requests asking where my jammies came from from Saturday's post and they came from Target! Boy do I wish we had a Target where we live!

Have a Hoot of a Day!

It's Lauren's Saturday Sketch time.......and my stamp area is all torn up! Everything is sitting in piles on my dining room table, so I went searching for everything last night so I could come up with something for today. My husband is making my stamp area more open so he had me move everything out. It's a fairly cheap solution to making my area seem so much bigger. I'll have pictures once it is finished.......which could be a while!

My inspiration for this was Lauren's sketch and my daughter's pajamas.......take a look at the picture and you'll see. Thanks for looking!

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Be sure to check out the rest of the team too and don't miss my post below with my Christmas card!

Tamara Harder http://tamarastamps.blogspot.com/
Maria Levine http://riacreations.blogspot.com/
Dawn Easton http://www.TreasureOilerDesignz.blogspot.com/
Kirsten Dubosque http://www.kirstendubosque.blogspot.com/
Kristy Vernon http://www.kvernon.blogspot.com/
Kim Gasper http://stampinintherain.blogspot.com/

MacKenzie Bruckler http://midnightscramper.blogspot.com/

Christmas 2008 and My Little Vanna!

My Christmas card is finally desinged and ready to be mass produced. That's what's going in my suitcase to Philly. I have played with this design over the past couple of months and finally got it just the way I wanted it. BELIEVE.....Our Journey Continues. It's not what I wanted our Christmas cards to be about this year, but this is where we are at!

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The card is all SU cardstock, chocolate chip, very vanilla, and my favorite, riding hood red. I printed the sentiment on my computer using text boxes and I embossed the background with my cuttlebug and the paisly template. My stars are made using the SU star punches. I punched out the small star out of the riding hood red and then covered with 2-way glue and dipped into dazzling diamonds. The chocolate chip ribbon is from SU too. My picture was taken in our yard with the kids riding on our minature burrow! Isn't is adorable. I've shared it before, but it is definitely worth sharing again. The baby is "Baby Jesus". I told the kids we were going to pretend that it was baby Jesus and that name has stuck and both Ethan and Ava fight over this baby constantly. I print all of my pictures through the online one hour at Wal-Mart....I've shopped around and I like their quality the best!

Here's my little "Vanna" showcasing my card for me! She always runs to the steps when she knows I'm going to be taking a picture and she wants her picture taken too. Now if I wanted to take her picture that would be a different story!

We're gearing up for a very busy weekend and next week. Ethan's benefit is on Sunday and then we fly to Philadelphia on Tuesday and will be there until probably Saturday or Sunday. You'll have to hop over to Carole Burage's Blog "Mother's Little Helper" Check out the story of how we met at the hospital.....it is definitely a small world.

Hoping to be back tomorrow morning with Lauren's sketch. Hope all of you have a great weekend......we're supposed to get snow showers tomorrow!

I almost forgot.....I won a contest from Lisa Johnson and Marvy Punches. My Mom called and said that she saw I won.....and I didn't even know it yet! I get 5 of the Marvy scallop punches....isn't that cool. I'm very excited and want to thank Lisa and Marvy...they made my day!!!

It feels like WINTER!

I'm back. We spent the weekend in the hospital and got back on Sunday evening. What a great way to spend the weekend! It could have been worse. Ethan was feeling great by Friday afternoon, so I'm glad he didn't feel bad while we were there. He's on an antibiotic given intravenously through his port once a day over a 1/2 hour, so not too bad. It's been a crazy week, but that's life. Monday was a day full of medical stuff and by the afternoon I was just fit to be tied! I needed a break and I actually got one yesterday. I went shopping!!! Oh what shopping can do for a girl!!! I even got an early Christmas present from my Mom.....Thanks Mom! It's a craft wall oraganizer and it is going to work perfectly to house my ribbons, stamp pads, and several embellishements. I'll have to take a picture of everything once I get it all up and organized. I'm very excited!

Tonight I have stamp club so I thought I would take a quick picture of the cards we are making. They are SUPER SIMPLE and are really elegant looking too. I used Lovely as a Tree from SU! That is a very popular still, yet old SU set. I added some dazzling diamonds for some bling and tried it out in two color combinations. Always Artichoke/Mellow Moss/Very Vanilla and Bashful Blue/Night of Navy/Whisper White. Hope you enjoy! The kids are taking late naps which allowed me to get all of my stuff ready....I leave in 40 minutes, so I better wrap this up too! Papertrey is having their monthly release this Friday too!

We are off next week to Philly for another MIBG treatment for Ethan. We found out though that we don't leave until Tuesday, so that will give us a well needed day of rest on Monday after his benefit on Sunday. He's so excited about his cowboy party! I can't wait to see his face and watch him having fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Our little Donkey!

Now this is a site you don't see everyday! The other day Ethan and Ava wanted to ride the "donkey", so my Dad helped me get Ranger saddled up so the kids could take a "ride" around the yard. Donkey just wanted to eat the clover in the yard and the kids were wanting to get going. So, they got bored and wanted to swing. Well, what do you do, you can't hold on to the donkey and push the kids, so I tied him up wo the swingset and everyone was happy!

Here are my two kiddos "trying" to ride the donkey, but as you can see in both pictures, donkey's head is down eating away! Wish we were home now riding, but unfortunately we are in the hospital. Ethan woke up with a fever this morning so we ended up spending the morning at the clinic getting labs drawn and we ultimately ended up here in St. Louis. Ava is with my parents. Hopefully we'll get to come home on Sunday, but we don't know anything yet.

Needless to say, I do not have a card to share for Lauren's sketch tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to do both next week. I'm sure I'll be ready for some stamping by then! On a very good note though, we had good results from Ethan's MIBG treatments. All of the lesions are gone excpet for a spot on his leg and that didn't light up as much as last time, so this means that the treatment is working and we will most likely proceed with another MIBG treatment in Philly in another week. We are very happy with the results and are hoping and praying that this next treatment will get Ethan back in remission again.

I'll leave with a photo from the professional photographer that took pictures from Ethan's Make-A-Wish. They are wonderful and I couldn't be happier with them. She gave us all the proofs, a small little booklet and the cd with all the pictures on it. Hope all of you have a great weekend. Thanks for checking in.

Lauren's Sketch and my little "Goblins"!

It's been a crazy week.....my computer went down "AGAIN"! I lost everything from Oct 4 until now!!! I got lucky and I had printed off Lauren's sketch for today so I could actually play along, I just had to find some time. This morning I'm having stamp camp at my house and I think I have "almost" everything ready! Here is my card using Lauren's sketch. You'll have to check out Lauren's previous entries for this week too.....she made me some stationary and it is just wonderful. She is so creative and kind. I can't wait to see it in person.....it is just perfect, pink and brown, 2 of my very favorite colors!

Now for my car. I used my Mom's stamp set, 2008 Holiday Tag Collection and Snowfall from PTI. The punched snowflakes are a from a Martha Stewart punch and the patterned paper is from SU. It's a very easy card and layout and super quick to make. The ribbon is the pure poppy polka dot from PTI and the real red and pure poppy are so close in color that you can mix and match very easily.

Yesterday was Halloween and my Ethan was dressed up all day long. Ava wasn't as excited as Ethan was.....he was disappointed that his costume was in the dryer and not dry when he woke up, but he put it on as soon as it was finished. The kids had a really good time. We made 2 stops, one at my parents and then at my husbands great grandmas. Everyone came to both places so it was nice and the kids didn't get tired of riding in the van. Here's a picture of my Super Hero and my "nice" little Witch!

Update on my son.....Ethan is doing great. He has no signs or symptoms of anything so that is wonderful. He's full of energy and just a joy to have around (most days!). We have scans this week so we would appreciate all the extra prayers we can get. He looks and feels good so we are praying that the scans are clear. What a roller coaster ride. I feel like for the last few weeks we actually got to get off of the ride though and just walk around the fair, but now we're hopping back on board.....I'll let you know when we get off again!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully I'll be back this week with more creations to share!

Stamp Camp Sneak Peak!

Here is one of my creations for stamp camp coming up this Saturday. I have them all designed, the paper and ribbon is here ready to cut, so I think we are set. It should be a good time. I'm really excited about using my pazzles to cut out some snowflakes......I'll share that card too. I actually have about 15 minutes this morning before I need to leave and relieve my husband at school. Ethan wanted him to come today for a little while, so Ava and I are at home. That is a rare occurence. She is playing with baby dolls and getting into all of my cards! She's coming with me to school today because after school the kids are heading to town with me to get flu shots! We'll see how that goes.



This card uses SU's stamp set "Pocket Sillouettes". The colors are ripe avacado and kraft from PTI. The ribbon is ripe avacado from PTI too. I used basic black from SU and embossed the kraft. Very simple card and I think this could be used for both a man or a woman.








This is a card using my new set from PTI called Snowfall. I love this set. I'm sure I'll be making more Christmas cards with this. The sentiment is from PTI's new set Silent Night. I used my Pazzles to cut out the snowflake. I used PTI's pure poppy for the ink and snowflake. One of the nice things about the Pazzles is that you can change your images and increase and decrease the size with very little work. I used a punch from Martha Stewart for the inside snowflake and added a little rhinestone for some bling. The outer edges of the snowflake were sprinkled with dazzling diamonds to give it some sparkle. It's a very pretty card in person....the picture doesn't really do it justice.


Hope you enjoy my new creations. I better get heading to school. Ethan just loves going. I don't know how much he is learning, but he has fun interacting with the other kids. Have a great Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by!