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!

Lauren's "My Time" Sketch

It's time for Lauren's Saturday sketch......here's my Mom's card! She didn't leave me with a list of stamps.....I like the card though. I guess I looked at hers and had the same color combo in my head. I finally got out my new Papertrey Quilter's Block set and inked them up. I kind of struggled with this sketch. Thanks for stopping by to take a look.....if you didn't stop by yesterday you'll have to take a look at my new baby card. I am just loving this personalized onsie!

Stop by the other gals sites too!

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/

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby's First Halloween!

Here are my kiddos yesterday. I wanted to get a picture of them by all the leaves, but they were too wound up. I ended up with some fun pictures to share. I thought it was too sweet that they were holding hands. We went for a walk and Ethan rode his bike. It got rather chilly so after several trips back home we finally made our walk to the winery. That is our usual route. I think it is so funny when the kids ask if they can take a walk to the winery.

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Today is a kind of rainy dreary day. We've made some cards for Ethan and Ava's friends. Ethan got bored doing that so he didn't quite get all of his made. Ava did so good. I gave them halloween paper from a package I got it at the Target $1 Spot. It's almost lunch time now......the days go by so quickly. Hopefully it will stop raining soon so we can go outside for a while.

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I saw this card this morning on Lily Bean's Paperie and

just loved it, so I had to try one out. I had to combine a lot of sets to make this happen, but I love how it turned out. The idea of the onsie came from the site above, but I did my own layout. I couldn't find the sentiment I wanted, so I went to work on my computer. I made up an entire sheet in Word that says Baby's First. Now I can change it up and do these for all the holidays. The bat for my background paper is from Pink Cat Studio. The kitty cat from the Limiteless Limbs set from Pink Cat Studio too. The baby onsie came from PTI set, Bitty Baby Blessings. I mixed the cardstock too.....kraft is from PTI and the polka dot paper is from SU and the black and pumpkin pie is from SU too. I can't wait to make a little Christmas and Easter onsie card too!!!

I'll be back in the morning with Lauren's Saturday Sketch. So come back and take a look.

MFT Challenge Card and......my cute little Ava Girl!

I saw on Jen del Muro's site about an MFT challenge.....so I thought I would play along. It's on the 20th of every month and the colors to use were pink/black/white. I love this color combo and I really like this set, Punny Farm. It's such a great set! I used SU's pink pirouette and basic black. The paisley patterned paper is adorable, but I have lost where I got this from. I used my cuttlebug with the paisley embossing folder to add a little touch at the bottom and of course I used ribbon. The pink satin is from PTI and the black gingham is from SU.

My cute little girl Ava! We just love this girl to pieces and on top of our son having a rough past year and a half with his battle of cancer, it has really effected our little girl too. It's so sad that when she sees her Grandmas that it takes her a little while to warm up now because she thinks that she is going to be left behind. She latches on to me like I am going to leave her forever. She does warm up though after a while and is fine....it's just getting her to that point. It's amazing how cancer effects everyone in the family, not just the patient.

Here is Ava strutting her stuff last night while we were having "movie night". We had popcorn and watched Shreck The Third. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a really good time!

Ethan is doing wonderful so we are so thankful for that. He is almost 4 weeks out of his first MIBG treatment. The scans are getting closer so the "worry days" are almost here. Right now the days are good because we are just having a good ol' time.

Thanks for checking in....I'll hopefully be back tomorrow to share a scrapbooking page with you.