So this is kinda cool

It’s been awhile since I scrapped or even made a card so while the baby is sleeping and Ron is watching NASCAR in here (the bonus room) I thought I’d clean up my desk & scrapping area. I was browsing through the current (June/July ‘08 ) issue of Scrapbook Retailer magazine and I saw this ad:

What’s cool about it is that I noticed one of my projects featured in the ad!

I was a contributor for the “Show It Off” book. I have 7 projects published in it and that “Love” collage frame is one of them. I showed the ad to Ron and he thought is was cool too. Which makes it even better. *grin*

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments and emails lately! It means so much to me. While things got even worse the day after I made that last post (I got laid off from my job!) we’re more encouraged now about the immediate future than we were a few weeks ago. Please keep us in your prayers though. The next couple months will be very challenging.

In other news, Drew & Holly went to Hume Lake for camp the week of the 15th. And then they spent all this week at their aunt & uncle’s house where they got to go to vacation bible school with their cousins who are the same ages as Drew & Holly which is great. Ron is going to leave in just a bit to pick them up. I miss them so much and can’t wait to see them! Jaimee got her first cold, poor little thing. She was up at 2am with a fever last night. She is feeling better today but is definitely not herself. Here’s a picture I took of her last week in her Bumbo seat. Those things are so cool!

Don’t forget to leave me a comment to say hi! And let me know if you have any fun things planned soon. Are you enjoying the summer?

June; usually a great month

I love June. Usually. The kids get out of school (their last day this year is the 13th, YAY!) the nights stay light late (I love that) and the weather is gorgeous. But things are a little “heavy” now. It could partially be the fog of sleep deprivation (Jaimee has reverted to waking up at 5-something am) but mostly it’s some big bad stuff going on. I won’t go into it but I’m definitely feeling the weight of it this week. And this summer (which is usually my favorite-est season of the year) looks like it will be a difficult one. Keep us in your prayers.

So! On to something (hopefully) more interesting. I haven’t created anything since Jaimee’s album cover, but I’ll share something I made in October for my high school reunion. I thought it would be fun to have a little mini album to show what I’ve been up to for the last 20 years since graduation (*gasp* Seriously, has it really been 20 years?!) It’s a mini album made from twelve 4×4 chipboard coasters. It was perfect - small enough to carry around and easy to share when people asked those same questions at high school reunions. It was a big hit! Even some of the guys thought is was kinda cool.

(you can click on any of these pictures for a larger image)

cover:

Inque Boutique stamps, Basic Grey chipboard flourish

first spread:

this sums up the early years after graduation, photo collage created in PSE

last spread:

this last page sums up the present up to that point, another photo collage on the left side

If you have a sec, leave me a comment to cheer me up.

Yes, I love technology, always and forever

It’s time to join the You Tube revolution. I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time, but I’ve just been distracted. With things like pregnancy. And giving birth. And taking care of an infant as well as my two other kids (plus husband, lol). And a full time job that I went back to two weeks ago after my blurred-from-lack-of-sleep maternity leave. Oh, and did I mention that Ron is out of town every Monday through Thursday or Friday since he started his new job last month? He actually didn’t get home until Saturday last week. But back to my point… how awesome that we can put video clips on the web and share with friends and family! I finally took the time to learn how to do this tonight. So here’s a little video of our sweet six-week-old daughter Jaimee!
(forgive the squeaky mommy voice)

.
I also started a mini album for her. I used a board book (Cloud 9, thanks May!) that’s perfect because there will be one page for each month. Here’s the cover:

All Inque Boutique papers and stamps. More details and side view HERE.

I’m already behind on doing page one (1st month)! Wow, how time is flying already. She’s doing really well, btw. Growing so fast I can see it happen. And last night and Saturday night she went SEVEN hours between feedings. YAY! That makes for a more sane mommy and everyone is happier for it.

P.S. In case you never saw Napoleon Dynamite (and if you haven’t yet, what planet are you on?) then you won’t get the title of today’s entry. Gosh!

She’s here, she’s here!

Our baby girl arrived Friday March 14th! 

Introducing Jaimee Grace Summers:

Friday was an incredible day.  I got up at 6:15am to head to the store because Drew reminded me the night before that he needed 24 filled plastic eggs for his class Easter party as well as 12 dinner rolls for their feast.  So off I went (it was still dark outside - I hate that) to WalMart.  I was having some contractions, but I’d been having some good ones for the past couple weeks, but what felt different this morning was that I was also feeling really crampy.  I wondered if something was starting to happen, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

Got back home and told Ron how I was feeling and he got really excited and was convinced today was the day.  I started my work day but had a feeling I wouldn’t last the whole day so I spent the time tying up any loose ends. By the time Ron left to take the kids to school around 8:15am, we were pretty convinced this was it.  So I finished up packing for the hospital, made a few calls, tried to keep working, and started timing contractions.

The contractions started getting beyond uncomfortable and were coming regularly so we left the house around 10:30am and my sisters (who were both able to come and drove together!) came out from the Bay Area to meet us at the hospital.  By the time we got there, I was having very painful contractions, some of them coming every two minutes.  In between contractions, we took a picture where we parked the car:

(notice I’m still in my jammie pants - I didn’t have it in me to get fully dressed, lol)

Usually when you go in to the hospital to have a baby, they put you in triage to see if you’re truly in labor before they’ll admit you.  But the nurse at the check in area said to another nurse “this one’s in real labor - she’s an admit”.  She could tell by looking!  So I got to skip triage and get right into a room.  Around 11am I was 3cm but 100% effaced and having serious contractions.  This is in between contractions:

I opted for an epidural (have done one labor with and one without and already knew I was going to go for the epi this time).  By noon the epi was in place and I was 4cm.  My sisters showed up around 12:30p I think.  I was soooooo glad they made it, it was so exciting for all of us!! 

By 1pm I was at 9cm!  So they started getting all the birthing stuff set up in the room while my Dr (yay, he was there too!) kept a close eye.  By 1:20p I was at 10cm and it was time to push.  Four sets of pushes later she arrived at 1:35pm!  It all went so fast, we couldn’t believe it!  She was 7lbs 15oz (just 1oz shy of 8lbs, but she looked SOOOOOOO tiny to me!) and 19 1/2 in long.  I can’t tell you how amazing it was.

Ron’s parents arrived at around 2:30p and got to visit and then Ron & his dad went to pick up Drew & Holly from school since they get out at 3pm.  Talk about perfect timing!!  Drew and Holly were so excited to meet their new baby sister:

I can’t believe we’re now a family of FIVE!!

We went home from the hospital on Sunday afternoon.  And at this point we still HAD NO NAME for our baby!!  So we left the hospital with “Girl Summers” lol.

(in her car seat before we clicked her in)

The journey of giving birth and bringing baby home has been amazing, I can’t even describe it.  Of course, there are some things I’ve forgotten since I had my last baby 8 1/2 years ago:

1. How tiny newborns are.  Really, you’d think after my 3rd that this wouldn’t surprise me so much, but I can’t get over how tiny she is.  She’s just. so. tiny.

2. How cute the newborn noises and facial expressions are.  Yep, forgot that too.  The little faces she makes just kill me.  Yawns are the best.  And the coos and sweet little noises… oh my gosh, I’m dying, she’s so cute.

3. How painful it is when the milk comes in.  Um ya, forgot some of the bad stuff too.  In all the years Ron has known me, he’d have to think really hard to think of the times I’ve cried from being in pain, even throughout my sternum surgery ordeal several years ago.  Wowie, Monday was a killer.  The worst out of the three times I’ve been a mommy.

4. How I can stare at her by the hour.  I can’t get over it - she’s just so unvelievably beautiful and perfect and yummy. 

5. The indescribable joy and contentment of having your newborn baby sleep on your chest.  That’s about the best I’m going to be able to translate that into words.

After we got home we were trying different names on her.  We didn’t decide until Monday night late that Jaimee was it.  P.S. Ron was the one who wanted that name spelling.  It was really important to him so I let him have it.  And he let me have Grace (he wasn’t a big fan of that name).  So Jaimee Grace it is and we both really love it!  We’re still working on the whole breastfeeding journey - it’s been a rocky ride.  But hey, she’s less than a week old so we’ve got time.  Looking forward to that being normalized though.

And of course, we’ve taken tons of pics of her.  Here are a couple cute ones from yesterday:

(ok, just looking at this right now is making me want to run over to the bassinet and give her a big kiss on the cheek)
 

(we call this pose “Touchdown!”)

Well, it’s time to feed her so I gotta run.  Then we’ll probably nap together.  How blessed am I?

No baby yet - and I’ve been tagged!

Had a Dr’s appt yesterday.  I was surprised that I made it another week after the last appt!  So now I’m 39 weeks and I’m still “almost 2cm” but now I’m 25% effaced (I wasn’t effaced at all last time).  He stripped the membranes a bit.  And we continue to wait.  My husband cracks me up because he is soooooooo impatient to have the baby.  He keeps telling me to have it already.  Like I have any control over it.  It’s pretty sweet though - he just really wants to meet her.  But my older sister, who I really REALLY want to be with me in the delivery room (she was there for both previous births) is in Cabo and doesn’t get home until Thursday night.  And my younger sister who I also want to be there - her husband is out of town on business till Friday night.  My Dr. isn’t on call this weekend so Saturday and Sunday are no good.  So while I’m DONE being pregnant, I’m hoping baby will wait until at least Monday to be born.  Gotta love having times picked out for something so uncertain as giving birth.  And did I mention that dh and I still can’t agree on a name? 

So I got tagged by Jen.  My first time being tagged!

 The rules of the game:
• Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs (let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog).

My 7 random/weird facts about me:

1. Drinking out of a water fountain makes me nervous - I’m afraid someone’s going to bump into me and I’ll hit the spout and break my front teeth.   That’s seriously weird, right?

2. My fave Starbuck’s order: Venti, 6-pump, no water, breve, chai tea latte.  Dessert in a cup.  Yum.

3.  The other day I…. no wait, that wasn’t me.

4. I have a special place in my heart for Disneyland.  It is the happiest place on earth!

5. The scrapbooking magazines aren’t inspiring me lately.  Don’t know if it’s the trends right now or if it’s just the pregnancy.  Not much creating for me lately.

6. I’ve started making juice shakes with V8 fusion (the fruit & veggie juice) and Gerber organic banana baby food.  Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.  It’s DELICIOUS!

7. I finished reading The Narrow Road by Brother Andrew (”God’s Smuggler”) and now I’m reading The Calling (sequel).  I highly recommend them!

Now I’m tagging:

May
Kayla Aimee
Angela
Jen
Betsy
Janet
Wendy
 

So I usually like to share something creative in each blog post, but I haven’ t made anything new so I’ll just link you to my stuff at the Inque Boutique Gallery HERE.  Did you know you could win $50 in stamps every week by posting over there?!  You should definitely check it out.  Details here. 

CHA update, and… the end of this pregnancy?

Wow, I can’t believe how February blew by.  It was very busy leading up to CHA and I’ve just been too tired since then to do much of anything once I get done with my work day.  It was an interesting CHA being 8 months pregnant!  But still lots of excitement and I was so glad to have been there.  I worked the demo table in the Inque Boutique booth - so thankful I had a sitting down job! 

Here’s one of my favorite things I did for the demos:

This uses the new Inque Boutique goodies  from the Out of this World line.  Such fun stuff - I can’t wait to get it all!

Here’s another demo item I did - I love this tag because I really do love chai tea latte’s from Starbuck’s (YUM!) and I adore designer Susan’ Stringfellow’s line (called Savoir Faire) of stamps:

Here’s a pregger pic of me when a bunch of us went to Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant one night:

Isn’t that hilarious that you can put your feet in Forrest’s “shoes”?!

Here are some more CHA pics

So I had a Dr’s appt this morning.  I couldn’t wait to go because over the weekend, I lost my mucus plug and I’d been having a bunch of braxton hicks contractions.  The last time I went to the Dr (Friday before last) I was 1/2 cm.  This morning I was at almost 2cm with baby’s head engaged.  I’ve been having a lot more BH contractions tonight, so I’m really feeling like this baby is going to come SOON.  Hope I can get a good night’s sleep tonight! 

Happy Birthday to me

I’m thankful for the calls & emails I got from friends and family because otherwise, I kept forgetting it was my birthday today.  Seriously.  Because it was an otherwise ordinary day… the kids went to school, I worked, nothing noteworthy going on.  But I loved when the kids sang “Happy Birthday” to me first thing this morning.  Totally sweet and a highlight of the day for sure. 

The celebrating will come over the weekend when my friend Heidi comes to visit me.  Here we are in August when I went to visit her in Idaho and we hiked around and saw some gorgeous sights:
 (Click for full-size image)

I was about 9 weeks pregnant at the time and was fighting first trimester fatigue and nausea, but it was still an awesome trip.  Heidi’s on the left and I’m on the right in the two smaller pics.  She’s been my friend forever (almost 20 years!) and I totally love her.  Anyway, I’m really looking forward to having her come visit me this weekend and hanging out.  Layout notes: scraplift of BHG layout using Basic Grey paper, Xtreme and dot/circle stamps by Inque Boutique, journaling card by My Mind’s Eye, embellished felt by Prima, used Photoshop to layer the white bordered photo on to the big scenic one.  The 3rd photo is a separate one adhered on top.  Sorry for the blurry stitch line down the center.

My birthday gift to myself was splurging for a 3D/4D ultrasound of Baby Girl.  Expensive, but oh so very worth it:

The next two are very similar, but in the 2nd one, you can tell she’s doing some kind of smile/grimmace thing:

How cute is that?  This next one is noteworthy because of the hand near the face and… notice the ridges by her ear and top of her head - that’s HAIR.  The u/s technician commented that she has a lot of hair on her head - and there are still ten weeks left for her to grow more before d-day!

 And finally… look at her perfect little lips:

Can’t wait to meet her!

To sign off, a hilarious bumper sticker:

I don’t care who ya are…. that’s funny.

Shock & Awe

This is a true story. In three parts. Part 1 is sort of a preface and parts 2 and 3… well, they’re doozies. Here we go:

PART 1
I have to back up to about May. We were preparing for CHA (the trade show in Chicago in July) and there was lots to do. I work from home which is GREAT, but at this time, I was working all kinds of extra hours, on the weekends, and even staying up till midnight to start working with the web guy who lives in the UK – which often meant I was working until 2 or 3 in the morning. I even pulled a few all-nighters there towards the end.

So May, June, and the days in July leading up to the trade show – busy busy busy. The hardest part was after the kids got out of school on June 7^th. Until I’d taken the job in September of ’06, I’d been purely a SAHM and when the kids had vacation, we always spent a lot of time together. And now I was hardly getting to even make dinner for them let alone spend any fun time with them. But we knew this was just for a season and there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Flew to Chicago for the trade show on Wednesday, July 18^th. My husband took the kids to his brother’s house to stay while I was gone and they were happy because they’d get to play with their cousins who are the same age. The trade show was busy but that was fun because it meant it was going very well.

(click here for more CHA pics)
On Saturday I did not even sit down until around 4pm! There were too many people interested in the goodies in the booth – which was fantastic!

PART 2
On Sunday however, I got a call that while my daughter Holly (age eight) was swimming with her cousin, she’d gotten a hold of the chlorine floatie which my brother-in-law had taken out of the pool and set by the side. It had been sitting in the sun and the water that was left in it was becoming more and more concentrated by the chlorine tablets. You’ve seen the signs on chlorine boxes:

So when she picked it up and it spilled on her hands, she got severe chemical burns. Ron had gotten some really bad flu and they don’t want sick people near burn victims because of the high risk of infection so I had to leave the trade show floor and get the first flight back to California. Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to fly home right then anyway – it was killing me that I was so far away from my baby while all this was going on. Ron picked me up from the airport and took me home just long enough so that I could get the other car, grab a couple things, and get to the hospital. And there was my poor baby with her hands all bandaged up. They decided that she should go to the Pediatric Burn Unit at Shriner’s Hospital since they were better equipped to handle this sort of injury. The next procedure would be cleaning and debridement (removal of damaged skin tissue) which is a very painful procedure. By the time we got set up to do this at Shriner’s, it was midnight. And the oral medication they had given Holly just was not enough for the pain. But they kept trying. I got frustrated and asked for an anesthesiologist. But this late at night there was no anesthesiologist (nor respiratory therapist which you need when doing serious pain medication) on call. It became obvious that she’d need an anesthesiologist, so we’d have to wait for morning. I slept on the couch next to Holly’s hospital bed utterly exhausted after having been up since 4am my time that morning and the physical and emotional drain of the day’s events.They did the procedure Monday morning. They weren’t going to let me be in the room while they did it, but I insisted. I needed to know (and see) exactly what was going on with my baby. I assured them I wouldn’t freak out or pass out or whatever, and they relented. Here’s a pic of her after the procedure:

You can see on her right arm where the stuff dripped down and gave her some minor burns.

I can’t tell you the range of emotion you go through when something like this happens. At one point, the doctors were afraid that not only had she gotten an infection, but that it had gone systemic as well. Scary stuff. Thankfully though, they ruled that out later and just a normal treatment of antibiotics would do the trick. We were also concerned about the long term affects of this. Would she lose any fingers? Or lose any range of movement from badly burned/tightened skin? And well… would it just look ugly? (think of her wedding day when it’s time to put the ring on her finger and she has a badly scarred left hand to put out there). After the procedure, they ruled out most of it and we were probably just looking at scaring. Time would tell.

While all of this was very difficult, there was something sweet about the time Holly and I spent together in the hospital. Just me and my daughter. Getting to spend more undivided attention with each other than normal. Especially sweet after me working so hard the previous months. But back to the situation… there was now the burn wound care to worry about. This is something Holly would have to be able to tolerate as well as something I would have to be able to do once we got home. So when they changed the bandages later on Monday, Holly had to be brave and I had to watch and learn. Torture. For both of us. Burn treatment is so very very painful. We spent yet another night in the hospital and after a few more dressing changes, we both got to the point on Tuesday where they could let us go home.

PART 3
It was emotional coming home. Ron hadn’t seen his daughter and Drew hadn’t seen his sister since she went into the hospital. And I hadn’t gotten to be home with my family since the Wednesday before when I’d left for Chicago. We were thankful that Holly was generally going to be ok and we’d just have to wait and see how bad the scarring was. I had to do one more dressing change before the day was over – the first one at home just me and Holly. It was so hard. She was in so much pain and was begging me to stop. In tears myself, I had to beg Holly to let me finish. “Please baby, we have to do this.” When she saw me cry she said “ok Mommy you can keep doing it”. But it was so hard, I can’t even tell you. But now that I was home, the kids knew we could spend some time together. So they asked if we could watch Star Wars together. It was so great just relaxing with the kids on the couch and getting to spend time like this for the first time in months together. It was the “exhale” moment for sure. And you know what happens in exhale moments. You finally have time to stop and think about all the things you have just been TOO BUSY to even THINK about up to that point.

About 20 minutes before the movie ended, I was thinking about this and that. And I was reminded about a part of my body that was sore that I’d noticed in the hotel room in Chicago, but was too busy to think about more than just noticing it. I was reminded again now. WHY am I sore there? (the “TMI” part of it was that it was my ‘ehem’ bosom that was sore).

And then… I should have gotten my period by now. Think, think, think. Uh, I should have gotten it two weeks ago. I’m like clockwork. Never late.

*gasp*

OMG, I’m pregnant. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I knew that I was. And just couldn’t believe it. We have a ten year old son and an eight year old daughter. And we were done having kids. Had been done for a long time. Gave away all the baby stuff when Holly was three. Done done done. I had to wait until the movie was over, not wanting to interrupt the first thing the kids and I were getting to do together in so long. And when it was over I went to Ron and said, “I think I’m pregnant and I’m going to take a test” (thankfully I had one in the house). I took it knowing that I would have been surprised if it was negative. And of course, it lit up like a Christmas tree with the big fat “YES, you are pregnant” line showing up. Ron and I were stunned at the idea of having another baby. But he was really excited and happy. Which was so sweet. And was a good thing since I was more in the “freaking out” camp about this. We. Are. Going. To. Have. A. Baby.

PROLOGUE
Holly’s hands healed beautifully. We believe it was a miracle after much prayer. If you didn’t know she was burned, you would never notice anything. There is slight discoloration, but like I said, it is noticeable only if you know what you’re looking for.

I am now 29 weeks pregnant and due on March 18. We are having a girl and are thrilled about that. If you go to CHA in Anaheim in February, come by the Inque Boutique booth #3757 (I’ll be at the demo table) and see me as big as a house, lol.

Blogitty Blog

I’m not a blogger.  I tried it once a couple years ago.  That lasted one post.  Gonna give it another shot and my goal will be to post at least once a month - who’s gonna wanna read anything I have to say more often than that?  Not even me who’s probably the most interested in what I’m doing here, lol.

So I’ll start by introducing our kids while sharing some of my scrapbook pages.  This is Holly who’s eight.  This summer she wanted to cut her long hair.  You can probably read the journaling closeup.  Too bad the ”after” photo is no good - the fatal flaw of this layout.  But I still love all the layers, sanding, stamping, and inking.   

 

  

 

This is Drew our 10- year old son.  He loves videos games, watching football with dad, and generally being “cool”, as evidenced by this photo which is SO Drew.  I asked him what words he’d used to describe himself and his list says “cool, sensitive, kind, loving, awesome, creative, entergetic, funny”.  As Mommy, I definitely agree with “sensitive, kind, loving, and energetic”.  Um, and “awesome” of course.  Oh, and P.S. this design was a scraplift of a BHG “Make It Yours” sketch that I loved.  Totally different in style from the layout about Holly, but if you haven’t noticed already, I’m all over the map with style.  I love the freedom to create whatever I’m in the mood for, or what the photos speak to me.

That’s enough for now.  Thanks for stopping by and checking out my stuff!