Beware you may need an soft seat and a snack ready when starting this post!

If in the digital scrapbooking world there are "mega-kits" to download and are very enjoyable to have, then this is the "mega-post" and hopefully this is enjoyable also. Somehow life got busy and eventually I had to catch-up on missing sleep, so it's been a while since I last posted. And, since I really do want to eventually print this thing and call it a journal, I am going to go back and catch up. (By the way, if anyone has any info on printing blogs, please send it my way.) So, beware you may need an soft seat and a snack ready when starting this post!

1 CUT, 4 STITCHES, 1 FRAZZLED MOM (AND CHILD)

Well I knew that the day would come when I had to make the trip to the ER without Justin for stitches for one of the kids. One little fall off the bar stool at dinner made for quite the eventful night. Just as we were finishing up dinner trying to get the kids ready to go to a babysitters so I could go to young women's Andrew took a dive off the bar stool and cut his chin really deep. Thank goodness for family, my sister was eager to take Ashlee off my hands so we get get Andrew's chin stitched up. Andrew did amazingly well!! (Mom survived too!)

Sorry- no before the stitches shot, too gory and a little too crazy at that moment for pics

The Stitches

All better!

MY BABY GIRL IS GROWING UP!

I caught a glimpse and caught this on camera-- my babe had climbed up on to her rocking chair, plopped herself down, found a book and began to "read". She just looked so old. She's 14 1/2 months old and her personality is blossoming! She loves to snuggle, giggle until shes blue and drooling, wrestle on the floor with Dad and big brother Drew, eat fruit as fast as she can and she's always found folding her arms whenever a prayer is said. What can I say-- I love her to pieces! She brings me such joy-- there's just nothing like being a mom =)

1ST DAY OF PRESCHOOL!

Well Ashlee has been looking so grown-up to me then I put some "school clothes" and a backpack on Andrew and I almost died. Andrew was happy to pose for the camera and show off his new clothes. (He insisted on having one picture in the pose below) Without hesitation he ran right in and when I came back 2 1/2 hours later I asked if he had fun, he said "no, because I didn't get to stay very long! I think he's already for 1st grade-- staying at school all day. He also has joined a little neighborhood soccer club. Between soccer and preschool, he's in 7th heaven!

Andrew striking a pose

Andrew and his cousin Ellie at preschool

THE OLD; THE NEW!!

Well after 8 years, the good OLD Nissan FINALLY did not pass emissions and safety and despite Justin's best mechanical efforts, he was not able to fix it!! (It's about time ;)). The Nissan has served us well since back into our dating days. When dating, we enjoyed watching many sunsets in it from the mountain side. It was the truck that I learned to drive stick in. It has hauled many mountain bikes, landscaping mulch, neighbors' "stuff" and more. We love the Nissan and have been happy to enjoy car payment free days. (However, now that it's leaving, I can look more easily past the broken A/C, peeling paint, dinged up bumpers, and the radio face that has to be taped on to stay-- to name a few things)

So after much looking, negotiating, traveling the entire valley (and beyond) and getting sworn at by a mean used car salesmen we found a replacement. Justin actually found it at a dealership in Lincoln Nebraska while he had some free time on a trip. It was an awesome deal (or at least the dealer convinced us it was) and they threw in the shipping-- so we sealed the deal. So If the last truck which Justin bought as a student and was junk yard material lasted 8 years, I'm sure this one is going to stick around for a long time. Here it is (or one that looks very similar. Justin's at work so I can't take a pic of it)

The Old: The Nissan

The New: Toyota Tundra

Crypto... what?

Well the tests came back and Andrew's positive for crytosporidium. It's a giardia like parasite often passed through public swimming pools-YUCK!. The good news is that Andrew is acting like he's feeling much better and there is medication for this, so once we start it hopefully within a couple days he'll be back to normal. Fortunately it's not as severe as giardia and does not have the potential to last months or years. So I guesss we're done with Cherry Hill for the season! Thanks for everyone's concern!

Attention Digital Scrappers -or wannabes

FYI--Kami and I are working on getting a friend that teaches digital scrapbooking classes to enrichment groups to come give her presentation to anyone that is interested. We're looking at possibly the evening of September 5th-- this is still tenative, but you might want to save the date! ALSO, for the serious scrapper, or serious wannabe scrapper, Davis school district teaches a digital scrapbooking class using photoshop elements 5.0. It is sept 28th and lasts most of the day (9am -3pm?). It's $25 and includes lunch. I am going to do my best to go, if I can arrange babysitting. I have a message out to the instructor to get more details. I'll keep you posted on this too.

Giardia-- TO BE, or NOT TO BE! That's the question

If I had one of those cool counters on my blog it would say day 10 of Andrew having nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, no appetite (two bites of hotdog does not constitute a meal no matter how you look at it) and just "too tired" to even walk to the couch from bed. Thankfully I didn't have the foresight that this would last sooo long. According to the pediatrician's nurse, "this is all normal" (even for 10 days) and he possibly couldn't have the giardia like parasite that's visiting public pools here in Utah because "parasites don't cause diarrhea". WHATEVER!! So, after much discussion and persistance, she finally ordered to have his stool cultured. Andrew replied after hearing the discussion on the phone "I don't need another stool mom, I have one". =) I needed a little comic relief after that phone call. So... we left a little "package" at the lab (that was a story in itself) and now were anxiously waiting for the results that should come tomorrow! Giardia or parasites like that can be very hard to get over and can take months to years to get over (in rare cases) despite taking medication-- yikes. Or, you can just take the medications prescribed and it goes right away. Sometimes it really stinks being a nurse and knowing a little more than you want to. Wish us luck!

However, today since the DR visit, he has actually ventured out and smiled a time or two. And, since I like to take pictures of my kids and it's been a long time since I have seen his sweet smile I thought I would post a pic or two from today. The one of Ashlee is of her great smile too! She's been a trooper through all of this and so far hasn't gotten sick. (I forgot to mention that I too had the same thing for 8 days, better for 4 days now, 4 sick days of which Justin was out of town and Justin is on day 8 himself, still recovering. Maybe if the test is positive, we'll be leaving a little package at the lab too =( ).

Music-- a new addition. Enjoy!

I found this great site (thanks to one of Whitney's friend's blog) that you can link to on your blog to play music videos. Its all free and easy to do. Click here to try it out! You can create a playlist from a list on this website with just one song or as many as you want and change them easily anytime. Check out the videos and my playlist at the bottom of my blog-- kinda old school songs, but I guess I'm kinda old school =)

Templates- digi scrappin just got easier!

Thanks suzie for the cute SMILE template! It was soo fun to use and super easy! I did this page last night. If your not familiar with templates, the template is the layout and all you do basically is click and drag your paper, pics and embellishments on to the page and presto-- your page is done. Click here to learn how to use templates.

My first digital scrabook pages!

A quick note because it's late-- but I'm obsessed with digital scrapbooking, so now that I have finally finished tweeking, changing, adding, and again redoing, I can hit that button to flatten the layers and call it good. I realize the pages are nothing spectacular, but it's been fun. Enjoy! (So your not confused, I do a family album and one for each kid so the first 3 pages are the first page of the layout and the last page is the second page for all 3)