First Day of School-- Summer is over.

So school is back in session and for today I am enjoying the peace and quiet of my home. What did I do over summer vacation. We only took one small trip out of town and that was to Utah to play at lagoon. We rode the big roller coaster. It was fun, I mean I liked it, My girls hated it. Scared the pants off them. So after that we stuck with Rattle Snake Rapids.

I also painted the kitchen this summer, it was a challenge reaching above cabinets and along the ceiling. The edger is my new best friend. I love the colors and how it turned out in the end. We replaced the old caca blinds with new 2 inch fake Wood ones. It also helped to cut down the amount of sun and heat in the dining area.

One day this summer, while Heidi, Greg and I had an appointment with a Doctor, Emma and Grandpa went to lunch at McDonald's and the Oscar Mayer Wienie Mobil was at Fred Meyers so the stopped and got their picture taken and got a wienie whistle. Emma had fun.

Most of the rest of the summer was spent driving kids to swimming lessons and camps and stuff like that. I started back to daycare in August, baby Noah returned as a little boy with a baby sister. We love having them come play. Below is the photo of a wall chart I made for my kitchen. It has an erase able calendar and a white board and the whole thing is magnetic. I love how it turned out.

Off to enjoy my quiet house.

How the Summer Flies By

I can't believe summer is already half over with. We had a very busy month in June. I spent a wonderful weekend in Hagerman with my friends. It was great and I could show the photos but what happens in Hagerman stays in Hagerman.

School got out and Emma graduated from Kindergarten. Heidi finished her first year of high school, had her 15th birthday and started Driver's Ed.
Graduation photo with her teacher Mrs. Ledbetter.

Stay off the roads.!!!!!! We also had Band camp, cheer camp, basketball camp and swimming lessons in June. I changed the name to vancation because we spent so much time in the van. I did get time for reading in all of this and I finished the Twilight series. Not my favorite but okay.

So now we are into July and celebrated the 4th here at home and have been enjoying sleeping in and staying home. We go to grandma and grandpa Beers about three times a week and go swimming at their house. It is fun and refreshing.

Yesterday we went to the zoo and played with friends. Next week I plan on doing a few other things with the girls. Bowling, movies, maybe a night at a campground or something.

I am getting a few more cards done and some scrapbooking.

Cards cards and more cards

I have been working on a lot of cards lately, so here are a few of them I have made.

This one is a card I made for the RMHS band. Actually I made 40 of them. They are sending them to all the wonderful people who donated to the auction we had last week.

I am in a card swap for Get Well Soon cards. This is for group 2 that I am in. The bear is a digi stamp. Well not really it is a digital coloring book page that I printed colored and cut out. Isn't he so cute. The card is sitting on a piece of blue paper, it is that big and crooked.

This a another coloring book picture that I changed into a card. I made this for my neighbor who hasn't been feeling well. I made it a bit more masculine for a male get well card.

Another card I made out of scraps I had left over. I just love this poor dragon with is neck injury. You just can't help but feel for him. I think I'll name is OSCAR.

I tried to turn this one the right way many times and I can't get it to work right. But you can get the idea. This is for another group in the Get Well Soon swap. I hand colored all the images. It is a Stamping Up image that I have had for a long time. She is so cute.

Emma's Science Project

So I have to back track a few weeks, we have been so busy. Here are a few photos of Emma's science project. She did her project on Capillary Action of Water in Plants. Basically she took white carnations and put them in colored water and watched them change over a number of days. There were only two Kindergartners in the science fair so she really did great. Of course they don't award prizes or anything now days because every child is a winner. (Don't get me started on that subject)



She had fun and she learned a little so that is what matters.


Here is her poster and her research. She did most everything on her own. I helped her with it a little bit.


Here are the end flowers. Most of the colors worked. Green and blue worked the best and purple didn't work very well at all. The yellow flower was in orange dye and it took longer than the other colors.

movie reviews

Since I really can't do much of anything but sit in bed and watch tv, I figured I better do a review on what I watch.

Australia- I have always wanted to go to Australia and the scenery in this movie is what made me want to watch it. It takes place in the early 1940's and is about cattle driving and WWII. It has a great story, good actors and wonderful shots of Australia. It is however very long...so glad I didn't see it in the theater. It was really good and I would recommend it.

Marley and Me- The girls got this movie for Easter and it is another one I am really glad we didn't see in a theater, because it makes me cry. It is funny and sad and great. I am not a dog person and I liked it. We hoped it was a good family movie, but Emma just didn't stay interested in it, so it is for a bit older. There were a few things not suitable for her age anyway so it wasn't too bad that she left and went to go play.

Other movies I watched this weekend were good Harrison Ford Classics:
Patriot Games
Clear and Present Danger
The Fugitive

I also watched the Sarah Plain and Tall movies 1,2, AND 3.

And the newest in the Love Comes Softly Series.. Love Finds a Home. Although these movies are great and I enjoyed them they are nothing like the books. I have the whole series of books and have read them many times over the years. The movies don't even come close to how good the books are.

I am also working my way through the Gilmore Girls Series and am on season 4.

Well that is this weekends movies.

Surgery

So last Wednesday the nurse finally called back to inform me I was a go for surgery. We have already postponed it once and it messed up a number of schedules. So when she asked when can you come in for knee surgery I replied, "I'm not busy this afternoon." She laughed and then scheduled it for Friday.

So Friday I went to the hospital got poked with an IV and counted backwards from ten. I woke up a few hours later and my knee was in it's amazing $600 bionicle brace. They gave me a choice because it was after 5. I could stay and be poked and bugged in the hospital all night, or I could go home and sleep in my own bed. I chose HOME.

Saturday wasn't too bad, I have used crutches before so I was able to get to the potty and back to the bed and I was on medicine. I also had a pain block in my leg that hadn't worn off.

GUESS WHAT...?

It wore off about 3 am Sunday morning and I was in horrible pain. I spent the rest of the night crying and watching the clock so I could take more meds which weren't doing anything but making my stomache upset. MY husband bless his heart was right there next to me telling me to just sleep it off, and he wouldn't let me call the Dr. in the middle of the night.

Sunday at 4 we finally contacted a Dr. and got another med to help keep down the pain meds. There is nothing like vomiting when you can't bend over a toilet. At this point I was getting rather discouraged and bummed, because my husband had to leave town in the morning and I felt like Caca.

Well my Friends showed up Monday to stay with me while DH left full speed to get away from the whiny wife. It was kind of like a friend chat party, only I don't remember anything we talked about. At 12, my friend took me to physical thereapy, where I continued to feel miserable and yucky and they unwrapped my bandage and started moving it. NOT FUN

I went home and went to bed and when I woke up my big sister was here to take care of me. I spent most of the rest of the week laying around in pain and with an upset (hurry hobble to the potty) stomache.

Thursday my friend Alex saved my life. She brought over a really cool machine:
http://www.dme-direct.com/donjoy-iceman-ice-man-cold-therapy-cryotherapy-1100-don-joy/
I totally recommend this machine to anyone in pain. As soon as she wrapped it around my knee and turned it on, it felt better. By the next day I was off the strong drugs and only taking a regular Tylonal. it is amazing. Now my tummy can start to recover from it's drug induced topsy turvery.

Friday my sister had to leave, I was so sad, she was such a major help and I didn't know what I was going to do without her. Then, my friends again, like angels from heaven, returned to assist me. This time it was more like a mommy lunch get together instead of come care for the sicko. They brought lunch and dinner and helped me out until the hubby could return.

Here it is a week since the surgery and I am getting around a little better, my stomache is feeling a little better, and I'm not in much pain at all. I am spending my time watching movies and coloring digital stamps. I can almost bend my knee 30 degrees, which isn't much. I am supposed to bend it 60. It is still going to be a long few weeks of recovery.

More cleaning and organizing

Here is Emma's toy shelf. We made it more kid friendly with labels. Now she can put everything away where it belongs.

There are nine baskets and they all have a photo and the words, so she can learn to read also.

Here is a close up of them. So Emma can see the dollhouse pieces belong in this basket.

Here is a photo of the linen closet also. I took Peter Walsh's advice and got rid of all the blankets and sheet we don't use. There is now two sets for each bed. I put the bedding in baskets also and labeled them so the girls can just pick out the basket and go make their beds.

I did keep a stack of quilts that my mom has made for the girls. I space bagged them and sucked them down really small with the vacuum. They are in my cedar chest. Now we only have two quilts in the linen closet.

Three more layouts

I spent some time scrapping this weekend and here are a few more of the layouts I finished.

I wish we would of had better photos of Marching band, but I did the best I could with fuzzy photos.

This layout looks a bit funny, but that was the camera. The glitter around the letters is silver and so are all the metallic stickers. They all match the jack shaped one in the middle of the page, even though it doesn't look like it.

Last time I showed Heidi's halloween layout. Here is Emma's halloween one. Not very orange and black halloween colors. But very PINKalicious.

Scrapbook organizing tip

I found these cases at Shopko and right now they are 40% off so I bought two. This is what they look like on the outside. They are by Iris.
This is what they look like on the inside. They have 6 cases that are all 4x6x1 and they all snap shut. They worked great for storing photos, but they also work great for other scrapbook items. Here I have my cat eye inks in them. If I need just the inks I take just the one case with me to a crop. Or I can take the whole thing.

Here is one that I put flowers into. I put big flowers in one, small warm colored flowers in another and small cooler color flowers in a third. That way i can just take the case I need. No more glass bottles getting broken in my bag.

They also work great for emmbellishments. Here I have a case with epoxy stickers and bling stuff in it. I can arrange them by themes also like christmas and baby.

Needless to say I filled the first two I bought and had to go back to shopko the next day for two more.

Flower decorating

When Heidi was in the hospital this last time the young women brought her flowers. They were beautiful. Well they finally died last week and Heidi decided to replace them with silk flowers. So we went to the store and bought flowers. Some of them were from the $$ store and some from the craft store. All total we spent less than $50. The wreath is the one I made. It brightened up our front door and added a touch of spring.

This is a close up of Heidi's arrangement. They found really cute butterflies and added them in also.

Heidi's arrangement.

Emma's arrangement

My sister does flower arranging and enjoys it, so I think after this, I will leave it up to her. I don't enjoy this at all. I burned my fingers more than once with the glue gun and although it looks good in the end, it isn't great and that bugs me. And believe it or not I swear I am allergic to fake flowers also. By the time we were done I had hives all over my hands and up my arms. MY kid thinks I'm nuts to be allergic to something that is fake. She says it is all in my head.