I forgot how much I love SHOES!

Look at my most recent shopping experience! Can you believe I got these for $25???? I still can't believe it!

Birthday Cakes for Goodness Sakes!

So this is the cake I made for Ariana



I like it for a first try, but it's not as pretty as the picture one. I would like to try it again before thinking about spendying $27 (or 40% off that) for the pan that makes the cake mold easy to frost. I dunno, what do you guys think?

Well Curses Andrea

That's right, Andrea has sparked another interest for me. She gave me this link to make these cards off four sheets of paper, well I ran away with it and kept going. Instead of 10 cards, I did 48. YIKES! Now I am not pleased with them all, but I do like most of them. I will continue to do this, even though I may not photograph all 48, I will share the highlights going forward.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Good Morning Everyone!
It's easter. I love this holiday! There are so many bright colors in everything we decorate and we get to celebrate with family. The kids colored eggs, made drawings, and even had a visit from the easter bunny. They were sporting their stuff, eager to get dressed for the day and then took another look outside. That's right, we have snow, 7 inches on Friday, 1 inch yesterday, and another inch coming today. It looks like december outside, not March 23rd. So I flip on the news to hear the weather man remind me that I do live in MN and we often have a winter storm on or around easter. YIKES! Sunnier climates are in my future, we'll just have to wait and see how far into my future they really are.

So this is the first easter that Camryn really understands that today is different than any other day. As we reflect back, march/april has been a tough time for Camryn, she is usually being hospitalized or having several tests done before or after easter to help control the odd issues we were having with the shunt. It's sad really. To think that this holiday that I love, brings so many hard memories. Then she runs into the room, excited about the EB visit and says "Mom, he left us a bubble blower!!!" and as I see her cheeks hanging out as she runs away to find the next thing that was bestowed upon her, I just can't help but laugh and be thankful for how far she has come. I really do believe she is destined for greatness. I just can't wait to see it all unravel....

So I will be missing family dinner this year, which like other holidays this past year, I kind of knew I would be missing, so it wouldn't hurt as bad. This year is different. I am not missing it because of a sick kid, I am not missing it because of timing, we just plain aren't doing it. My cousin is still sick. Mike has AML and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, so he is living his life. Which family dinners can be so draining because he doesn't want them to be a 3 ring circus about his health. He just wants to live. And with my mom's testing results hanging in the balance, we all can't help but feel somber this easter. So I made a promise to myself, I will be making happy cards today to make the time go faster, and I want to think happy things of today and remember that it's good things we are celebrating, it is life we are celebrating, it is family we are celebrating.
Live and let Live, I say.

Singletons always get things in multiples....

Good Morning!
I am at home today, for the second time in a week. It's only fair, Dan has been home for 3 days with the sickies... Cam and Elli are both having respiratory issues and I don't have vacation time yet, so we swap. Since Dan has a laptop and can work from home, he does bear the brunt of it.
I remember being sent for an u/s with Mikayla because the doctor was convinced we were having multiples. So as we waited for 2 weeks, the thoughts of multiples always came to mind in a positive way. Two or three of everything? Less pregnancies? It seemed good to me. But alas, we did have four singletons. To this day everything comes in multiples though, multiple fights, multiple loads of laundry, and multiple kids with illness. I just can't seem to figure out why we can't have just one sick kid? Is this an anomolie in larger families? To have one kid sick, one to snuggle with, one to rehabilitate? I guess I just never saw that side of multiples back then.
On the other hand, there are two little girls snuggled together on our couch enjoying each others company and I can't complain. The site is adorable!
I guess we all get what we want, just not the way we thought we would get it.

How creative are you?

You Are 79% Creative

You are beyond creative. You are a true artist - even if it's not in the conventional sense of the word. You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times.

How'>http://www.blogthings.com/howcreativeareyouquiz/">How Creative Are You?

Was there ever any doubt?

We are booked for the niner!

Can it be? Did we get the room we wanted? Did we just book with 5 people? Are we paying less than previous years? OMG!
We are officially booked on the Carnival Destiny for January 17th-22nd of 200niner! There will be 5 of us. The original 3, Veronica, Sandy, and myself. Then we met a girl named Jenna on TRBVII (2007) and she was probably the only bigger normal Collective Soul fan, other than us. We have loved talking with her over the years, seeing her at concerts, and just plain hanging out on the boat. So since prices went WAY up this year, we decided to ask if she wanted to room, she was already rooming with someone but would check. At the last minute, they decided to room with us, so we then changed our strategy last minute! We are now booked close to the elevators, best when you are 3 decks from the bottom deck. We just need to figure out some other logistics. We need to get all of our room reservations made by the port, we need to get our flights booked, and we need to make sure that we have our plan of actions set up for the day before. (We usually hit up a concert the night before)

All of this is such great news and was done with a little worry. I have been working through Robert Half at Vital Images knowing that they wanted me hired on since June of 2007. However, budget issues, industry issues, and other factors involved, we couldn't get it worked out to get hired on. So then yesterday, my boss asks me if $xx amount a year was the range I was thinking. I was caught off guard and thrilled! I can't believe after almost 11 months it might be here! Some of the highlights:
15 days vacation to start, WOW.
unlimited sick days (need a doctor's note at 3 days)
50% match on 401K
They pay my life insurance 2x my salary (free is always good)
And the dental is Delta, always a plus here

So if that is the bottom line number and he said it would be more than that, then I am golden! So excited! My hard work has paid off and I am going to enjoy it. In 10 months, 4 days, and 8 hours, but who's counting, right?

Has this day really come? I feel butterflies!

This is something I live for (other than my children, of course!) and the day is upon us again. Time to book our cabin. This is the toughest most stressful day of the whole experience. You research the boat to make sure you know the eligibility of quints, quads, and triples, and what floor has what amenities that you don't want to listen to at 4 am when you're the only one trying to sleep and so on. Then you go on the community message board and figure out what other veterans are planning on booking so you know how many people you have to get confirmed. And then you book, tell everyone you know that you will be out of town and hope that by tomorrow morning the face muscles will relax that have shown everyone you have seen in person just how damn giddy the boat makes you feel. It's insane. Then it's over. The rush, the adrenaline, the stomache knots. Then it's just waiting. Waiting for march to pass, memorial day to come, summer to be over, school to start for the kids, and the holiday hub-bub. Then when all of that happens it's like the rush starts to build all over again. The time starts to fly by so fast that you swear every morning you wake up it's 3 days later and the thing that I am booking today becomes a reality.
It amazes me that in one paragraph I just flew by an entire life of my year. But after all the shows, the concerts, the personal encounters with the artists, and all the memorobelia that you get to bring home I realize one thing.
I will not let a day pass me by, a month pass me by, or the years pass me by. I will live every last moment of that with my family, my friends, and myself.
Party on Garth!

My first real sick day since I started this job

Hello,

Yesterday was my first sick day home since I started working at Vital.  It felt good to decide I was going to stay home and I couldn't have told you why.  But like Dory and Marlin when the light revealed it was a killer fish, my hopes of what the sick day would feel like changed.  

For some reason, Dan always seems to think that a sick child is my responsibility, I take the time to cuddle with them when they don't feel good and realize they have to go to the doctor and then I take them (most of the time).  Then I have to get the meds, or remind him 10 times to pick them up, and then I have to make sure they get them, and make any follow up appts.  Since when did me working full time not earn me the right to share these responsibilities with Dan?  Why do I need to do the cleaning, cooking, and shuffling of kids while he is home sick?  Did I miss the purpose of MY sick day?  So anyway, Elli has pneumonia, like me.  I still managed to clean the kitchen, bathroom, Livingroom, family room, dining room, mop the floors and do 7 loads of laundry, all between taking kids to school, taking her to the doctor, and then he had the audacity to say, he was working and couldn't take a 20 minute break to pick them up.  Jerk.  

So now he has suffered his concenquences, he has to be home all day with Elli since she is still sick and I don't get paid for the day off.  I love when he makes plans, it's like I can hear god laughing...

Ok, well work to be done, kids to take to school, yk...

With a booking date upon us...

With booking day upon us on March 12th, I find myself missing the boat. So this is what I have to remember it with, photos and videos that people took We ate dinner with these ladies last year, and we hung out with them at the Marc Broussard concert, so it's a pretty good representation of where we were, what we did and how much fun it was!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WegFop6K7Uo