Have you heard the news?

Tabatha and Lena of Bella Gypsy are having a contest! Here are the details:

Get their new Autum's Artistry kit (only $5 at ACOT) and create a 4x6 recipe card LO of your your favorite harvest season recipe at 300dpi. Email your entry by October 1st to contest@bellagypsydesigns.com with Bella Gypsy Delights in the subject line. Everyone winds up a winner because all of the entries will be compiled, zipped and uploaded, a link sent to each contributor. How cool is that....and oh so very simple!

What are the prizes for this contest, you ask? Well, let me tell you, they sound awesome!

First prize: $100 Gift Certificate to Bella Gypsy store!

Second Prize: One month of free downloads (for Bella Gypsy, that's an average of 6-8 kits!)

Third Prize: 3 kits of your choosing!

Judging will be done by a panel of 10 and will be based 75% on overall design and 25% on your recipe!

For all of the entry details, please visit the Bella Gypsy Blog.

So, since I am short on time, I won't bore you with all of my latest layouts. If you are interested though, you can see them at my RAKScraps gallery. :) Feel free to leave some comments there if you would like. ;) Here is the link: http://www.rakscraps.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=4756

I figured it was time for a school post again. I am horrible about posting about our school days, which was one of the original reasons I started this blog. Inhaven't had any real cool ideas come to me this year. I sort of became the boring teacher that I didn't want to become. The "Get your math book and do this page...great, now let's do phonics" kind of boring teacher. I don't know what happened after summer break. I lost something. When we went to our school eval last year and the teacher mentioned specific text books, something happened. Something in my brain sort of shut off and the creative side of me went in that direction. We haven't done a single lapbook yet, and our timeline notebook has yet to be started. I really need to think this all over again and get back to what was working so well last year. At this point we are just doing school because we have to, and I hate that. It is so totally opposite of the way it was before.

Jacob is doing great regardless of how boring it likely is for him. We are working in a 3rd grade Math book right now, and he is having very little trouble getting through it. His problem is simply taking forever to actually do the work. LOL He gets bored and then distracted. I'm probably going to start taking random problems off of the pages and actually go through more than one lesson a day on the topics he seems to get with no trouble. Phonics is a breeze as well, but he hates the writing. I can't really take that away though, because he needs to work on the handwriting quite a bit. When he had his 1st grade eval, the teacher said his handwriting was typical for the age, so I am not concerned about it. I think it looks like typical boy handwriting for sure. ;)

Bible lessons are going well. We have been reading about Adam and Eve this week from Jacob's "Kid's Devotional Bible". Then he does worksheets and coloring sheets. He still hates doing word searches, but the true and false, fill in the blanks, maze, and crossword puzzles are huge hits.

Jacob has also been attending a weekly art class with our homeschooling group. So far he has made a pinch pot that he will paint in the next week or two. Last week was a watercolor painting that was based on a story the art teacher read about the seashore. The teacher and I were talking a little and she said if she could get more of the older kids around his age to come than she would love to teach more technical aspects of the drawing. I know he would love that!

Joshua is doing really well also. He does surprisingly well with his math. He's better with subtraction than addition, which I did not expect. I have been taking large addition flash cards this week and laying them on the floor. Then we take a huge basket of cars and he sets up the problems in a visual manner next to the card. He gets the answer almost immediately. He doesn't seem to get that he can do the same thing with his fingers, but I think we will get there in a few more weeks.

We also have been using the magnetic letters for phonics. He is starting to make more reading connections. I take some cards for him to copy a word from. We then make new words with the same sound by changing one letter. After a few times, he reads a word or two on his own. Hopefully it will start clicking sooner with him.

We did a science experiment today on sinking and floating objects. We started off by reading a short one-page story from "Discover and Explore" ( a Timothy Goes to School book). We went in all of the rooms of the house and grabbed some objects to stick in his basket. Then filled the sink and made a chart. He had to choose an object from the basket and tell me if he thought it would float or sink. We'd mark down his prediciton and then mark what actually happened when he placed the object in water. He had a blast since he loves playing in water. He also has been telling me the weather this week, so we are going to make a weather chart later today.

Cassidy has been going to art classes with Jacob and really enjoying them too. She had a blast with the pinch pot, but when we did the painting I didn't think we would ever get to leave. She is VERY independant all of a sudden. We had to wet the paper before painting and she was soaking one little spot and avoiding the rest, so I tried helping her with the brush. You'd have thought I was ruining the thing. I was plainly told she wanted to do it by herself. Eventually I did get the paper wet for her and then she had a blast mixing the colors on the paper. We have both her and Jacob's paintings hanging on the living room wall.

Potty training is going so well with her now that I can't believe it. Cassie even pottied in the store bathroom on Sunday. I am so proud of how well she is doing. I set up a potty chart and it seems to be the final push she needed. The stickers weren't doing any good apparently until she saw them being gathered on a piece of paper.

Elena is keeping up just fine with the others. She makes sure she is included in every activity they are involved in. Her favorite phrase is "Fun-ny" right now. She giggles all of the time. That's one huge difference between girls and boys.....girls giggle a LOT. She pretends to read, plays dress-up, does "school", and still dances up a storm. She freezes when the new Barbie movie commercial comes on - the 12 dancing princesses or something like that. It cracks me up to see her. We got the Barbie Swan Lake DVD from the library a few weeks ago and her dancing reached a whole new level with that one. We have lots of arm movements and leg lifts to go with the spins and sways now. It is so cute watching her, because she is so serious. And there are times where there is no music so she will sing her own little tune to dance to. Absolutely adorable. :) So, there is no telling what she will be doing when she sees the new Barbie movie. LOL

Not much else to tell, I guess. Scrapping has been very slow. I hit a slump and have had little time the past couple of weeks. I've done very little scrapping most nights. I do have a few new pages, and I will post them when I get a chance to do so. I got a Wacom tablet for my birthday, and I am still playing with it and trying to figure out all of the nifty things it does. I have been using the pen as my mouse to try to get used to how it moves and feels. It definitely will take a lot of practice. It seems to be causing some of my tools in PS7 to not work now, so I have also been trying to figure out my way around those issues. I'm sure it is a simple fix that I just need to find time to figure out, but goodness, there are not enough hours in a day to do everything I need to do AND the things I want to do. LOL Maybe this weekend will slow down a little and I can play with it. :)

Jacob update

The ped called me on Monday to let me know that Jacob's urinalysis came back fine. They were going to go ahead and do a culture to be sure, but she didn't expect anything to show up. I asked why in the world blood showed up in their office, and she said he may have had some irritation down there or it could have even been some ink from their little dipsticks came off and caused it. Needless to say, she could have handled things a little differently, and I think if she had kids of her own she would have done so.

Today I took Jacob in for his hearing test. I need to give you a little background before I tell you what happened today, so you can get the full effect of what we are dealing with here. It will be long, but the info is kind of critical, as you will see.

When Jacob was 18 months old he became severely ill with his first ear infection...it was so bad that the "eardrum" burst. Not the actual eardrum, but something else. For a month the doctors could not get antibiotics to work, and along with the ear never getting better he had extremely high fevers. I continuously told the doctor that I was concerned about meningitis because he just seemed to have so many of the symptoms, but she would move his neck and say she really did not feel that was it. Eventually he was hospitalized because he had a febrile seizure, which led to an ER visit, which led to tons of bloodwork, which led to a blood culture, which led to the eventual hospitalization, spinal taps, other tests, and eventual cure. Thank God, because sepsis can be deadly if it isn't caught soon enough and the symptoms resemble so many other things. So we are released and given an appointment with an ENT the next week and tubes a few weeks after that. We were on a priority list and were bumped in front of kids who had the tube surgery scheduled for three and four months, that is how concerned they were in getting this done quickly.

So, that was done at 20 months of age. Normally, the tubes fall out on their own and cause no trouble. As we all know, things are far from normal in my home. LOL Jacob's tubes fell out and got themselves stuck in wax deep in the canal. So, 3 years ago, we go to the ENT and after a 40 minute or so struggle the guy gets one tube (the left ear - remember this because it is important) out and then refuses to try removing the other explaining the ped can do it in her office.

So, I explain this at EVERY SINGLE VISIT, and my ped tells me it is still too hard to get the thing out, but it appears to be moving further towards the opening and eventually we will get it. She doesn't want to probe too much because she want's to be sure she doesn't damage the ear.

OK...

So, that brings you to last week's 7 year old check-up where I voice my concerns over Jacob's hearing. He just seems to be having more and more trouble. Today we head over to get the whole hearing test bit done and lo and behold he seems to have perfect hearing in the lefft ear and the right tests in normal range but he seems to show some issues with lower tones. My little lightbulb goes off and I mention how interesting that is considering the tube is still stuck in wax in that right ear. Sure enough, wow, mom is right. So the new ped to the office tells me I need to go to the ENT and get them to do it. I told her if they want to send me that's fine, but he refused to mess with the second ear since Jacob put up such a fight and he told me to get the ped to do it, and for three years NOBODY will touch him, so what am I supposed to do? I asked that we be given a referral to a different ENT, she tells me usually the doctor that puts them in wants to be the one to take them out, and I say "Well, that's just great unless they decide to refuse to do it because the child won't stop screaming. For a pediatric ENT he sure as heck was NOT child-friendly, and I don't really care that he put them in, he sure doesn't make me want to go back to see him with my kid. And I know for a fact I am not the only parent of a patient that was far from impressed with his personality and bedside manner." She was a little surprised and decided she would go ahead and try doing it herself.

So, she barely gets the little ear cleaner things up to his ear and the tears start rolling and the screaming like he is being killed begins. She couldn't get to it, takes out another tool and tries again with no success. Then she decides to flush his ears. OMG, if he wasn't already just about to have a heart attack, he was now. He was scared to death and shaking. After 5 minutes and getting NOTHING out, she says that's it, we need to see the ENT. He can't say she didn't try. And then she tells me the worst part-

She said she has taken tubes out in the office before and it is really no big deal. She is afraid that it is so hardened in there and has been in there so long, that it might have skin growing around it now and could cause all sorts of problems if they were to pull it out. OMG, I am SO ANGRY! Can you believe this?

So, we are being referred back to the same jerk that we went to before and we have an appointment or October 26th. Needless to say, he'd better do his damn job this time or else. I don't care if he has to freaking sedate the boy, the tube needs to come out this time.

We also are being referred to a behavioral psychologist to rule out his being on the autism spectrum. I'm ticked about that too because Josh's psych that is so awesome is not covered under the new insurance we will have as of November, and they don't appear to be as willing to work with the single case agreement. So, that is our update - bad day all the way around.

You must be a saint if you read all of that. LOL Thanks if you did.

Rosemary A. Smith

September 11, 2001. We all remember where we were and what we were doing when we found out what happened on that horrific day. I was home with my two children and had somehow managed to sleep in. I rarely turned on the TV in the mornings, but for some reason I decided to do so that day. I remember flipping through the channels and wondering what in the world had happened. I called my mother who was also in shock. I got the kids ready, picked up my mother and we headed to a church to pray.

I did not personally know anyone who worked in the World Trade Center or Pentagon, but it certainly did not stop my concern, thoughts, and prayers for all of the people who were and still are personally effected.

Now, however, I will never hear about 9/11 without thinking of 61 year old Rosemary A. Smith. Ms. Smith lived with her daughter, also named Rosemary, and son-in-law Kevin. She had two granddaughters, Kyley and Kamy. She was also loved by her brother Charles, sister Georgeanne, and sister-in-law Marianne. Along with those were cousins, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and a host of other acquaintances.

Rosemary worked in Tower One for Sidley Austin Brown and Wood, LLP as a switchboard operator for 12 years. She had been in the tower during the 1993 bombing and had gotten out despite leg and breathing problems. When many refused to go back, Rosemary still returned to work. She was on the 57th floor of Tower One on September 11th, and was the only fatality her firm had.

Rosemary Smith was known for two things: a wonderful smile and her homemade chocolate treats. She even dreamed of one day having her own candy making business. Her chocolates were often requested for holidays and special occasions, and from everything I read, she would have been a huge success. When not making her popular candies, she enjoyed bowling, crafts, and reading, and she adored spending time with her grandchildren. She always looked for the good in others and everyone said she had a heart of gold.

Though I may not have known Rosemary A. Smith personally, I feel very privileged to have been chosen to write about her. I will never forget Rosemary, and her name and the way she touched everyone who knew her will stay with me. Each anniversary of September 11th, Rosemary A Smith will be who my mind turns to immediately. She will never be forgotten.
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Quilt square is from the "United in Memory" quilt.
Sources of info:
Legacy.com
SILive.com
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I am honored to one of over 3,000 bloggers paying tribute to one of 9/11 victims. To see the list of links to other tributes, please click HERE.

More medical issues arise

I took Jacob to his late 7 year check up expecting for some reason to have it go smoothly like Elena's 2yr did on Tuesday. The only concern I felt needed to be looked into was his hearing.

So, we go in and we talk and I mention the hearing as a concern. She listens to his chest and says that he has a slight heart murmur, but because of the way it sounds she feels it likely is nothing to worry about.

Then next she tells me Jacob had some blood in his urine and so they are going to send it off for more tests because the hearing and kidney problems could be connected. I was sitting there in shock. I don't know what the heck has happened to my routine and quick planned visit at this point.

So, we talk some more throughout the visit about his development and if there are any other concerns I have and I said other than the hearing not really. She asks him questions throughout, and when she gets to the actual ear part of the exam he starts shaking uncontrollably and tears start streaming down his face. He was petrified and I have no idea why other than the fact that he has always had a fear of doctors. So I hold his hand throughout the rest of the exam.

Next thing I hear out of her mouth is "How does he do with other kids? Does he play with toys normally?" I explained that I knew what she was getting at because I have an autistic child, and though Asperger's has been at the back of my mind with Jacob, I also realize that autism is a social disorder and he does not have problems with social skills with other kids...Is he petrified of doctors? Heck yeah, but other kids he is fine with. I even explained how he did at art class yesterday and how he gets along with everyone except his brother. I told her I do see where there appear to be signs and have felt something is going on with him, but because of his social skills I figured the hearing was what could be causing it.

She said she can tell I am intuitive and that I know the warning signs to look for and though the social areas are ok he may still be somewhere on the spectrum since he does have some of the signs and there is a sibling on the spectrum and it tends to be a hereditary link in most cases. However, she wants to rule out all other organic reasons for the hearing problems before jumping into a psychological eval. She said the good thing is at least I know what services are facing us if necessary in the future since I have already been this route.

So, needless to say I am a bit concerned about my sweet guy. We are having his hearing tested at the ped office on Thursday and will get the results of the urinalysis then as well. I'm trying so hard not to worry, but this was a bit shocking to say the least. I've done a good bit of crying today.

To top it off, on the 21st is Cassidy's appointment and I am dreading it something awful, because I do have some concerns. She has always been ahead of the game and is also showing some signs of being on the spectrum. I don't know what in the world we will do financially if I have three kids on the spectrum, because therapy is expensive and we just found out yesterday we are having a change in the insurance as of November. So, any prayers you guys can spare will be gratefully appreciated more than you can know.

Sorry that this probably was jumbled and made little sense. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around everything myself.

The weekly update

Jacob did a great job on his first math test for the year. He totally aced it, which was surprising given the fact that the day before he was acting as if he had no clue what place value was, let alone how to figure it out. We will be starting art classes once a week this week, and he is really excited. A couple of friends and I have decided we will have our own little homeschool group since our kids are all around the same age range. I think it will be loads of fun. We'll do the art class, the letterboxing, possibly some concerts at one of the local universities....there were lots of fun extracurricular stuff that we came up with.

I have been posting layouts at ACOT for the Bella Gypsy team. I really like it over there now that I am starting to learn my way around a bit. I posted an intro and in one of the responses I was given instructions on how to find their homeschooling board. Someone posted a neat little site for testing reading comprehension: Book Adventure. I had Jacob take a couple of the quizes on books we read last year and one we just completed, and he did pretty good. I saved the pages with the scores so we can print them and stick them in his portfolio later.

I have been scrapping as usual when the kids are in bed at night or during their rest time during the day. I got my CT assignments out at Scrappin' Secrets and completed my first set of layouts yesterday. I used ErinShannon Designs' "Grandparent's Day" kit. It was fun to play with. The first layout is my in-laws. Aren't they cute? :) We took the pic in Disney World when the entire family went. My other layout is Silas' grandmother. The photo was taken at Elena's birthday party earlier this month, so it is recent.






I also did one tonight using Wendy Nelson's "Retro Diva" kit. This kit is HUGE and is so fun to play with! I can't wait to do another LO using it. I decided to use it to scrap a photo of Cassidy's painted toes. She is such a girly girl. My mother asks me all of the time how I got her to be as girly as she is. I have no idea. I think she just has an inner diva. LOL


Finally, I have to show you the LOs I made using some of Bella Gypsy's kits. I LOVE their stuff....have I mentioned that before? LOL If you are wanting some great freebies and to get a little taste of what Lena and Tabitha's stuff is like, make sure you visit the Bella Gypsy blog. Those two are full of surprises and have lots of exciting things in the works.

Credits: Bella Gypsy's "Dressed for School Dude" kit.











Credits: Bella Gypsy's "Dirt Magnet" kit. Template by WDS- Tonje...it was actually for the Technique challenge at Scrappin' Secrets.









This is one of my favorites. I've had this picture of Elena and have been waiting to find just the right kit to use. :) Credits: Bella Gypsy's "Dressed for School Diva" kit.

Lots to talk about today. :)

Wow! So much to talk about...

First of all, I was supposed to have Cassidy's 3 year check-up. Unfortunately, 10 minutes after our appointment time we were still standing outside and there was nobody there. So, I call to find out if they are hiding in the back or what, only to be told they decided not to open that office today and I should have been called. WHAT?! Oh man, I was ticked. I asked if they didn't have my cell or any of the other 5 numbers on the paper I fill out every single time I go to their office, and she claims no. Ugh. So, now the appointment is set for three weeks from now and mama is not too happy with the ped office.

Silas came home with all sorts of good news from work. I can't talk about a lot of it, but there is a good chance that things may start looking up financially for us. :) The main thing is he is getting all the praise and recognition he has deserved for years. I'm really excited for him. :D

I was tagged by Jane (Jane's World) a few days ago, and I haven't forgotten! I've just been a bit busy. ;) So, without further ado....

rules:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets. Then tag 5 friends and list them. Then those 5 friends need to state their 5 weird things on their blog, listing the rules and then tag 5 more people. Don't forget to let the person know in their blog that you tagged them or we will never find out their weird attributes.

1 - I can't sleep at night unless my pillowcase is a flannel one. I have no idea why, but for some reason my ear just prefers the soft feel I suppose. Weird?.....yeah. LOL

2 - Another weird sleep thing...I have to have my ear on the cold part of the pillow. I will turn my pillow tons before I can ever actually sleep. We have had a post on Scrappin' Secrets a few weeks now about our quirks, and it turns out this is something a lot of people do. So, maybe I'm not completely weird. LOL

3 - Our dog, Abby, is quite the scardey-cat. We had a very young kitten get into our backyard, and she was terrified of it. Nevermind she was at least 10 times the size of the kitten. It was hillarious to watch her whimper and run to the other end of the yard with her tail between her legs everytime the kitten would meow or start to walk around the yard.

4 - I can't stand the feel of cardboard. It gives me goosebumps even thinking about touching it.

5 - Hmmm, one more....I actually LIKE to vaccum. It's the one chore I enjoy. No idea why. :)

Ok, that took a while to come up with that last one. LOL I'm going to tag Lynds, Wendy, Cassandra, Nellie, and Tiana. :) As Jane said on her blog, "blame Kim J", because it sounds like she instigated this. ROFL

Want to see my new layouts? ;)


This photo of Elena was just too darn cute...it just yelleed "SCRAP ME!", so I did. She loves to choose her own outfits now, and this one is a favorite. She also decided to choose all sorts of accessories while she was at it. LOL It was a very...ummm....different look. HA! If you click, you can see it much better and read the journaling. The papers are fromValerie Fowler's "Princess of the Party" and Michelle Coleman's "Simply Spring Mini " (slightly recolored by me). Ribbon and flower charm are also from Michelle Coleman's "Simply Spring Mini" (slightly recolored by me). Doodles and word art from Lauren Grier's "Girl Notes " (flower and heart colored by me).



I metioned in my last post about joining Bella Gypsy's CT. Wow! They are all so great there! I love it! I got to work immediately and came up with two LO's that I really like. The first one is using the Bella Gypsy kit "Elementary". Wow, do I ever LOVE this kit! I had the perfect photo for it too. :)






And the second layout is "Baby Talk". I used Bella Gypsy's "All Girl" paper and embellishment packs. The colors are so soft...I just LOVE it! I also used some stitches from their Berry Sweet kit. LOL The photo is Elena with my best friend's baby. They appeared to have a nice little conversation going on. :)


So, I guess I didn't have too, too much to say. It seemed like a lot more in my mind I guess. Anyone that knows me knows that I can get to talking at times and keep on, and on, and on, and....I'll spare you. ;)

Have a great evening!

Woohoo!

School has been going pretty well for the most part. I decided to try something new with Jacob. I gave him the entire week's worth of work so he could see what was coming, and I told him that we were going to do all that was on the list by Thursday so we could have a fun day on Friday doing art, digital scrapping, etc. He dragged his feet so badly. He took an hour and a half to do one phonics sheet on Monday and Tuesday, and we never even got to half of the things we should have. So, Thursday we actually had a lot to catch up on, but we did get to everything. I think I will just stick with the daily schedule for now. ;)

Josh did pretty good this week. I am trying to give him work that is mostly play right now. He has a negative view of what school is like because he hates writing. We worked on it a lot last year for therapy. So, this year I am trying not to worry about the writing right now and focus on everything else. We will get to the writing later. We played a game called Train Salesman. We set up a nice curvy track and he sat on one side while I sat on the other. I was the buyer, setting up my own train station, and he had a train yard that I wanted to buy from. We took out all of his Thomas trains and set them up, and I would tell him what I was looking for...for example, a large engine with a green tender. He would then find them in the huge line of trains (which is hard for him to focus on large groups of items), put them together on a track and drive them over to me. I would then tell him my shipping business was doing so well that I needed to either trade in for a new one or buy another. He loved the game.

His other favorite activity was the number puzzles I made. I used index cards....on the left side I wrote the number. On the right side I used glittery puffy paint and made coordinating number of dots. This provided something for him to touch while counting the dots. I then cut them cards down the center in different shapes. He did great. I used the same puzzle idea with the letters to teach him the lowercase letters after he had learned the uppercase.

We also have done a little computer, but not much. He mainly wants to play his car racing game, Test Drive 5, and he does that as his reward after his school is done. He has actually figured out how to manuver the cars a bit now and discovered a track that will actually make him airborne. He also found a spot that is wide enough to make the car do doughnuts. Too many Nascar races, I think. LOL

So, in scrapping news....

I am super excited to say I received an email tonight asking if I would like to join the Bella Gypsy CT. Woohoo! I LOVE their kits, so of course I said YES! I was recommended by Lynds, and after checking out my gallery, they asked me to join. :) In addition to that, I also am now the Scrappin' Secrets CT Apprentice. Eventually somewhere down the road I will be the CT Leader. Woohoo! I'm super excited about it!

I did some layouts this week that I really loved:

I did the sketch challenge at RAKScraps. I was wanting to use a new kit I got by Jeanine Baechtold, and I still had not gotten Joshua's first day of Kindergarten pics scrapped yet, so I decided to put the two together. :) Even though we homeschool, we still do the first day of school photos each year. Stitching is from freedigitalscrapbooking and the kit I used is Jeanine Baechtold's Sophisticated Paisley kit. Isn't Josh cute. He had one of Jacob's Lego cars in hand, of course. :)

Next is a continuation of our ABC album. I used a photo of a huge giraffe we saw at Downtown Disney last October. Everything from RAKScraps May Mega Kit....Papers by: Jeannie Papai and Jane A and the ribbon by Corinne Fragata.

And I saved my favorites for last. I love how these turned out. Be sure to click on these and see them better and read the journaling. :)


Credits: Ginger Thibodeau's Catch Some Coral kit. The journaling is actually lyrics from the Barry Manilow song "I Am Your Child"


Credits: I used Rachel Dickson's Little Man kit. I also used Virtual Photographer on the photo. This one is currently my favorite LO. :)


Credits: Ginger Thibodeau's Catch Some Coral ki


Credits: Papers - Valerie Fowler - Princess of the Party and Michelle Coleman, Simply Spring Mini (slightly recolored by me) Ribbon and flower charm - Michelle Coleman, Simply Spring Mini (slightly recolored by me) Doodles and word art - Lauren Grier ~ Girl Notes (flower and heart colored by me)

ARGH!!!!!

Ok, this construction in my backyard is seriously going to drive me to the nut house! Let me give you a visual to explain a little of why I am complaining.

This is my backyard the afternoon after a hurricane came through our area in August of 2004. It's a mess, but you get to see what the trees that once existed look like. Notice this is from my garage door, and also notice the blue pipe which was sitting in a large ditch. Note also the amount of shade we received from all of these trees.



Now, here is what my backyard looks like as of week before last. Note the lack of a ditch, because a bunch of nice workers in trucks came and filled it in for us. Notice the bright orange truck that was kind enough to pull up a tree from next to our fence and then almost managed to drop onto my house. Also note the wonderful pile of pulled trees (you only see a portion of the long trail here) that they decided to burn this weekend. The smell of smoke in my house was wonderful (being sarcastic here) and the haze was such a wonderful sight - I really think this is probably half the reason Cassie and Jacob are both quite hoarse since that day. And while you are looking at this, imagine the feeling of the trees being pulled and thrown around like little lincoln logs, but on a MUCH grander scale. My house literally shakes all day long when they are out there working. My dog goes balistic because these workers are literally right at my fence. It's a whole lotta noise and a whole lotta shaking in the neighborhood!



Now, flash to today. I wake up to very low water pressure, which is not an uncommon thing when you have all the construction going on. At 9am it was low enough that I was not able to shower or do laundry, both of which were in need of being done. At noon, I fixed the kids their lunch and discovered we had absolutely NO WATER! Nothing, nada, zip. Nary a drop could be found. I was fuming now. So I call the water company to find out what's up. Nobody had reported a probalem, so the woman was sending out a ticket. I explained I had four small children and no water with them here was a very bad combination. She apologized and said they would send someone out as soon as possible. Here in my city, that is usually translated into a minimum of 2-3 hours before it is even looked into.

Joshua was panicked about not being able to wash his hands, Jacob's imagination was completely running away with him as to what would happen if we turned on the faucet with no water at the house....I have no idea what he thought was going to happen, but he was scared to try turning it on. The girls could have cared less...it meant no bath today, so they were happy. LOL So, I headed over to my mother's house for the remainder of the day. Luckily, we had finished school by the time this happened. The water was fixed by the time Silas got home.

So, now that I have explained a little more what our big complaint is right now, I guess you can imagine what it is like trying to get my highly distractable, autistic child to concentrate on doing school of any sort. I mean, it is hard enough for any of us to think some days with all the noise and shaking, but then for poor Joshua whose senses are extremely heightened...man, I feel for him.

So, hopefully they will finish all of this majorly annoying construction projects soon.

A new scrapper and a new activity

As a new activity for homeschooling this year, I decided to take a cue from Jacob and let him learn digital scrapping. We had his first lesson yesterday and he LOVED it! I let him choose the photo, papers, elements, and what to write. The main goal of the lesson was for him to learn to move the items he wanted onto the background. He chose 2 papers from Wendy Nelson's Back to School Basic kit and the elements he chose were from Melany Violette's Vroom-Vroom kit. The font was ITC Garamond (we'll cover changing the font later). I think he did a pretty good job for his first time! I even posted his LO at RAKScraps and Scrappin' Secrets for him, where he received quite a few wonderful compliments. (Thanks again everyone!) So now he is asking to do another page. LOL I think this will be a lot of fun for him when we go on field trips and when we study things he is actually able to take photos of on his own.



I've been doing some scrapping myself. I now have my letter F page done. Silas took the photo while out of town on business last month. Everything I used was from the Gotta Pixel Design Team's April kit. Papers by Brenda Miller, Ribbon by Stacy Carlson, Charm by Christina Wall, Glass Buttons by Michelle Pieters.




I love this photo Silas took of Elena. She brought a frame out of my room last week and I had it sitting on a shelf. She decided to be cute one evening and frame herself. LOL Silly girl. The kit I used is Misty Cato's Wonderfully Made.









This next one is a photo of Elena opening gifts on her actual birthday. It's so funny seeing how she knew what to do this year and actually ripped paper to get to what was inside. She was excited about her Crayola dominoes. Star clip and Birthday Girl Word art are by Jen Reed from the BirthdayZ elements kit at Scrapdish, Candles by Krista Mettler from the BirthdayZ elements kit, Celebrate Word art by Melissa G from the BirthdayZ elements kit, Star Background by Lisa West (Zephanee) from her Summer Celebration kit, and Patterned background paper by Robin Cabana from her You Rock kit available at Scrapbook-Bytes.


Finally, I participated in the Ad Inspiration challenge at Scrappin' Secrets and came up with this layout. I have so many photos of Josh with a car or train in his hands. I had to use them at some point. LOL he paper and truck are from Melany Violette's Vroom-Vroom Kit. The fonts I used are Mad's Scrawl BRK, Long Island, and Little Trouble Girl BV.






I received the latest issue of Family Fun Magazine this week and finally got a chance to sit and look through it. I came across a really cool article on Letterboxing. I have been looking for something like this and finally, here it is! It is similar to geocaching, but instead of using a GPS and leaving trinkets, you use a compass and clues to find the letterbox. You then take a rubberstamp (most people make their own) and stamp the logbook inside the box and then take the stamp inside the box to stamp their page. Then you hide the box back where it was found. Jacob is always wanting to find treasure, and this will fulfill the desire, improve thinking skills, get us some exercise, and give us some cheap family fun. There are several in our area and nearby areas, and in our state there are at least 3 mystery boxes. I can't wait to get started. My plan (we know how that goes!) is for Jacob and possibly the others to make their own rubber stamps. There are so many easy options for them that it is very doable.

And the year begins

We started school Monday. Jacob is in second grade, Joshua is in kindergarten, and the girls are "preschool". I had these great plans of how things would go and my schedule was worked out. Everyone would have something to do throughout the day. The boys would take turns entertaining the girls and the girls would love every minute of it since they adore their brothers. During naptime for the girls I would work on things together with the boys. Life would be nice and school would be fun. My schedule looked so good on paper that it was frameworthy.

Well, as we all know, life has a funny way of taking your plans and laughing at you. Half an hour into trying to get the kids to listen to what we were going to do first, I realized the joke truly was on me. I overhear Jacob mumble that he thought second grade was going to be fun. Uh oh! That's it. Time to rethink this whole thing.

So, with a huge sigh, I proceded to tear up my beautiful, happy schedule and go into my room to rethink the entire thing and how I need to work it out to everyone's benefit, all the while being serenaded by Joshua's drumming on my door. I gave that idea up quickly, and told Joshua he could play in his room while I worked with Jacob. Sweet Joshua actually peeked out his room about 10 minutes later and asked me if I wanted to play Legos with him. WOAH! This is one of our goals that we have been working on - initiating play by asking someone to play a specific thing with him. I was excited, but there was no way in the world I could just drop Jacob's school. So, I came up with a solution and explained that I had to do school with Jacob, but could play later. Until then, would he like to play with Cassidy? Oh yes! Great idea! Score one for Mom! And even better, Cassie was chomping at the bit to get in the boys room and help make a mess.

I decided to try easing into school a bit this year. So, Jacob worked on his Bible lesson and some Math. We are using an old 3rd grade Holt Mathematics book and supplementing as necessary and for the Bible lesson I am using Calvary Chapel Children's Ministry Curriculum. It's nice. It has mazes, crosswords, true and false, fill in the blanks, and word searches. I also have been getting "Keys for Kids" which is a free daily devotional for kids that we receive in the mail each month.

Joshua worked on several things so far. We have been sorting some magnetic letters by color. My letters come in 6 different colors, which is a lot for Josh to concentrate on at once. I had him sort about 100 letters into their proper place and it took him a few tries before he fully seemed to understand what I was wanting. While they were up today he asked me if some of them spelled car. So, I showed him the c, a, and r and explained that they make the word car. He giggled. So funny to see him get excited over something so simple. LOL I then decided to take it a bit further and took away the c and added f. I went over the sounds again with him, and explained the ar sound and how to put the f sound with it and make the word far. Ok, not impressed. So then I did a couple more and came to the letter t. I asked him what sound the t makes, he told me, and lo and behold he actually told me tar spells TAR! He didn't know what tar was until I explained it to him, but he smiled a little when I told him how proud I was that he just read a word by himself.

I also discovered this week that Joshua has a great sense of rhythm. He was playing a Reader Rabbit music game and actually enjoying it. All of the rhythm exercises that he tried, he did awesome on! So, that was exciting. :) Maybe there is a musical future for my little guy. He has always been able to hum and sing a tune amazingly well compared to other kids his age. I remember when he was only one and we were in the car and he was humming. I thought it was Jacob because of how accurate it was. Just amazing.

And he can use a computer mouse. Another thing that amazes me given that until this week he always prefered to watch others do the computer. Now he has one of his own and he seems to have completely taken to it. I'm really glad, because I think that he will benefit a lot from using it.

We did some drawings in shaving cream yesterday. Joshua hated it, but with guidance and my convincing him to draw some cars, we made it through. Even the girls enjoyed that one, though I learned next time we will probably try using whipped cream. Elena was way too tempted by the look of it and kept trying to taste it. Yuck!

So, that brings you up to date for now. RAKScraps has just started releasing their August Mega Kit and the theme is school days! Woohoo! Run over and join the message board to get the links to this awesome kit, and while you are there, why not say hello? Everyone there is great! I plan on trying to scrap a bit this weekend as time permits. I want to get the first day layouts completed ASAP and try to stay up on them for the end of the year, especially since Joshua's portfolio is going to be made up of a lot of photos. :)

Rumble Grumble

I have been busy, busy, busy preparing for this school year. I'm pretty much ready. Only 4 more days! Yay! I can't wait. :)

Here is my biggest concern right now - the noise. We have some major construction going on, practically in my backyard. What used to be a ton of trees and a ditch on the other side of my back fence, now appears to be completely empty space with the ditch completely filled in with dirt. Now, because the ditch was HUGE and is now full of dirt, obviously we have had work trucks bringing dirt, scooping dirt, dropping dirt....all of this after they already spent a day knocking down trees. They are very close to my fence - so close that their trucks keep bumping the branches of trees in my yard. My house literally shakes ALL DAY LONG. I had a horrible migraine two days ago, and it is near impossible to get rid of it with the house rumbling.

So, now that my grumbling is done, would you like to see my latest layouts? :) I've been busy
making new pages, but have neglected posting them on my blog. In my defense, blogger hasn't been very cooperative for me.

My first three layouts were made using the Pampered Princess kit by Sheri Smith, SheLynn Designs at Scrappin' Secrets. The layouts just flowed once I got started. The first two are of sweet Elena. I used the ShangriLaNFSmallCaps font in the first one, and Scythe font in the second.

My third layout was of Cassidy. Don't you just love that silly smile she had? LOL It was taken on her first real Halloween. She was Sleeping Beauty and was thrilled, as you can tell. :) I used Pea Catherine as the font on this one.

Next is a layout I did for the Ad Inspiration Challenge on SS. I am far from thrilled with it, but I liked the concept. I decided to do a layout on Cassidy's favorite things. What you see is the result. LOL Barbie, the color PINK, Disney Princesses, My Little Ponies, friends, and of course, her Purple Baby, which she never leaves home without. The font I used is Kayleigh, and the kit is Miss Mint's "To My Mother" kit from Peppermint Creative.

What's next? Hmmmm. My Abc Album is coming along nicely. I just finished my letter E page. I just realized I never showed the C and D pages either. Yikes! I am WAY behind!

C always stands for the older princess around here. LOL I'm still trying to get my tears to look halfway decent. I'm not thrilled with how they turned out here, but they will do for now. All of the papers and elements are from Ginger Thibodeau's Softly Shining kit. I love this kit. I have used it on at least 3 layouts and could keep using it over and over. It is a beautiful kit! The font I used is ITC Garamound. I decided right from the start that I was going to use the same font for this entire album to sort of tie the entire thing together.

My D page features a photo of some ducks that I took on Jacob's first fishing trip. The little babies were so cute. They would follow their mother into the high grass at the edge of the lake and simply disappear in it. Do you see the little white duck among all of the brown ones? He is too cute. LOL I used V. Kim Smith's Woodland Meadows 2 kit.

Just as C stands for Cassidy, E is for Elena. Scrappin Secrets has a new Mega kit out right now for free (so go get it - good through the month of August!) and I loved the lightly colored papers in there. I really loved Colleen Shibley's background that I chose to use, as well as the little tag. It just seemed too perfect. :)

Let me see. Wow, I did not realize how long it had been since I posted my layouts. LOL Next is one I did for the SS Quote Challenge. Journaling reads:
"Joshua, you have always had a special bond with Elena. I remember when this photo was taken in the hospital only a few short hours after Elena was brought into my room. You were so proud of your new sister. At that time you were still not very verbal, but the joy you showed us was amazing. Elena is so lucky to have such a wonderful big brother." I used Robin Carlton and Mandabean's Deco Fabulous kit. The fonts are Libby Script, Pea Jennifer, and Kayleigh.

I took part in the lyrics challenge at SS as well. I didn't think I had a single photo to go along with it, which is why I didn't do the same exact challenge at RAKS. While looking through my photos for one to use on the quote challenge, I came across the photo I decided to use. It needed something done, so I played with it a bit. You see the final result. The lyrics are from Natasha Bedingfield's song "Unwritten". The font I used is Apple Chancery, and the kit I chose is Funky Bunches of Flowers by Tania Cordova aka luna designs.

Finally, I made two layouts using Julie Major's Spring Time Kit. The first is A Little Cake. I got the stitching from Atomic Cupcake, and the font is Pea Becky. Gotta love those Pea fonts!

The other is titled Smile. I took this photo on Elena's birthday. She was so cute. She sat on the seat and kept smiling and saying "Cheeeeeeese". What a ham she can be at times. LOL I used Pea Becky on this one as well. Now that I am looking at it, I wish I would have kept her eyes colored when I desaturated the pic. She has the most gorgeous blue eyes. I may redo it one of these days.

I think that pretty much brings you up to date on the happenings and the layouts from this month. I'll try to be better about updating regularly so I don't overwhelm you with the layouts like that. ;)

Angel Madison

Baby Madison, who I have mentioned a few times here on my blog, passed away this morning. My thoughts and prayers are with Shelli. Madison fought so hard, and she beat so many odds. She just celebrated her 2nd birthday on July 29th - something the doctors did not expect to happen.
She touched so many people across many miles. To read her story, please follow this link:
http://www.memoriesofmariam.com/madison/

Happy 2nd Birthday, Elena!

I can't believe my baby is 2 already! She is such a joy. Happy birthday, baby girl!

Credits: Mindy Terasawa's Autumn Blossoms blog freebie Font: Antsy Pants

The boys and their growth issues

Well, if you rememebr all the way back to January, both boys were referred to an endocrinologist because one of them has a low Insulin-like Growth Hormone (IGF) and the other had a high according to the peds office. So, today was our appointment...finally! Nothing like 7 1/2 months of waiting! The endo is wonderful though! I really like her a lot, and the kids do as well.

So, we started with Jacob. He is still in the 5th% for height. His bone age scan (the xray my peds office supposedly couldn't get was miraculously there in the office) shows his bone growth as delayed by about a year. From what she explained, the IGF they tested is not actually a hormone, but a protein that binds to the bones. It increases as you grow. Jacob's isn't actually low like the ped thought...it is actually in the low range, but borderline. She thinks he is what they call a late-bloomer. They start out mid to high on the growth chart and then steadily decline until they level off. He pretty much has leveled off at the 5% now, which is great. She did a full exam and said he is still missing 2 of his 6 year molars which goes right along with the delay in bone growth.

The awesome thing? She said most parents have been told there is a window of opportunity that you need to get growth issues taken care of in. It is not true and we have plenty of time to just observe him and see what happens. Most likely he will stay at this % and wind up a normal height but on the shorter side. My brother stopped growing when he was about 8 or 10 and stayed the same height for 5 years...he is taller than me now. :) She said it is definitely something that tends to run in families, so this isn't really surprising. So, basically he has likely found his place on the growth curve and that's all. Yay!

Joshua had the bone growth x-ray today and we will get the results by the end of the week. The reason he was sent in was because his IGF was high according to the ped. Now, that wonderful office never bothered to send over his test results for some reason (I guess 7 months wasn't enough time to get them over) I told this doc what I was told and that I don't know whether or not it really was high since they weren't correct about Jacob's. She said it wouldn't make sense for it to be high, but she will look into getting the results from the lab and see what they say. So, when I call for the bone age scan results I can get that info as well. She may decide to run more tests. At this point though, Josh seems to be following the same path Jacob did and will likely be fine as well. Yay!

So, we go back in 6 months to check and see if they remain on their paths and will likely go twice a year for a while. I can deal with that. :)

The funniest part was the fact that Josh loved talking to her. She has a GREAT bedside manner and he just took right to her. The questions on paper asked about delays developmentally and I put on there about his HFA. She said she was really surprised he is autistic because he is so chatty and friendly. His eye contact wasn't great, but it is nice to know we have progressed to being able to even fool a few docs now for a little while. ;) He really has progressed a lot socially, so I am very pleased. :)

So, that's it. No hormone shots, so I am SO relieved! LOL 7 months of worry have been lifted off my shoulders in just a few hours time this morning. I'm not even worried about what Josh's test results will show from today because it is likely the same as Jacob and will be ok.

Oh! I also asked about the girls and whether or not we will see the same pattern. She said it might happen, but it is more common in males. Weird, huh?

It's almost that time!

I'm getting excited about getting back into our homeschooling routine. Josh really needs it, and I am chomping at the bit to get started. I still haven't decided exactly when I am going to start either. It will be sometime in August, but I want to wait until after Jacob and Josh see the endocrinologist on the 1st for the growth hormone problem. After we know what they are going to do, how much testing they are going to do, etc, then I will be able to better judge when to start. There are still some things we need, and things I need to finish preparing a bit, and I am trying to also declutter this house of mine. We have way too much stuff for our little 900-something square foot home.

Speaking of Jacob's growth, he has suddenly shot up! He is now 45 3/4 inches! Yay, Jacob! What is different? I have no idea. Maybe his body just decided it is going to follow its own growth pattern. Who knows? Anyway, it puts him just above the 10% as opposed to the 2-3% on the chart, so he is growing. Joshua, on the other hand, has not grown a bit since November. But, maybe he will follow the same path as Jacob seeing as they are brothers? No idea.

I took Cassidy to the new main library in town. We had never been to the new one, and there was a book I was really wanting to get (I'll tell you about that one in a minute). That place is HUGE! I couldn't believe how large and nice this place is. We parked on the conference level, and walked up some stairs to the main floor. I couldn't find a map, so we headed upstairs...yes, actually up the stairs. Cassidy was hillarious! She wanted to walk up the steps. There is a series of steps, a platform, and then another series of steps. We would get halfway up a set of steps and she would start saying, "We're almost there. Almost. Not much more. We're THERE!" LOL We'd search the floor a bit and then head up to the next level. The children's section is actually on the 2nd floor (our third set of steps) so she was tuckered out by the time we got there. And I think the sheer number of books there was completely overwhelming to her. She found a My Little Pony book and was ready to leave. LOL

There were tons of maps in the children's section, so we grabbed one and found the elevator. We headed to find the one book I went after: "Homeschooling the Child With Asperger Syndrome: Real Help for Parents Anywhere and on Any Budget". I haven't had time to fully dive into it yet, but so far it is wonderful! It is so nice to read what other people have done and what curriculums have worked with their child. It also has some instructions on making our own therapy items, a list of social skills that many Asperger kids have trouble with and idioms commonly used. I can't wait to really sit down and read this one. Though Joshua was diagnosed with High-Functioning Autism, at the time we received the diagnosis, we were also told that the only reason he didn't qualify as having Asperger Syndrome is because of his speech delay. So, I'm hoping this book will be a fountain of info.

Dropped

Yep! Apparently my bloodwork was too good to continue on the clinical study I was participating in. Hmmm. Good news for me, not so good for them. ;)

My triglycerides went down below 150 to 134, so they can't use me. My good cholesterol went up to 50-something (writing from memory here), and something else went up which wasn't so good...either the total or the bad cholesterol, but I can't rememebr which. Anyway, Lisa (the coordinator) headed over to talk to my doc. He reminded her of how bad my numbers were in April and how by diet I totally turned everything around by June. He is not choosing to medicate me at this time. Instead he wants me to keep on doing what I was doing and go back in a month to see if I qualify for anything else. Even my fasting glucose level was good last week at 83. Woohoo!


I made a few layouts since my last post. I was even chosen as Layout of the Day at Gotta Pixel again! Twice in five days time! Talk about exciting to see! The layout chosen this time is "Loose Tooth Questions". Jacob wanted me to take a picture of his mouth with all of his baby teeth still in "in case he forgets what his mouth looked like with all of them in". LOL He cracks me up! So I figured, what better way to use that pic and write down all of the questions that have been on his mind the past few days. I used Melany Violette's Color Me Happy kit. I had to tweak the journaling strips a bit, but it wasn't hard to do once I dove into playing with it. Fonts are Occidental and First Grader.

I also got to play with one of Tennessa Allen's kits this week. I was so excited, because I have been eyeling her stuff for the past week. I LOVE her Purple Pajamas kit. I am a sucker for anything butterflies, and this kit has several. And I love the colors! SO pretty and feminine! My favorite is the layout on the right. This kit was perfect for the photo I took of Cassidy in her Easter dress in 2005. Those butterflies and hearts are just perfect for my little girly-girl. Check out the rest of Tennessa's stuff. She has a small line of pajama kits, and they are all so cute!

First loose tooth

Well, it has finally happened. Jacob finally has a wiggly tooth. He was eating lunch and told me that his tooth was hurting a little bit. So I took a peek and checked to see if there was wiggling, and sure enough there was! I told him that he had his first loose tooth and he was really growing up. The look on his face was so cute. It was panic and joy all in one. He even had watery eyes. LOL I asked him if he was scared, and he told me no. How is it that at only 7 years old, males have already learned to not tell when they are scared? Boggles my mind.

So, my little overanalyzer has been asking me tons of questions in the past hour since his discovery. Will it hurt? Will I swallow it? How will I not swallow it? What if I do swallow it? Has anyone ever swallowed a tooth before? What will I do with the tooth if it comes out during the day? Will I put the tooth under my pillow right away or wait until bedtime? Will it have blood? Why? I'm sure there were more, but you get the picture.

I took a picture of his mouth today, full of his baby teeth. lol He seemed relieved to know we have pictures now. LOL I'm going to have to scrap it soon. :)

Speaking of scrapping, I just got my first assignment for the Scrappin' Secrets CT. I'm using one of Tenessa Allen's kits. So exciting!

I also made a couple of pages:

The first is one I made for a friend of mine. I call it Amanda's Garden. It's not my usual style, but I thought Melany Violette's Garden Girl kit was too cute not to use.







I also made the letter B page for the kids' ABC album. I used Melany Violette's Color Me Happy kit.

A scrapping toot and convention to boot

One of the requirements for the Scrappin' Secrets creative team is that I have 3 galleries off of a particular list. Two of my galleries were already on the list, but I needed one more. Our team leader suggested I go to Gotta Pixel. I always feel so weird jumping into new boards, but I did it. Oh my goodness, the people there are so friendly and supportive. And talk about challenges galore! I love it there so far. I made my first post the day before yesterday and have been slowly adding some of my layouts.

When I got home from the homeschooling convention (which I will talk about in a bit), I checked through the gallery to see if anyone left a somment or two. I like seeing what other people think about my layouts. As I'm looking at the number of comments, I notice that most have anywhere from 1-5 or 6. All of a sudden I see one that has 14. What in the world made that one pop out for everyone, I am wondering. So, I start reading the comments, and lo and behold, My "Simple Pleasures" layout was chosen as the site's "Layout of the Day"! I could not believe it! I was so excited!!! Check it out! http://www.gottapixel.net/blog/

So, that was my big thrill of the weekend. :) I have to say, I was feeling pretty bad about my abilities after being rejected from a few teams, but my confidence is starting to build up once again when it comes to my little hobby. :)

Let's see...I attended a homeschooling convention yesterday and today. Some of the workshops were fantastic! My favorite was on the temperments and how to teach a child with each type. What a great tool for me to have! All of my children are completely different, so it is nice to know exactly what will likely work with them. I also attended one on organization and homeschooling which was neat, but most of which I pretty much had already figured on trying. And then another on teaching multiple ages at the same time was high on my favorites list. So, a very informative weekend.

Yay!

Woohoo! I got an email today telling me I have been chosen as a member of Scrappin' Secrets new Creative Team! I am so excited and I can not wait for my first assignment. :)

I also realized last night that I forgot to post one of my layouts. This one is for Elena's book. This is a page I have been wanting to put together for a while, but I could never really find a kit I really wanted to use with the pics, until I picked up Ginger Thibodeau's Softly Shining Kit. The lace and papers were perfect, and with a little color tweaking on the pic, I was very happy with the results. I can still remember the moment we told Meemaw we gave Elena her middle name in honor of her. She was so excited. Meemaw had Alzheimer's and though many times she couldn't remember our names, she never once slipped in calling Elena "Frances". :) Don't forget to click the photo to see it better. ;)