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.