That girl is so full of excuses

Guys I'm so sorry. I do care about this blog and my readers (especially you Suzi!)

It's one thing after the other. I have been sick, pregnant, sick kids, traveling husband, this week I'm getting over that stupid flu and cleaning my house a TON. (I thought it would be easier for me to have my baby shower at home because I woudln't have to drive anywhere... totally forgot that means it's ME that has to super clean her own house!)

I actually have a TON of new stamp stuff, seem to be able to find time to place some orders at least. Sigh. I AM going to make and post some stuff.

You know, soon. Or not so soon.

Anyhow thanks for sticking with me. Maybe I'll have some cool blog candy to thank you guys for still visiting even though I'm all random and rare lately. I hate random rare blogs! ugh.

In other news: No negative health reports! We are getting over that flu but doing very well. Calvin seems totally fine in there. My kids are both loving school now. (Ethan prayed his way into loving school, totally unpromted by me, I've never been so proud.) Things are going well.

Flu season strikes

So this week me, Ethan and Stephen all have come down with what appears to be the flu. It's like a super bad cold, with cough and low fever. I seem to be the worse. I sent Ethie to school today but felt guilty after I left. I made them swear they would call me if he appeared sick. I don't know that they would call though.

I did have a parent teacher conference with Stephen's teacher. She was already in the know about his being crazy smart. She has him in a table group with other really smarty pants kids. She's also getting him tested for gifted at midterm. If that goes well he will be in gifted starting with 1st grade. She said he doesn't appear to be having any issues like that he's getting bored and causing problems. She will keep an eye on it. The thing is he's having a TON OF FUN so we don't want to move him out or anything. Plenty of time to be a huge nerd later, be a happy Kindergardner now!

Brian is in town and healthy. That's a relief. No more travel for him until after the baby comes.

I am supposed to have friends over for dinner Sunday but may have to cancel. I'm bummed, I know we were all looking forward to it. And I'll have to cook one way or another, why not still have them. I can't decide.

My car battery died. Not that I'm up to going anywhere anyhow. Turns out we have had that battery for 6 years. I guess they just die sometimes. Brian said he would take care of it after work tonight. He had this illness a few weeks ago, he knows how I'm feeling.

Well that is all my excuse for no new cards. All I do is sleep. It's sorta best that me and the boys got it at the same time. They are low energy right now which works for me.

xxoo,
e

And colored in!

Just now I colored in the scene I stamped out yesterday. I LOVE coloring these kids. I can't wait to do another and color with copics. I decided to make the boy end up on the outside of the card and keep the sentiment simple: Then when you open it up you get this whole cute scene.

My friend Tracey suggest I draw smiles on them. Said they looked a little sad without. As I'm having the Ethan is sad issue here I'm loving being able to cheer a kid up with a simple smile. :)

And that's pretty much it. I drew in the floor and the smiles. I colored everything with watercolor pencils. Oh wait, the wall is actually super light blue and it's colored with watercolor crayon. The rest is pencil. These kids are going to be SO FUN to play with and color.

Oh look, another post. The card that had to be made

So I bought this HUGE Sugarplums kit from All That Scraps the other day. I want you to know this was, at $46.80 the single most expensive stamp set I've ever purchased. But it is SO CUTE. I've been wanting a few Sugar Plums for a while and this way I got a bunch! Anyhow when I saw it I knew I'd make this very card: I'm going to color it tomorrow. But I had to show you how it's looking so far now. I drew in the hardwood floor. I'm going to color it with watercolor pencils. I'm really happy that it come out the way it looked in my head.

I also took the time to make a post it note mask for each and every kid in the set. So anytime I want to have them sitting on something I don't have to ask myself it it's worth the time to make a mask for them.

The only thing about this set that's a bummer is that there is only 1 boy in the 6 kids. I mean two boys would have been enough. Why just one? :( Course the girls are all adorable, it will be ok.

In tiny other news:
Stephen told me he likes Music class at school more than Art class at school. I find this to be a huge failure in my parenting. I mean loving math best is one thing but music? Sorry kiddo, but there is nothing in your genetics to suggest you have any future in that area.

Mojo Monday 157

So I've followed Mojo Monday blog forever. I've done some of the older sketches just for fun. But this was the first Monday that I've ever seen it and said, "I'm going to get up RIGHT NOW and kick out that sketch". For an added challange I decided to make the sketch with stuff I had on my desk. Roniece pointed out that when you have this luciousness on your desk calling that a "challange" is a bit unfair, but whatever! Honestly my desk is a rare mess and I have all sorts of awesome junk on it. This stuff is from this month's Scarlet Lime kit. No stamping either! Breaks my heart sometimes to make cool cards with no stamping.

In other news:
I feel good just tired. I know I've mentioned this tiredness before, this won't likely be the last time I mention it either. Today I'm VERY irritable. There are a variety of personal reasons for it, but I'm coping. One lame reason is that for some reason no mail delivery Saturday OR today! What the heck is that about! And I AM expecting a package or two! LAME.
I'm thinking of taking Ethie out of preschool. Did anyone quit preschool and if so what are your feelings on it? I think I can get more done with him in way less time and his social skills are fine. And he hates it. Apparently he cried all day today. But he cried quietly so it didn't disturb anyone so they didn't call me or mention it. He said you only get in trouble if you cry loud so he just cried quietly. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? I'm going to give it a bit longer but if he doesn't start improving in his work OR enjoying it more I'm pulling him.
Stephen's math is still an issue at school. I emailed the teacher asking for an appointment and mentioning the issue but the mail got returned as undeliverable. I don't know how else to reach her. I guess I'll put a note in the bag and ask for an appointment. If you don't read facebook the problem is that Stephen is REALLY advanced in math. Like crazy advanced. So because of this he is having trouble focusing on the math at school because they are counting up to 6. Stephen does multiplication, simple algebra, adding fractions, negative numbers and add and subtract up to two digit numbers. So "count the worms and color in blocks to show how many there are" isn't really keeping his interest. I can keep doing math at home, that's fine, but if that's the case I need his teacher to at least know what's up. Maybe she can give him some other worksheets or something? I am not going to NOT teach him the math he asks about though. "What if a number is LESS than zero, how do we work with that number" I'm not going to say, "You don't, you are 5, you count to 6 and stop asking me silly questions" I'm going to say, "here we go" and draw a number line and show how it can go below zero and how we put little negative signs on those and such.
Anyhow school is frustrating in a lot of ways. Stephen does LOVE his school though, and he adores his teacher. I mean hero worships her really. If she could give him some good math worksheets he might not ever want to come home! haha.

Happy Thanksgiving

So last week Mark's Finest Papers did a blog hop. It was so fun and used stamps I had just purchased so it was extra fun for me! It was one of those blog hops where if you comment on everyone you are entered to win a prize. And I won one of the prizes! I got an unreleased Thanksgiving stamp set! And it made me think... I didn't have any Thanksgiving stamps! So now I do. This girl and sentiment are from the set. Isn't she darling?



I paper pieced her clothes using paper from Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl line, I colored her skin and hair with copics. The sketch here is actually today's Sketch Challange over on splitcoaststampers. It is the type of sketch that usually scares me, different layers and shapes and stuff.. But I had colored the girl last night, not knowing what I'd do with her, so I just made it work. :) Oh and I used the Papertrey woodgrain embossing plate on it too. LOVE that woodgrain plate.

In Other News:

That stinky summer cold has hit our home, one at a time mostly. Me and Ethie are overlapping. Oddly Stephen hasn't gotten it, he's usually the first to get sick. I think it's actually his being gone at school all day that's protecting him. (I'm sure he will get lice next week to make up for it or something.)

Brian comes home tonight then travel is over until the baby comes! I'm a little over 32 weeks now. I feel huge and tired but otherwise ok.

OLW19 and New Stamps!

So last night on Facebook me and some freinds discussed if I needed the newest Halloween set by Mark's Finest Papers. We all thought I did. Tracey really wanted me to get it and make this kid/ghost into the little friend from Charlie Brown who cuts too many holes in his ghost costume. I'm really lucky because Faith lives very close to me, so my stamps where hand delievered by her son Markie just about an hour ago! New stamps in less than an hour delivered by a cute child. You gotta love that! Also my kids said, "We don't know his name but it's a new mailman who is a kid!" When I asked who was at the door. We have a "don't answer the door unless you know who it is policy" of course.

Anyhow I'm really tired tonight, couldn't sleep last night. So I just did one quick card with this. Using TJ's idea to make him that one kid with all the extra holes. I LOVE this stamp set. Also these are my first MFP stamps and my review is that they are JUST as high quality as any other clear stamps I have. :)

This is also my entry in the One Layer Wednesday challange this week, which is black and white with a spot of color. Technically I have three spots of color but I'm going with it.

Stephen's There She Goes challange card

Stephen also wanted to do the "kraft, black, teal" birthday card challange for There She Goes. Here is his card: And here is what he has to say about it:
This is sciencey, I added butterflies for a little bit of detail. There is presents to make it birthday. The background is very colorful. If you can see, on the bottom, there's a popcorn looking kind of sheet with red and turquoise. And it's very beautiful to me, you might think it's beautiful too.

My There She Goes Monday Challange

So you know I got those new There She Goes stamps and I love them so much. Well they are celebrating their 2nd birthday and I think I'm going to play along. It might get boring because I only have two image stamp sets, but whatever! haha. The first challange is a color challange. You can see it HERE. Basicly it's kraft, black and teal. All the cards for the challanges have to be birthday cards. Which is rough because none of my TSG stamps are even remotely birthday... hmmm. Anyhow I'm going to try to make it work! :)

So you know Stephen is playing along with this challange. He is not very serious about using just the colors recomended, but he is working very hard this very second so I'm gonna share it.

Christmas Girl

I am totally in love with the SU set Greeting Card Kids. The old fashioned look to these sweet kids is just darling. For this one I used some glitter on the tree and flocking on the white parts of her outfit. I also used a million red jewels. I also love these colors. That blue is delicious. In Other News:
Water Dog, our salamander died yesterday. Oddly I was on facebook yesterday joking about what a lame pet he was. I feel badly about that now. He was kinda cool. I don't think salamanders make great pets though. They don't play or cuddle or anything. They should just be in the wild. Anyhow Water Dog was a pet that Brian and I got when we were first married. We have had him over 10 years. He was super cute, looked like he was smiling all the time.
I just told the boys that he is dead. They are a little bummed. They are excited that now we can fill the tank up and get a second fish. About a year ago we got two little feeder fish to see if WD would eat them. He promptly ate one and then never ate the second. Eventually we named the second one "Norm" and started feeding and caring for it. So now Norm is alone and will need a friend. Anyhow the kids are torn between being sad for Water Dog and happy to get a new fish.
I feel weird. Kinda guilty. I don't know, 10 years is a long time for a salamander in captivity. And what could I have done? I hope he died peacefully. I hope he kinda enjoyed his life. I know he was well fed the whole time, that's really all I could do for him.

New stamps and publication news

I got new stamps in the mail yesterday from There She Goes. I've been eyeing them for a while and I'm so excited I finally placed an order. They are clear and yes, the high quality kind of clear. :) For my first card I combined two sets I got. The Chemistry one and the back to school one. My 5 year old son loves science and reading about science and talking about it and every such thing. So I made this for him. :) I drew the thought bubble. Not very well either.

This one uses stamps from the back to school set. I love this set, it's just super duper cute. I stamped the boy and girl over and over, connecting their little table lines so it looks like a whole group of them reading nicely at the same time. I made this one for Stephen's teacher. He's doing so well and loving school so much, she must be doing a lot right!

Finally some snap shots of two cards I have in the Just Cards! Holidays issue. The spooky house and three ornament cards. I didn't know I was going to have anything in this issue until it came in the mail yesterday, super fun!