LIFE IS GRAND!!!!

So, it's been a little while since I posted. We got WONDERFUL NEWS on Friday about Ethan's scans and bone marrow biopsy. Everything was clear and Ethan is CANCER FREE! We couldn't be happier. Now we are awaiting news about a trial that we signed Ethan up for. It is an antibody trial to help keep this disease from ever coming back....that being said, it is a trial, so some of the kids get randomized to take the antibody and others don't. We should know more by tomorrow.

Today we're just hanging out at home and I have stamp club tonight. I actually got my cards cut so I'll get my stuff ready to go when the kids go down for a nap. We've been inside all morning even though it is nice outside because we were waiting on the Direct TV man to arrive. He was late, of course, but it is all hooked up now. The kids are watching a new station called PBS Sprout. Ethan seems to like it and Ava could care less if we had a TV.

Here's my card for Today's Splitcoasters Sketch. I haven't done one in quite a while so thought I would try this week.

I asked the kids if I could take their pictures this morning and I said that Ethan could lay on the floor and Ava could get on his back.....well I'm sure you can picture how all of this went. I'll attach a few pictures. I have some new pictures too. I'm actually working on something. We'll see if I get it up and running in the next couple of months. These cards are for an "order" that I had! That's a little clue. I've been thinking about this for a long time now and I'm in the process of starting up a website to sell my cards and other "ideas." Any advice from anyone out there. I'm going to start out small and add as I see that I can keep up.Here are my cards. ? I've been using my computer some to print out sentiments and then cutting them out with my cuttlebug.

April Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

This was a fun challenge! I have 2 cards that I made with these paper samples. I made the "DAD" card first and I really like how it turned out. I usually dislike making cards for men, but I actually had fun making these. I absolutely love my new set from PTI, Pond Life. I made a card yesterday with the turtle. You can see that on my previous post. Hope you like my creations. I've been lacking on time to make cards with multiple trips to the hospital this week for our son's scans. Today we travel yet again so if you're reading this, please say a prayer for our son, Ethan, that he is cancer free! ......I wrote this last night and we actually got good news before we left the hospital. Ethan is CANCER FREE! All of Ethan's scans are clear and his bone marrow biopsy is too! PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!

"Happy Father's Day" Card Recipe:

Stamps: Pond Life (PTI)

Paper: Summer Sunrise (PTI)

Patterned Paper: Father Knows Best (PTI)

Ribbon: Summer Sunrise Grossgrain (PTI)

For this card I used a 1 1/4" circle punch and punched circles along the edge of the summer sunrise card. I then cut out the sample squares and glued them behind the holes. I used the punched circles to add a layering effect on top. The top patterned paper was just a strip of the sample squares and I left it as is. I think it tied the card together nicely. I used the oval punch from SU to punch the ends of the "Happy Father's Day" sentiment and brads from SU as well.

"DAD" Card Recipe:

Stamps: B&C Monogram Edition (PTI), Trajan Monogram (PTI)

Paper: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip (SU)

Patterned Paper: Father Knows Best (PTI)

Ribbon: Chocolate Chip Grossgrain (SU)

Accessories: Cuttlebug, 1 1/2" Circle Punch, 1 3/8" Circle Punch

This card was pretty simple. I used first cut the bottom portion of the card with a wave pattern. I used the scrap to cut the embossed paper to match. I stamped the letters and circles onto the patterned paper and then punched out and adhered to chocolate chip circles. I pieced together pieces of the patterned paper to tie the card together at the bottom of the card. I really like the layering effect of the close to cocoa paper.

Hope you enjoy! I had fun playing and look forward to next month's challenge!

Good Morning Ava!!!

We're home for the day! Oh we needed a break from the hospital. We left yesterday for the hospital at 7:00 a.m. and didn't get home until 9:45 p.m. Ethan is fine, but the Doctors were running behind schedule so that left us running behind as well. Wow were we tired when we got home. I'm a nervous wreck this week. Ethan's scan results should be ready tomorrow late afternoon and we won't hear back from his bone marrow biopsy until Tuesday. I hate the waiting. It's probably the worse. At least once you hear the news, you can deal with it.

So I'm trying to keep busy. The kids are eating lunch and I'm getting to play a little on the computer. Having a laptop comes in handy sometimes. I did make a card with my new Papertrey Ink stamps. I purchased Pond Life and I love it. The turtle is adorable. I raised up the shell of the turtle with stampin dimensionals and I sewed around the edges in a swirl pattern. I'm submitting this for the Splitcoast Wednesday stamp challenge so that is where the layout came from. I played with stamping the fish and the cattails last night too. I really love the new colors this month. I'll have my card posted tomorrow evening for the "BLOG HOP" at Papertrey. So be sure to check in sometime tomorrow evening. We were given a pdf file with small squares of their new patterned paper and were supposed to make something with them. I attempted to make a Father's day card. As most of you know, I don't really like making cards for men, but I do like how the card turned out.

CARD RECIPE:

Stamps: Pond Life (Papertrey Ink)

Paper: Summer Sunshine, Lemon tart, Spring Moss (Papertrey Ink)

Patterned Paper: Everyday Blessings (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: Summer Shine (Papertrey Ink), Certainly Celery (Stampin Up!)

Ribbon: Lemon Tart Satin, Summer Sunshine Grossgrain (Papertrey Ink)

Thanks for stopping by. I'm going to try and work on a picture frame this afternoon for a baby gift. After Christmas I got 12 picture frames for about a $1 at Hobby Lobby and they are 8x10 I believe and hold a 4x6 photo. They are unfinished and can be covered with paper and that is what I am going to try and do. Tune back in tomorrow to see if I accomplished this!!! (Maybe if the kiddos take a nap :-)

Here's Ava.....she loves taking a bath, but hates to get her hair washed...so she's smiling because I haven't washed her hair yet. The other picture is Ava getting up this morning. That is her night night and her "bop". Ethan had to get rid of his "bop" when he turned 2. It went out to the trash and the trash man took it away. Ethan was so mad and insisted that we get that trash man back here right now. Ava is getting cut a little slack. Since Ethan has been going through all of these treatments over the past 10 months we decided that we would try to throw hers away after things calmed down a bit. So if you see pics and she's in school with a "bop" you'll know why!!!

Cycling Through Life......One Day at a Time!

We had a wonderful weekend and our bike ride on Sunday inspired me to get out an oldie, but a goodie. Stampin Up's "Life Cycles". We got to take the kids on a bike ride and the weather was perfect and the kids had a wonderful time. I need to get to bed so this will be a quick post, but wanted to share these with you. Until I figure out what program to draw my sketch in, the tricycle card will have to do. That is the sketch I wanted for "Stamp Club" this month. The pink card with the tricycle I made today, but the red one is what I made when this set first came out. I still like the idea, but I think I like patterned paper a lot more now and adding embellishments seems to add some pizazz!

"THE ROAD TO A FRIEND'S HOUSE IS NEVER LONG!"

We stopped off at a family friends house on our bike ride so Ethan could go pee! :-) and to see their "bridge house".....I'll explain more tomorrow when I have more time. They were featured one time on HGTV and our friends asked if we knew who owned this. It happens to be one of my best friend's parents. Small world. Anyway......here are a few cards and pics of the kids.....now off to bed. We are off to the hospital tomorrow, Wed and Friday. PLEASE keep ETHAN in your PRAYERS. He has scans this week. Thanks and GOD BLESS!

Yummo Cookies!

Our plans changed a little today. We were geared up for a bike ride, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we decided to ride tomorrow. I baked some cookies (from a tube) this morning so the kids could decorate them. Seems like anymore if I make them from scratch, they get way too tired and then I have to do all of the decorating and icing the cookies is their favorite part. There are a couple pictures from that "adventure".

Here's a new card that I made inspired by my daughter's sweatshirt....I'm always using her clothing for ideas! I love the idea of blue and red strawberries. I also have been working on my card for Papertrey Ink's April Blog Hop. I think it turned out nice. I'll post it on the 25th.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Our kids are napping as we went to town to run errands and they went down late......looks like it will be a late night for us!!! Good thing is that I gave Ethan his last dose of his antibiotic so this will be the first night in a week that we haven't gotten up in the middle of the night to give him meds! I can't wait to SLEEP!!!

"HERD" It's Your Birthday!

So I forgot it was my Father-in-law's birthday.....oops! There has been so much going on lately and with Ethan's hospital admission, that put things all out of sorts. I'm finally caught up on my laundry and now on to other household things.....it's never ending....especially with 2 kids 3 and under! I decided I better get a birthday card made so I used Beate's weekend sketch http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ and used a set that I've had for a while from My Favorite Things http://www.mftstamps.com/home/homepage.html called Punny Farm. My initial idea was to make a baby book with letters of the alphabet corresonding to the animals....which I would still love to do sometime. One of Ethan's Oncologists is going to adopt a baby this year and I wanted to make it for her. One of these days I'll get that done. The patterned paper on this card is from misc sources....meaning I don't have a clue. It was just in my stash. I did make my own background piece in the upper right that says "Moo" I thought it would be cute to do that! By the way, my father-in-law milks cows so this card is perfect!

The kids are both doing good. We're actually getting to go out tonight without them! It should be fun. Then tomorrow we're going for a bike ride with some friends coming to town from Wisconsin. They have an extra Burley trailer so we're going to put Ethan and Ava in the trailers and take off for a short ride and then a picnic lunch. I can't wait. The kids will be super excited. Ava got a helmet for her birthday and Ethan has had one for quite some time so we should be set. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures. Here's my latest take on Ava's 2 year B-day photos. I've decided that I can take the kids pictures....especially since I have a nice camera. I'd going to try to head to a friend's house this weekend and have Ava sit around her Daffodils. Enough babbling.....I need to get back to cleaning house and getting some kids down for a nap. Have a great weekend!

We're BERRY Glad to be HOME!

We made it back home today after a 4 night stay in the hospital with Ethan. It seemed like such a long stay with having no notice at all that we would be getting admitted on Wednesday. Luckily the infection was caught early and Ethan was able to be treated right away and his lines cleared the infections very quickly. I have so much to get done now around our house. I wasn't caught up on laundry before we left so now I doubled that! Oh well....it will all get done sometime. We're just so "BERRY" glad to be home.

I wanted to try Beate's weekend sketch as I haven't gotten to participate for a while. http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ I got to get out of the hospital to go shopping for a bit and I got Ava the absolute cutest dress from Gymboree! It is pink with red and pink strawberries on it and it has a sweater to match with strawberry pockets. She had to put it on right away when we got home! She looks so sweet in it. I'm going to take her 2 year pictures in it. So my card has strawberries from SU's Tart and Tangy set and I used the setiment from a very old SU set Fruity Phrases.

I'll attach a couple pictures of the kids too. Dave let Ethan finger paint in the hospital! This is definitely finger painting! Ava is running from me as I'm trying to take her picture in her new dress!! Hope you enjoy! I had fun getting to make a card today!

Back in the Hospital....BLUES!

So the "new" news is that Ethan is back in the hospital with a fever. I'm up right now with him because he was running a temp about an hour ago and I have to keep an eye on him.....it's just a Mommy thing I guess. Dave is sleeping soundly on the couch and I am sleeping by my little boy. During transplant I couldn't stay in the same bed with him so this has been nice to be able to do so this time. Everything was going well today and he made it through his radiation treatments fine and then once we got on the road and were only about 5 minutes from the hospital, Ethan started to get the chills and his head was hurting and he was just overall not feeling well. So we turned the van around and headed straight back to the clinic to get checked out and once we got there his head was hurting worse and this really worried me. I was very stern about seeing a doctor right away and within 20 minutes they had Ethan hooked up to IV antibiotics. So we are here for a minimum of 48 hours. They have cultured both of his lines and we won't know if they grow anything for 24 hours from when they drew them. Oh the fun of waiting. One never knows what turns life will take. I thought we were on our way home to pick up my little Chicky, Ava and head home for the day. Little did I know.

So....no stamping supplies with me here at the hospital. I don't even have my camera to post pics. I know not many follow my blog, but this seems like a good spot to vent.....kind of like a place I can go to and I don't really know who is listening, but at least I can get things off of my chest! Ethan is really hating being here, but hopefully the time will pass quickly and we'll be home before the weekend. Please keep Ethan in your prayers. He will continue to finish up with his radiation treatments this week. I'm thankful that we'll be able to keep those on schedule.

I always keep Ethan's website updated if you want to keep up with our little guy. Just go to www.caringbridge.org Login: ethanweiman

Thanks for taking time to check in. One of my favorite companies, Papertrey Ink, is getting ready for their new release party on the 15th. So I've been following Nichole Heady's blog....look on my blog links. I love her purse idea and can't wait to get home to try one.

Remember to enjoy each and everyday!

Happy 2nd Birthday Ava!

Today is Ava's 2nd birthday! It doesn't seem possible that she is 2 already. She's definitely into the terrible twos! She had a great birthday party yesterday with all of her Grandmas and Papas. We had a small gathering since Ethan is on isolation, but the kids had a good time. I made Ava a princess card to go with her princess party theme. Of course the card was more for me than her, but someday she'll appreciate them!

I'll have to take a picture of my Mom's and Grandma's cards to share with you all too. We had to leave "very" early this morning to take Ethan to radiation......4:00 am. We got back around 12:30 so that wasn't too bad. Tomorrow his appt is at 9:00 so we won't have to leave until 6:00. I drew up several sketches that I'd like to try while the kiddos nap today....we'll see if I get them down at the same time. I've been going back through SU's catalog to find sample cards. They usually have some really good ideas and I like to case a little and change the cards to make them my own. I have one in mind that I'll hopefully get finished this week.

Thanks for taking a peek.

Here's a couple quick cards modeled after the card in SU's catalog on page 3. I wish I would have used a cuttlebug embossed background for my "mother" card, but I already had everything glued down. The stamps for the strawberry card are from Papertrey Ink's Green Thumb and the stamps for the Mother card is from Garden Silhouettes. Gotta run....I think you can figure out the rest! Gotta go do a dressing change on Ethan and then head for bed!

Thank you "BERRY MUCH"

Just a quick card for today! I made a baby card and this thank you card and have them all addressed and ready to mail! We're all kind of tired around here and are definitely ready for the weekend! One more day this week of getting up early!

Boots.....May the Simple Joys of Life be Yours!

NEVERMIND my STAMPO!!!! (Get it, typo, stampo). My husband pointed out I forgot E"t"han's t. Oh well, my brother tells me I'm a horrible speller anyway.....guess he is right. I'll get it fixed....nothing a few circle punches and a little adhesive can't fix!!!

So we are back from day 2 of Ethan's radiation! We got to leave an hour later today....5:00 am! That extra hour of sleep was wonderful :-) We got home today around 1:30 pm. I was blog hopping after the kids "finally" fell asleep and thought I would try a challenge to use one of my "new", but old to Papertrey Ink, Green Thumb stamp set. Check out one of my favorite blogs: Thinking Inking http://debbiedesigns.typepad.com/muse_and_amuse/ This is what I submitted using my Green Thumb stamp set.




The message says it all. Our 3 1/2 year old son, Ethan is in remission from his cancer that was found last July. Ethan is still receiving treatments, but how wonderful it is to enjoy each day for what it is. I used some pictures of Ethan playing outside with his boots. He loves wearing boots and collecting "walking" sticks! Isn't he just adorable!!!