Kathleen Summers

sad things, transition, good things

kathleensummers — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:21:21 +0000

Mom; March 4, 1936 – March 3, 2013
One day shy of her 77th birthday, the esophageal cancer won.

Mom wanted a gathering at her house as a memorial. I’m so thankful for my sisters who made it so beautiful. I was touched by everyone who came and there were people I hadn’t seen in years that brought back such sweet memories.

Transition…

Ron lost his job in October. Except for a job that lasted about 6 weeks that brought in less income than unemployment (oy!) he was, well, unemployed. BUT he got a job as an Account Executive… back in the mortgage industry! A real job with full benefits and everything! Obviously the previous 5 months were hard. But really, it’s been a hard five years since the mortgage industry crashed and we lost our house, savings, etc. It will take awhile for things to get rolling and for the income to be what we need to get by, but at least there’s a good chance to make beyond the minimum necessary and it feels like a long time since that was even possible. I’m so happy that at least he loves what he’s doing now. And he’s working with and for such nice people. So thankful. And medical, dental, vision, life, and 401K? Yes please, and thank you.

Bennett is weaning. He is my last baby. And he’s gone the longest of any of my babies. Now that I know first hand how shockingly fast the kids grow (um… Drew is getting his DRIVER’S PERMIT!) it’s so hard to let this stage go. Nursing my babies has been hands-down one of my most treasured joys in this life. I will miss it. I will miss him being completely out of baby-stage and full-on into toddler-stage. Didn’t I just give birth to him? What is happening? Trying to look on the bright side… I am looking ahead to getting my body back. I have plans to get back in shape. I’m tired of being weak and flabby. I want to be strong and fit again! More on that later.

Good things:

Well, my kids are all healthy and amazing. No lie, they make me smile every day. Tonight Jaimee and Bennett were playing and doing this funny yelling/screaming thing. Bennett’s face is so cute when he does this and he and Jaimee go back and forth. It’s really so cute (even though it did get pretty LOUD, lol). I do love how Bennett is big enough that now he and Jaimee can be playmates:

And while it continues to shock me how fast this is happening, we did have a great day celebrating Jaimee’s 5th birthday:

(this was just the “cake” part of the day; the present-opening and Chuck E. Cheese parts were awesome too!)

And other holiday events since my last post:

Jaimee making Valentines for her pre-school classmates. SO CUTE.

And Easter:

My older sister did a truly beautiful job with everything from the decorating, baskets and toys for all the kids, the dinner… she really does have a gift. And it was a good day.

Looks like I need more photos of Drew & Holly. *mental note*

Just hangin’ in there, folks.

my favorite recent scrapbook pages

kathleensummers — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 08:26:37 +0000

I haven’t shared many scrapbook pages lately. These are some of my faves!

I just made this tonight. It’s from March of last year and Bennett is 4 months old and Jaimee just turned 4 years old. Love this page which is a total scraplift of a paper page by mini m le scrap:

I joined a photo swap challenge and got photos from a girl in Germany. I wasn’t sure how I was going to scrap sunset photos, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Just some cute pics of Jaimee playing with her dolls. Totally love this page!

I used this layout for the cover of my December Daily hardcover photo book. I also used these photos for our Christmas cards.

I love this kit of Mindy Terasawa’s and have used it several times.

Playing with Holly & Jaimee at the park:

Bennett’s darling little curls!

Thanks for looking!

Hello January 2013

kathleensummers — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:59:36 +0000

It’s the new year, and we all know what this means:

and great football . . . (have the NFL playoff games this weekend not been AWESOME?!)

and . . . Season 3 of Downton Abbey airs in the U.S.!!

the happiest place on earth

kathleensummers — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:00:21 +0000

It was May. Since we had shut down the business and Ron had gotten a great job a few months prior, we were excited to think about planning our first family vacation in years. And of course, we thought of Disneyland! A place where all ages could have fun! And then we heard about Disneyland ticket and annual passholder prices going up. So we jumped before the price increase. We wanted to be able to go for the year (we’d done annual passes in the past and loved it) and not have any block-out days so bought Premium Annual Passes and we knew we’d have until Dec. 31st to activate them and start our “year of Disney”.

We were all set. I made reservations for a trip for the first week of January (we would activate them just before the deadline) and were so excited about our first family vacation in over three years. And Christmas at Disneyland!

(Disneyland will be dressed up for Christmas through January 6)

Well, in October, Ron lost his job. We of course still had hope we could pull it off… maybe just go down there for a short trip to activate them and plan a big trip a little later and still have most of the year to enjoy them. But we finally had to let the dream die. It was so hard after months of planning and Jaimee talking about going to Disneyland. But it just makes more sense to try and liquidate these so we can pay some bills and buy some Christmas gifts and wait to do the Disneyland thing when we would have the money to really enjoy it.

We have vouchers we bought from Disney online. They are PDFs that you print out and bring with you to the ticket booth at Disneyland. There are no names on these, just a bar code and activation code on each one. Once you get there, you give them all your info and then they become annual passes with an identity attached to them. Vouchers are how people can buy these as gifts, and then the recipients have no problems using them. So, no worries on that front. Once they are activated, they are good for one year. And as long as they are activated by Dec. 31st, the difference in what we paid and what they now cost won’t be charged.

Premium Annual Passes for Disneyland now sell for $649 each (regardless of age… price is all the same for APs and ages 3 and up need some kind of ticket to get in). We would like to sell ours for $600 each. Still a deal for you (you’re saving $49 per ticket) and a help to us as you can understand.

If you’re interested, please email me at scrapkat(at)gmail. We could also discuss the reservations for a hotel we have within walking distance… a two room suite for less than half of what the Disneyland Hotel charges! We could probably figure out how to get you that reservation too!

Halloween was fabulous!

kathleensummers — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:22:26 +0000

I’ve always loved Halloween and it’s even more fun with your own little ones. For a few years there I was a little deprived since Drew and Holly wanted to spend it with their friends and Jaimee was too little. But this year was awesome because it was the first year Jaimee REALLY knew what was up. And she was so excited! For the last two years, she’d been a pirate:

And I must say… could she BE any cuter?! At that time, I was ten days away from giving birth to Bennett. I was having some physical issues and could only make it around the block and then Ron had to take over and do the rest of the trick-or-treating with her. Which they did for HOURS. She loved it then.

And she loved it this year too! She was so excited and loved every second of it. This year, she was Alice in Wonderland:

I thought she looked completely adorable.

I haven’t made the scrapbook pages about the actual night yet, which will include Bennett in his costume, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to share how fun our night was.