What Break?

Tell me I'm not the only one who doesn't feel like this "break" has really been any kind of a break. I feel busy, stressed out, and tired!! How does that happen?

We've been snowed in for days now, and the kids are BORED!! You would think that a bunch of new gifts from Santa could keep them occupied for more than a few days--but nope. Plus they are sick which is making them just ornery enough to be a challenge. I'm craving some place warm. My brother-in-law took his kids to Hawaii for the holidays. Now that is genius! We could be swimming in the ocean rather than digging out of the latest snowstorm. Anywhere warm just sounds heavenly right now!

So today is the last day of 2009. Where did the time go? I was reading in my journal last night and looking at my resolutions for 2009. I think I accomplished about 25% of them, which means that some of them will move onto my list for this year.

Some of there are:
* Put in grass!
* Get healthy (doesn't everyone have this on their list)
* Start really decorating the house and replacing some VERY used furniture

What are you resolving to do this year?

I have some projects that I did for QVC that I never got to share. Now that Lisa's show is no more--I think it would be safe to share a few.

I loved making this double page Halloween-themed layout of my darling nephew:

This one is about a very hilarious story of when Jimmy warned Katelyn not to "let any boys kiss her" as she went out to school one day.

And this one I just loved the darling fish stickers from K&Co:

I really enjoyed my run with CK and their QVC show. I loved the people that I got to work with, and the challenge of using products I might not typically buy. It was a great experience.

Well, I'm totally putting off cleaning, showering, doing laundry, and working--so I guess I'd better sign off. Wishing you a safe a happy New Year's holiday!

It might be Bitter Cold, but we KNOW how to have a good time!

And sledding in the neighbor's yard in 5 degree weather is how we do it!! (Although the photographer's hands were frozen within seconds. Holy freakin' cold!!!)

Merry Christmas!!

This is what awaited Brett and I Christmas morning--two VERY excited kids (note the Sprite in Kate's cup to calm her nervous tummy):

And then it was downstairs for the finding of the gifts:

And this is what's going on right now:

Just waiting for family and friends now to share lunch and settle in for the day. Hope you are having a lovely Christmas!

Feeling Grateful!

It has been a very busy month in my church congregation, and I'm feeling very grateful to those women that I get to serve with. The meals that are delivered, the gifts for the angel tree so carefully purchased and wrapped, the visits made--all these little acts of service just amaze and inspire me. I feel very blessed to serve with such good women. Sometimes it's overwhelming to see how good people can be! I just needed to put that out there to thank all the families in our ward.

On another note, I can hardly believe that Santa comes tomorrow night. I know our Santa gets a little paranoid about forgetting something and checks his list about 10 times to make sure nothing gets forgotten. Our Santa even goes so far as to put everything out to see how it "looks" visually. Because it should look to each child that they got the same amount of items. Oh the work that poor Santa has to go through. Hee, hee.

Yesterday I got to hang with my boy at his 1st Grade Christmas Party. Oh his teacher is an absolute saint. How teachers deal with sugared-up, excited and large bodies of children is an absolute miracle!! She looked worn out and ready for a break. I'm so grateful for good teachers in my children's lives.

Kate made the school play!! My not-so-little girl tried out for a MUSICAL. Yep a muscial--my girl with no dance or singing background went to the auditions, learned the dance, and sang a solo to try out. I had no idea she could do those things as after her very first dance class she was totally over it. I think the girl has a fearlessness that I've never had--obviously. She is an undercover fairy. Sounds intruiging doesn't it?!! It's a Princess Pageant--and that's about all I know about it. She's going to be very busy starting in January with practices. I love how when kids sign up for things--Mom automatically does too.

The kids are off today so perhaps (and I emphasize perhaps) we will do some baking today. Anyone that knows me knows that my idea of baking consists of burning a sugar cookie candle and opening a box of Oreos. But I think maybe with a few hours I could handle turning on my oven. If that doesn't work out, then I will head to the local grocery store for some store bought goodness.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday!

Year of You: December Class!!

This month is my last installment of the "Year of You" class at 2Peas. I have really enjoyed following in Robyn Werlich's footsteps with this class. You can download the class pdf and find more photos here.

I do have a monthly class next year that I'm really excited about. I'm actually working on it today. It will be a "Mini Album a Month" class. Here's the class description:

This year's "Mini Album a Month" class will have a dual focus: types of albums and album themes. Each month will focus on one style of album: acrylic, digital, chipboard, etc. in an effort to help techniques and methods for these types of albums. In addition we will also focus on one specific theme for each month: Brag Book, All About Me, Holidays, etc. Students will be guided on gathering supplies, assembling the album, and hints and tips for successful completion.

I'm not the only one with a fun class up their sleeve. Here's some other classes that are sure to be exciting:

* Digital 101with Erica Hernandez

This year's "Digital 101" class will be a primer on the basics of digital scrapbooking. From downloading and organizing your files to creating depth and realism in your finished projects. This class will cover technical issues as well as artistic variations. Hybrid scrapbooking will be touched on as well.

* A Year in Cards 2010 with Kristina Werner

A Year in Cards continues into 2010 with monthly classes featuring 3 cards each month. A Year in Cards helps beginner and experienced cardmakers add to their stash of cards with timely sketches and ideas to make the most of your supplies. Most major holidays are covered, as well as the more common card sentiments like thank you, sympathy, and birthday cards.


* Patterned Paper with Shannon Tidwell

Are you ready to play with paper? Patterned Paper is one of the least expensive scrapbooking supplies and yet one of the most versatile. In this class we will explore fun and of course colorful ways to use patterned paper on your projects. From embellishments to backgrounds....it's going to be a Patterned Paper Party!

* Making the Most of Your Die-Cutting Machine with Nichol Magouirk

Want to learn how to get the most out of your die cutting tools? Join Nichol Magouirk for this year long class focusing on the Silhouette, Quickutz Epic Six and Making Memories Slice die cutting machines. We will be covering everything from cards and layouts to a mini book and home decor items. Be prepared to learn everything from basics to advanced features using the latest and greatest for these three machines!

I'm so excited for these. Many of our classes are archived in the Education Section or the tutorial section. I can't wait to share some fun ideas with you!

Stamping HEAVEN!!

Hero Arts just released their newest stamps and you are gonna die!!! 2Peas already has so many in their store. The tough part? Narrowing down your choices. I mean look at these:

How about these for an urban project?

Oh and this set for a little prince:

And the matching princess set:

These very in love owls:

Or if you like them single, try this set:

And I haven't even scratched the surface as they have a ton more products like cards, envelopes, paper, and new Hero Arts ink, but this background stamp is just uber cool:

One last note, be sure to check out the Scrapbook Trends blog as we are giving away so many GREAT PRIZES!! :)

Mid Month Garden!

I love waking up and realizing the Garden is up at 2Peas. It just makes me happy to browse through the other girls' work and be inspired. (We don't get to see what's up until you do either--unless we give each other a sneak peek or two.)

I had one last two-pager, which is of my sweet niece Zadie. You can see all the supplies here (many of the shapes--the birds, the negative strip, and the tan swirl--on this layout are from Silhouette):

And then here is my Christmas layout. You can see the supplies for this one here:

This was our last Christmas together as a family, and the photo isn't great but the memories sure are!!

Some of the other layouts that I fell in love with this time around:

* Kelli Crowe's List layout--I love remembering what I asked for as a child--like a new record player and umbrella.

* Kelly Purkey's "Can't Go Back Now" layout speaks to my heart. It's about moving forward.

* You HAVE to check out Stephanie Dagan's "Countdown to Christmas" project. WOW!!

* And finally Stacey Stattler's happy beach page is awesome!!

How's the Christmas shopping coming? I'm waiting on an order from Amazon, and then it's just wrapping and neighbor gifts. Just need a night to make some treats.

Evidence that My Teenager Secretly Still Likes Me!

Yesterday I woke up to find this waiting downstairs for me . . .

She had made cinnamon toast, muffins, warmed up the waffles, scrambled eggs, homemade hashbrowns and Kool-aid for breakfast. She stayed up until almost midnight the night before decorating too. What a sweetheart!! Then she and the littlest boy played board games with me. I won once and she won once. They gave me the sweetest gifts: a thesaurus from Kate, Whoppers from James, and a magazine from the hubby (who had already thoroughly spoiled me on Friday). It was a beautiful day!

On the jeans front: I came home with some very on sale Boyfriend jeans from American Eagle, a pair from Vanity which should be shot for making me figure out how to read jeans sizes the same way a man does (now that's depressing to know your waist and inseam), and a pair of Diva jeans from Old Navy--what does that say about me? You should have seen the look on my dd's face when I told her I got a pair of skinny jeans. Apparently 37 is just WAAAAAAAY too old to pull that off, but when she saw them on her response was, "Oh they're not that bad!" I consider that a compliment. ;)

Thank you for all the sweet birthday wishes. Now it's on to finishing up Christmas. Can you believe it's next week? CRAZY!!

Happy Birthday to ME!! :)

The first b-day in many years where I feel just happy and content and not stressed out. My little family went overboard in making sure I was relaxed and spoiled. I love them for it!! Good friends and family is the best gift of all.

A Couple of Hot Dates!!

Yesterday I had a date with the other man in my life. Jimmy invited me to stay for lunch with him after volunteering in his classroom. He's very protective of me and wasn't sure he wanted any of his friends sharing a table with us. He hugs on me the entire I'm there, and I just eat it up. I told him that his dad was jealous that I was on a date with another boy. He giggled. He did, however, tell me that the next time I come I'd better get all my chores done so I can stay longer (I had to run errands after lunch). Funny how one child can't get enough of me and my teenager would DIE if I came to school and had lunch with her. LOL!

But who could resist a lunch date with this little dude:

Today the main man in my life took the day off to take me birthday shopping (my birthday is on Sunday). We've discovered that cash gifts work quite well to maintaining the balance in our marriage. Hee, hee. I'm off to find some jeans that hide the negatives and accentuate the positives. He's so excited to be my shopping buddy--not. ;) But it's my birthday and I'll drag the dh around if I want to. Smooches, babe!!

The willing victim:
Keep your fingers crossed that they've invented jeans that I actually could love!! ;)

Does This Constitute Sledding?

Yep. That's how we do things around here. When it's crazy busy and dark comes within a few hours after school, my poor kids have to resort to making a ramp from our very not tall porch and sliding down. Hilarious!!


We're supposed to get hit by another crazy snowstorm starting tomorrow. We already have well over a foot of snow now. So I spent most of yesterday finishing up the Christmas shopping. I have a few online purchases to make, and I'm good. Can you believe how quickly it's coming? I'm REALLY glad we put up our tree early this year. I forget how busy December can get!

American Crafts Warehouse Sale--that's all I'm sayin! ;)

Thank YOU!!

I feel so blessed to have such kind and supportive blog friends. Sometimes it's hard to know how much of myself to put out there, and your comments made me feel like you understand. I am so grateful for each and every one of you!

I am doing better. Feels like the yucky depression lifts and things are good right now--busy--but good. :)

Wanted to share a few things that were featured on the Melissa Frances blog.

The first is a little Candy Bucket:

The next is an altered candle for Christmas:

You can see the rest of my projects on their blog. I really enjoyed the vintage feel of their lovely products. So much thought and detail goes into their embellishments and papers. And I love Sherelle Christensen's rub-ons. I'm a sucker for gorgeous handwritten elements.

I also wanted to point out the Scrapbook Trends is having MAJOR giveaways on their blog this month: a pink Slice, a Sizzix machine, a video game. Lots of fun so check it out!!

Well, I'd better go dig us out of the snow so I can my junior high student to school. I've woken her up three times now--she must be REALLY tired. :)

Remember the Layout

that I was working on that was both cathartic and painful? This is it. It appears in the December Scrapbook Trends Issue (2009).

I have been in a funk the last few days, and I cannot seem to shake it. I'm trying, but sometimes I just feel "off" with really no reason. But when I do feel that way sometimes feelings about Joey bubble up to the surface.

I wasn't the best kind of Mom to Joey. That's very hard to say. He was my first. I really had no idea what I was doing. I was impatient. I was unrealistic. And sometimes I was just downright unkind. I'm happy to say that I have come a LONG way from that unhappy person. I think we all learn and our first children seem to suffer most from that learning process. And thankfully I changed long before we knew the path our lives would take.

I learned to enjoy the moments a whole lot more. I learned that spilt milk, accidents, and life in general wasn't quite the big deal that I used to make it out to be. I learned that I could chill out and still be a good Mom. I learned that a hug worked just as well as a spanking. I learned that time was precious and a child's love and affection is the best gift in the universe. I became a lot more happy and a lot better at being a mom.

In my last post I mentioned that looking at pictures of Joey as a little boy was painful. I know we all make mistakes--some big and some little. And thank goodness for second and third and thousand chances to do things better. But you see, I ran out of second chances. And while I was a pretty good Mom to Joey, especially in those last years; I can't take back those times when I wasn't. Maybe I'm being hard on myself, but I can't expect less than my best when it comes to my kids. They really mean everything to me. And so when I see those pictures I can't help wishing I could have another chance to go back and fix all those mistakes (for him and for me).

It's very painful sometimes.

I do have to share that part of my belief as a "Mormon" is that we believe that when Christ comes again those of us that have lost children will have the opportunity to finish raising them until adulthood. It's something I'm hanging on to. And when I'm having those moments now with Kate and Jim where I'm not giving them the best of me, I try to remember that I'm trying to prepare to be the best kind of parent for both them and Joey.

It's a lesson I will always be learning. I hope I'm getting better at it!

Happy December!!

Can you believe it? As my son would say "this is the Christmas month." We are all excited at our house. The kids' shopping is done. Now I just have to finish up extended family and the hubby. And then I hope to do activities like bake cookies and deliver goodies to the neighbors. Brett and I are crazy busy with work this month so I'm extra glad the trees went up early this month.

The Garden is up at 2Peas today, and the theme this month is "2 Pagers." I love 2 pagers so I really enjoyed this theme. I'll share some of mine and then I want to point out some other fabulous designs by my fellow Garden Girls.

The first is actually a product focus, which was American Crafts "Baby Flair." This cutie pie is my niece Amelia. You can see more photos of the project and my supply list here.

(I used the Silhouette Machine to cut the title and the title label. I'm really loving my machine!)

This next one is a Joey one. I was having a terrible "missing Joey" day yesterday. It's amazing how the grief can bubble up so unexpectedly. I was looking through Katelyn's baby book and saw photos of him as a little guy and it was so painful. More on that later (I want this to be an upbeat post).

Katelyn pointed out that Joey is usually smiling in his photos, and he really was a smiley kid. You can see additional photos and the supplies at 2Peas here.

My last one is (gasp) a themed layout: soccer. I think because for work I often do themed layouts that for 2Peas I prefer just emotional layouts. But I have a lot of "events" that need to be scrapped as well. You can see the supplies and more photos here at 2Peas.

(You know you're a scrapbooker, when you can talk to your sister over the phone and ask for a color recommendation and she and you can talk in Bazzill colors. Hee, hee. Thanks, sis!)

Ok, now I've GOT to share some of my friends' designs. They are amazing.

* Mary MacAskill is just amazing. I love this "Duck to Water" layout so much!!

* Jen Jockish has the phenomenal ability to include all these delicious details. Don't miss this one!!

* Stephanie Dagan just needs to do all my photography and layouts. Man, she's amazing. Check out this 2 pager.

* And Kristina Werner's digital layout just "rocks." Hee, hee.

So many, many other fabulous layouts. Be sure to check them out in the Garden. Wishing you and yours a very happy December 1st. :)