I’m involved in this swap with a large group of my friends.  We are supposed to swap on Thursday, so I figured I’d better get busy.  The basket was just a plain white weaved basket.  To make it fit in with the Summer/Fourth of July theme, I bought the wooden star garland and tied it to the handles.  This way once the Fourth has passed, she can untie the garland and use the basket for something else!  Here’s my basket.  I just want to add two more things to it, and then it will be totally finished.

Inside, even though you can’t see it very well is a candlestick lamp with a lamp shade.  My picture makes the purple look really dark, almost black.  But it is purple with gold glaze brushed over it:

The other item that I made today that you can’t really see too well in the basket is a flower pot.  It actually started out as a box with a lid by Bare Essentials, but I flipped the lid over, added feet and turned it into a flower pot.  I was pretty pleased with how quickly it went together:

I can hardly wait for Thursday to get here so I can give my Secret person her goodies!  I think I honestly have more fun giving and seeing what everyone else got than receiving!  It’s always so much fun!

No I’m not pregnant.  Eric’s Mom bought the girls a bunny today.  Jackie said something about it’s a Dutch Rabbit and the most it will ever weigh is 5 pounds.  It is the most mellow softest thing ever!

Introducing to the blog world, Monet -

While the girls were out buying bunnies with Grandma I finally worked on something for myself.  It’s simple, but I finally did something with this Heidi Swapp Clock and Overlay that I bought forever ago!

My Lisa & Becky Rail system came in through Serendipity Scraps and Eric finally figured out the best way of getting them up on my concrete wall.  I have been dreaming about getting these and up for what seems like forever. 

I didn’t realize how many bottles of Primas I had though.  I knew I had quite a few, but dang!  And Sara has some coming in for SS!  But it is so nice having all my inks, tools, spools of ribbon (I still have tons wrapped around clothes pins in a big jar, ribbon still on cards in a drawer), primas, stickles, paints, etc right there above my work space.  And the best part is I was able to get all of my Cricut stuff (with the exception of my Cricut) up off of my work space too.  I am so loving it!  I can’t wait to finish straightening up the rest of my room so I can get to creating!

Here’s pictures:

So I wake Eric up just before leaving for Kathy’s Bottlecap Bracelet Class.  Just as I’m paying off my tab Eric calls me.  I ask him what’s up and he tells me to call him back once I’m in the car and he’ll tell me.  So I get out to the car and call him back. 

And he tells me that Erica got into some glitter stuff and it’s all over my scrapbook room!  I am sick!  Because I know exactly what glitter she got into.  My 23 (I know there was more) or so brand new never been opened jars of Art Glitter!  He’s apologizing up and down and can’t understand how she did that so quickly.  I tell him reluctantly that I won’t be straight upstairs when I get home, I’ll have to clean that up.  He’s still apologizing.  I tell him it’s $150 worth of Glitter, but as long as he’ll let me replace it, no big deal.

So I get home fully prepared for the worst.  Imagining my 2 scrap tables covered in glitter, the computer, everything.  Nope.  She managed to flat out dump it straight out onto the floor.  Although she did paint my new office chair a nice shape of Heidi Swapp white and give my scrapbook table a nice coat of Adorandack Paint Dabber Black. 

So without further ado, in case anyone was wondering, this is what $140 looks like:

last posted to my blog!  Yikes!  Where does the time go?  Wish I could say I’ve been up to some pretty exciting things, but not really so much.  I’ve just been on pins and needles worrying about every little tiny thing that Erica could possibly bump her head on!

However she did finally get to get the staples taken out today.  I was super amazed at how quickly they removed those.  The nurse took her back to the triage room.  And rolled them out with these handy dandy pullers.  Erica flinched a little bit but she was too excited about finally getting those out and getting Mommy and Daddy off her back that she didn’t show that it hurt too much.

I got to go get my Lisa & Becky Rail System from Miss Sara of Serendipity Scraps.  I’ve had it planned out for awhile how I wanted it on my walls and can hardly wait for Eric to put it up for me.  He’s just about got it up on the one wall that isn’t solid concrete, and will work on my other wall tomorrow.  Apparently he needs concrete screws or something.  I asked him about that today as we were heading towards home, but he didn’t think he’d need them.  Oh well.  It’s not like I really needed to stay up half the night to reorganize my room anyway.  This way I get some sleep and then I can spend tomorrow getting rearranged.  I’ll be way more useful with some zzzzz’s anyway.

Tonight Erica finally gets to sleep in her bunkbed.  She has been looking forward to this since the bunkbeds arrived but we were too afraid to let her sleep in them while she had the staples in her head.  We are just the ultra protective paranoid parents of all time!  Oh well, I’ve definitely been called worse. 

and I’ve been working on my project that features the Thrifty Thursday product!  If you don’t know about Thrifty Thursday yet, you so need to go check it out at www.serendipityscrapsonline.com  Basically, they feature a different product each week at a way good price that is only good on Thursday!

Without further ado, here is a sneak peak at the product for this week:

I hope to be able to sit down and send my pictures off this week so I can actually put one of all three of the girls in this.  I have the perfect spot on my desk just waiting for it!

on keeping my blog updated on a daily basis I find something else to occupy my time. Yesterday I was busy from the time I woke up until the time I passed out in bed.

After waking up bright and early I took Jackie to meet the rest of the Young Women who were taking her to camp.  I miss her so much and the house feels so empty without her.  I can tell Ally is REALLY missing her bad!

Shortly after dropping off Jackie, our housekeeper arrived.  I am so loving having someone come and clean my house every day!  And she really is doing a good job too!  It’s funny though, the moment Erica first laid eyes on her she will talk her ears off.  Yesterday as Alexis was cleaning the windows Erica asked her why she was cleaning our house, and Alexis tells her it’s because it’s her job.  Erica looks at her and says, “No it isn’t, it’s my Mommy’s and Grandma’s job.”  I just about died.  I explained later to Erica that Mommy and Grandma quit. 

As the housekeeper was walking out the door, Nebraska Furniture Mart was walking in the door with the new bunk beds for Ally and Erica.  Eric spent most of the day building those.  He didn’t realize they would come in so many pieces.  Erica was majorly bummed that we won’t let her sleep in them until she has the staples removed from her head.

Then I had some ladies come over and look over what we had left from the sale and they ended up buying everything we had left.  Sara and I were planning on breaking it all up into lots and selling it on eBay.  This way worked out much better.  No sorting, no picture taking, no listing, no tracking and no shipping!

Shortly after they left, Eric and the girls went with me to the bank, then we grabbed a bite to eat (another salad for me) and Eric went to some computer store in Kansas as he is needing a desktop for his office in addition to his laptop. 

We arrived home just in time for me to meet Nora and Denise up at Archiver’s and we went out to Kansas to Stampers, Ink for a card class where we learned some new techniques!  While we were there we of course had to look through their rubber stamps that they just had semi trucked in from a store that they bought out in Florida.

We were hoping to stop by The Page, but we were just all so tired and just headed North and grabbed a bite to eat at Applebee’s (another salad).  I had such a nice evening with those girls.  Wish Christy and some of the other girls could have been there.  Christy is having back issues again and everyone else had plans.  Oh well, I’ll get to see quite a few of them Friday night!  I’m so looking forward to that!

So that was my yesterday!  It was a good day!

What a day.  Our housekeeper ended up calling in sick.  So I had to get up for no reason.  Oh well.  I got my entry done for Erika’s Circle Journal done so it wasn’t a total waste.

After finally getting the girls to tidy their rooms we hit Walmart and Dick’s to gather everything Jackie needs for Young Women’s Camp.  That added up to a nice chunk of change.  The worst part is that I’m sure we had almost all of it up in the attic.  I just hate going through the in law’s room to get to it.

Then while I was cooking dinner, the girls were cleaning out the van, Erica comes in screaming.  Eric quickly rushes to her and I hear him asking Jackie what happened and where did the baby get hit.  I finally get there and she’s got blood on her arm.  Weird I don’t see a cut.  And then Daddy finds the source.  On the top of her head was an inch long cut all the way down to her scalp!

So me, who handles those kinds of situations so well, starts running around in circles in the kitchen and finally decides an ice pack might be a good idea.  That’s always a good idea right?  By that time Eric is hollering across the house for me to get in our room and talk to her while he did something.  So I’m sitting there talking to her trying not to freak out.  We finally establish that yes I do have her insurance card and out the door to the ER we go.

After a five minute wait, which seemed like forever, they called us back to a room.  The nurse was so nice.  And every single nurse that walked by our room HAD to stop in and oooooh over our curly headed beauty.  While Eric and one took her down the hall to get her weight, another one came in and left literally 25 of those big square stickers for her.  She was so happy to discover those on her bed when she got back.  There were kitties, horses, puppies, Shrek and something else.  Those kept her occupied for quite some time.

The doctor finally came in to see her about 15 minutes later.  Looked at her wound and said that they would numb the spot with numbing gel and then staple the wound shut!  I thought I was going to lose all my cookies right there!

So after 20 minutes after the numbing gel, in walk the Doctor with 3 nurses and they stapled the wound on my poor baby girl’s head shut.  It was by the time he got the second staple in that she started crying.  I do have to say the Dr stapled very quickly and it wasn’t long before Erica was in her Daddy’s arms and within 30 seconds just fine.  Of course by this time I was a wreck and the Doctor had to soothe me more than her.  Assured me she was okay, that he was very fast, and look she was already calmed down!

I figure all in all we were at the ER for maybe an hour and 15 minutes?  It wasn’t too bad.  We go back in 7 to 10 days to have the staples removed.  Of course I am extremely on edge that she’s going to fall, some one’s going to accidentally bump her head, etc.  Way too much on edge.  I’ve even gotten after Eric a few times!  And he is the last person I have to tell to be careful.

And the hardest part is I can’t just sit there and pat her head and let her soothe me.    And every once in awhile I look down on that bouncy head of curls and there’s these three metal staples in my daughter’s head!  Which of course instantly brings about a wave of nauseousness!

Oh, and how did this all come about?  Well instead of obeying me and cleaning their junk out of the car Jackie was hitting the leaves out of a tree with the broom and Erica walked right under it just as the handle was coming down and got whacked right on top of her precious little head.  I guess Jackie cried the whole time we were gone.  Hopefully this has taught her a great lesson on obedience.

Dear daughter number two turned 11 today!  I remember she used to be the baby for so long!  It’s sad sometimes how quickly time passes.

The biggest part of celebrating her birthday was our mini vacation to Worlds Of Fun and Oceans of Fun Wednesday through Friday of this past week.  We stayed in the cabins and had lots of fun.  The funny thing is that pretty much all of us had more fun at OOF in spite of the rain and thunderstorms finally chasing us out of the park.

I have to say though, renting one of the cabanas is the best way to go to OOF.  You get free tube rentals, don’t have to worry about a locker and get unlimited drinks (like pop and bottled water) for $8.50!  And you have a built in meeting place and shelter from the weather!  Well worth every dime.

Today though we couldn’t let her day go unrecognized so we took her to dinner at her restaurant of her choice.  She chose TRex.  Jackie kept insisting the only reason Ally wanted to go was for the fun not the food.  I kept reminding her that it was Ally’s birthday and if that was why she wanted to go, that was her choice.

Here are a few pictures.  I actually figured out how to get the pics from my camera card to my computer!  Without help from Eric even!

Here’s the Birthday Girl:

Jackie:

Erica:

Ally & Erica In Front Of TRex:

Ally, Jackie & Erica hamming it up for the camera:

So many places to be this summer!

Today we are leaving to go to World’s Of Fun.  Okay I know it’s not very far from our house, like 15 minutes.  But we decided we are going to spend the night at the cabins so we can come and go as we please and this way it feels like a mini vacation.  Ally has been ready to go since 8 this morning and Erica has been asking if it’s time for World’s Of Fun since a week ago.  We ended up deciding we would be better off just buying season tickets.  We just have to go one more time and we’ve paid for it. 

Then Saturday is a big crop with all the girls!  I can’t wait.  It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve been able to sit down and actually scrapbook.  I plan on getting more done than I will I’m sure.

Then next week Jackie goes off to Young Women’s Camp!  I can’t believe she’s old enough!  She is so excited about it.  I know we will miss her so much.  This is the first time she will be away from us for so long.

In July I get to go to CHA!  I can hardly wait!  I am going with Serendipity Scraps!  I so desperately want to take the Tim Holtz class too!  I don’t care what he’s teaching either.  He so unbelievably talented!  And this will be almost a week away with no kids and totally immersing myself into the world of scrapbooking!

Then a couple months later a bunch of us girls are going to Oklahoma!  I get so excited every time I think about it!  Four whole days with all of us girls hanging out where Jessica lives.  So glad Diane, Jessica and Christy cooked that up!  What’s neat is that it will be almost a year since the stores closed.  It’s just really something that all these friendships stayed in tact and we are all so much closer even!  I couldn’t imagine a better group of women to be friends with.  We range from late 20’s to 50’s, but you wouldn’t know it with how well we get along. 

Then my best friend from high school is getting married in October and I swore I would so be there for this one.  So of course this will mean a long overdue visit to California to visit my family and to Oregon to visit part of Eric’s family. 

We are so wanting to still do another cruise later in the year, but I think we are running out of places in our schedule to fit it in.  Oh well, if it’s meant to be we shall find a way. 

Oh, and I almost forgot!  Eric’s Grandma and her new husband are supposed to arrive in town either late tonight or tomorrow.  They will be here for a few days, so we’ll get to visit with them still on Friday when we get back from WOF.  Wish we had more time as she is a scrapper and I’d love to take her to some of the local scrapbook stores and even scrapbook with her down in my scraproom.  This will also be the first time she’s ever seen Erica.  When we visited Oregon she was visiting Michigan.

So many places to be, and so little time.