tis the season!

It's officially my favorite time of year!!! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and have spent the weekend cleaning up the house, taking the Christmas decorations out of the attic, and this:

Oh how I love Christmas tree "shopping". Of course, I really miss going and cutting down our own tree but going to a tree lot is the next best thing. Hard to believe that last year we were doing this with a 4 yr old in a full leg cast. It seems that November is just not our month!

Anyway, Ben did the typical "guy" thing and picked out the first one he saw. I swear, for an almost 6 yr old he's acting more and more like his daddy every day. "Let's get a tree and get the heck outta here!" lol No, that's not what my husband said but you know how guys are.

But the kids had fun picking out that perfect tree...

Look!!! It's the Griswold family Christmas tree!!

I still can't believe that Tuesday is December 1st. I also can't believe that Tuesday will be 4 weeks since my daughter first started getting sick with the flu which led to her pneumonia 4 days later. She's had weekly chest xrays & bloodwork since she's been home and she's so happy to be getting her PICC line out this week (hoping for tomorrow). At least one more week off school and hopefully she'll be going back next week. It's hard to believe what the last 4 weeks has brought us. And how many wonderful blessings.

I hope to be back in the next day or 2 with my December Daily album & Advent calendar :)

Happy turkey day!!

Twas the night of Thanksgiving,
And I just couldn't sleep.
I tried counting backwards,
I tried counting sheep.

The leftovers beckoned
The dark meat and white,
But I fought the temptation
With all of my might.

Tossing and turning with anticipation,
The thought of a snack became infatuation.
So I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door,
And gazed at the fridge, full of goodies galore.
Gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,
Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.

I felt myself swelling, so plump and so round,
'Til all of a sudden, I rose off the ground.
I crashed through the celiing, floating into the sky,
With a mouthful of pudding and a handful of pie.
But I managed to yell as I soared past the trees,
Happy eating to all - pass the cranberries please!

Delightful Decorations

This is one of the cards that I worked on a couple weeks back. I've been waiting to play with this new stamp set (Delightful Decorations) for a while. When I originally ordered it I mistakenly ordered the spanish version. Aaaarrgghhh.... So I had to wait to send it back and get a new one. But I love that there's a matching punch for this set. Makes things a whoooole lot easier.

Other supplies used: Jillibean Soup papers, Martha Stewart punch

I used the snowflake embossing folder along with some baker's twine. And don't forget the stickles to make the snowflakes sparkle and some green crystals!

SO worth the wait!

I had a date with some vampires last night...and some hunky werewolves. It was well worth the wait. I think I may have to go back for more!

back to the scrappiness!

So it's been a while since I've posted anything scrappy related...for obvious reasons. I worked on a few Christmasy things before Olivia got sick so I thought I'd share a few.

First, I started playing with some Christmas tags using plain 'ol shipping tags that you can get at any office supply store. The ones I used measure 4 3/4"x2 3/8" so they're a good size for using on a present, gift bag or even on the front of a card. 

I ran them through my Sizzix with the Snowflakes embossing folder and then distressed the edges and added some Christmas accents. The red felt snowflakes were actually a big roll of felt ribbon that I found at Target. I stamped the Christmas trees on white cardstock, cut them out, mounted them with pop dots and added some green crystals. Add some red & white baker's twine and you're all set!

Here's something else I came up with, again using my Sizzix machine. This time I used a Christmas tree die to cut some trees out of corrugated cardboard as a fun holiday accent.

I used one of these trees last year to decorate the front of my December Daily album:

You can check out the entire album here (scroll down for all of the posts).

I just added some buttons & string and you have a cute embellishment for albums, scrapbook pages, cards, etc.

Well, I'm off in a few hours for my date with a werewolf! Daddy has IV duty tonight ;)

it's SO good to be home!!!

After 8 days of no sleep, worrying about my baby, eating cafeteria food, and hearing alarms go off all day and night. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed! And I know Olivia's so glad to be home, too. She's not totally healed yet but we're getting there. The home health nurse came today to show me how to do her IV antibiotics which she'll be on for another week and a half. She still keeps getting occasional fevers so we have to continue to watch her and if things haven't improved (or God forbid get worse) we'll be going back up to Atlanta. I have been so immensely thankful for all of the prayers. Please continue to pray that her poor lung gets better.

I thought I'd share a few photos of our eventful week :) Here's her first night in the hospital here in town. Notice the red cheeks from her fever that kept spiking.

Poor girl, they had to poke her 3 times before getting the IV in cause her veins were just shot from being sick :( They gave her that little pink bear after getting her IV in.

The next day when the xrays & bloodwork came back worse, we took our first trip in an ambulance to Atlanta. That perked her up a bit!

Finally starting to feel a little bit better...

I have to say that everyone at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta were wonderful. They really made our stay much more tolerable. There were DVDs & books that we could "rent" for free, there were girls that came by daily with an art cart. When Olivia started feeling better she did a few arts & crafts with them. It was such a great hospital. I've been in several hospitals myself and this one was, by far, the best one.

And now Olivia has many stories to tell her friends....about her ambulance ride, her stay at the hospital, her many needle pokes, xrays and the CAT scan that she thought was pretty neat :)

I'm hoping to be back tomorrow with some scrappy stuff. It's been a while since I've posted that kind of stuff!! I worked on some Christmas things before Olivia got sick so I'll share those this week. 

on the mend

Well, it turned out that Olivia didn't need surgery. Her right lung is still pretty sick but she's slowly but surely getting better. Thankfully they were able to put in a PICC line so she hasn't had to get poked anymore (which she loves, let me tell ya!) It is looking like she might be able to come home tomorrow as long as they can get some home care set up for her. She'll be on IV antibiotics for probably another 2 weeks. It is still amazing to me that this all was a secondary infection from having the flu. It's common to get pneumonia (or "yamonia" as Olivia calls it!) from the flu but not quite this serious. We're still waiting for the results of her xray today so we're hoping it's a little better.

Thank you so much for your prayers. As worried as I was this week, the other families in this hospital were never far from my mind. A lot of families who won't have such an "easy" outcome. Please pray for them. It is so difficult to see your child in pain.

keep those prayers coming!

I have been SO uplifted by all of your prayers for my daughter. It's truly amazing just how many people are praying for her. We originally thought she'd be going into surgery today but the drs have decided to hold off for at least another day to see if the antibiotics can do their magic. Now that we've gotten some bloodwork back we know just what kind of bacteria it is and they've changed her meds so I'm praying that this might do the trick. However, the surgeons still may decide to take her in for surgery this weekend. As you can imagine I'm feverently praying that this will not happen. Please continue to pray for Olivia. Your prayers are working!!! 

in need of your prayers

I mentioned in my last post that we were at the ER on Sunday morning with my daughter. Yesterday we went and had another xray done and it showed no improvement so she was admitted to the hospital. Well, xrays this morning showed that it is actually getting worse and is now in her left lung as well. So she's being transferred up to Atlanta. 

I'm humbly asking for your prayers right now. 

this is how we spent the wee hours of the morning

Sitting in the ER. Diagnosis: pneumonia in her right lung. Sheesh!!

it's been how long??

months since I've posted a layout? Really?? Holy cow, it's been a long time since I've gone that long without scrapping a layout. I guess I've been busy with holidays, fried computers, and other projects. Well, it's back to basics...for now at least. Next week is a whole 'nother subject. I've been stuck at home since Tuesday afternoon with a sickling. So in between fetching Tylenol, Motrin, Vernors, kleenex, rubbing shoulders & holding hair during puk....well, you get the picture...I managed to get a little scrappin' in.

Pumpkin Carving 101
Let's face it, sometimes scrapping the holidays can get tiresome because it seems like you're doing the same thing every year. So instead of "traditional" journaling, I opted to put some little notes on each photo (in Photoshop) and that was, in essence, was my journaling. No more had to be said!

Supplies from Studio Calico November kit. 

Added: button, string, stitching, green crystal

Now I just pray that the rest of us don't come down with whatever my daughter has. Fingers and toes double crossed!!

party in the USA

Go ahead and sing along. You know you want to :)

another successful year

It was another great Halloween this year. The weather was a lot colder and rainier than normal but my kids didn't seem to care one bit. It actually reminded me a lot of my Halloween's trick or treating as a kid. Usually you had to figure out how to put your winter coat under your costume! But back then a lot of the costumes were plastic so it wasn't much of a problem. Not the full suit costumes that they make today. 

We started off the day by carving our pumpkins. Yes, I waited til Halloween to do this. I told you the entire month zipped by for me!

The kids drew the faces that they wanted and even helped a bit with the carving. Of course, pumpkin carving wouldn't be complete without daddy acting like he's going to shove a handful of pumpkin guts into someone's face!

Even the dogs waited patiently for a pumpkin seed to fall...

Yes, I know that's a Christmas tablecloth. But it was the only plastic one I had handy! And here's the finished results...

I think the colored light inside the mummy makes him look even spookier, don't you??

And then, out of nowhere, a Jedi Knight fight broke out in the kitchen...

Not sure who won that battle, I'll have to let you know. But just be warned, Ben doesn't fight fair. He aims right for the.....well, you can figure that one out!

And then it was time for trick or treating. It was a Star Wars Halloween at this house. A Storm Trooper and Padme.

 

 

The serious face adds to overall look of the costume, don't you think?!

Now I didn't dress up, but I couldn't go out with at least doing something. 

I even put on pink eyelashes. I don't know how women wear those things...

At the end of the evening the kids were soaked. I told you it was raining!

But it was all worth it when they got to dump their buckets out and relish in their successful night of trick or treating!

Ok, is that my dog licking the carpet in the background?? God that dog is weird sometimes!

I hope you all had a fun Halloween this year!!