Mother's Day

We spent a lovely day at my moms enjoying a yummy breakfast and playing Rock Band! I'm still swaying a bit...hoping that goes away soon.

Now I'm working on Ryan's graduation party. We're expecting around 40 people. Friday night is his ceremony and then we're going out to dinner and then the party on Saturday. Not much planned for today, working out and then running the typical "mom" errands...carwash and library. Then tonight I'm going to a Tupperware party. I haven't been to one in 20yrs! Can't wait to see what that's all about. Have a great Wednesday, it looks beautiful outside.

Back from my cruise

Wow! What a crazy week I've had with National Scrapbook Day and the Red Bee cruise. NSD was a blast as usual. The food was amazing and the ladies had so much fun! Then on to packing and leaving for my 5 day trip. I had a great time, but am having a heck of a time getting my balance back. I felt very claustrophobic and off the entire time. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but here's a couple fun times!
Day one a quick snapshot with Candice, Darlene and I in Ensenada at LaBofadora, enjoying a Pina Colada pool side, a boat ride into Catalina and our final night at dinner. Good times!

Today is my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday! I helped in Zach's class today. I glued 78 calenders to construction paper for the month of May for ALL the Kindergartners. What a sticky mess! Tonight I'm working...final preps for National Scrapbook Day and the cruise. I can't believe we leave on Monday! It was in August when we came up with the idea and now it's here. What are your plans for NSD? Our crop is sold out, but the store is having great sales, so come by and shop and say hello! Bon Voyage!

Back in Blogland!

I know I planned to blog more frequently....and had good intentions, but something happened to my google account and my "blog" id/password wasn't working and I couldn't recover it. But I also didn't try to fix it. So now I'm back and able to log in.
A lot is going on....Ryan is getting ready to graduate and I'm leaving for a cruise next week! I joined Jenny Craig to lose those last 15lbs and we're working out to be a healthier us and trying to incorporate more veggies in our diets. I'm looking forward to summer and having lots of fun things planned. I'll keep this one short and update again this week!

Big Bear

We spent the last weekend in Big Bear. I don't think I've ever been so cold! The weather channel would say it's 26 but feels like 19! Is that supposed to make me feel better? Ha! It was bitterly cold....I always "think" I want to live somewhere where there are seasons until I spend 4 days in the snow and then think.... "no thanks!"

Next time I want to take a lesson and learn to ski. Now that my kids know how, I'm ready! See my family standing on the mountain posing....well the cloud coverage was so bad that they said they could barely see 10 feet in front of them. They cut their second day short because it was so hard to see.

Tonight we "skyped" with Ryan. He's in Arizona until tomorrow night and I thought it would be fun to read a book to Zach with him. It was a book of riddles. Really silly stuff. It was really cool! If you haven't ever done it, find somebody to do it with. I think it took like 5 minutes to set it up. He gets home tomorrow night...which means I'll get a good nights sleep. I hate being home alone when I have to go to bed. I become really nervous.

Any plans for the weekend? I'm scrapping all day Saturday. I'm looking so forward to it. Even though I have my "space" here in the house, I seem to never really sit and do it. I always find something else to do. Have a great weekend!

A fun little birthday party

Zach turned 6 on Valentine's Day. Here are some snapshots from the party!

We had some traditional old fashion birthday party fun!

What's going on with me?

For the last year and a half I've been going through something I couldn't explain. Erratic periods, mood swings, high blood pressure, night sweats, fatigued all the time, and just feeling "off." I would tell my primary doctor my symptoms and she would say, "you're too young to be peri-menopausal" even though I had ALL the symptoms. So I went to my Gyno and he said the same thing. He handed me a prescription to regulate me and sent me on my way. The hormone didn't work. I took it for 6 months and my cycles came whenever they wanted and often. After the 6 months all of a sudden my period stopped altogether. I knew something was still not right. I went back to my gyno doctor and he wanted to do a hysteroscopy...basically clean my "pipes out." So when we got back from Maui something in my gut told me no, don't do it. So I got a second opinion. He listened and asked if I had a blood test to test my FSH levels. Nope, he just wanted to go straight to surgery. Well I got my results and the reason why I have been feeling this way is because I am in Premature Ovarian Failure. I guess this would explain why I haven't been able to get pregnant for the last 2 years! We always thought it would just "happen" but now know why it hasn't and won't. The symptoms are awful....as a women the hot flashes and night sweats are miserable. I'm on a natural remedy to replace estrogen in my body and am taking it from there. I wanted to share this because we as women have to stand up for ourselves. I would have had surgery that was totally useless and still have had the same problems. Don't ever let a doctor intimidate you!

He's 12

Austin turned 12 on Jan 25th, but we didn't have a party until this past Saturday. He's becoming so mature and grown up. We took the kids to downtown Disney for dinner at ESPN Zone and then a movie. The kids were so cute....one girl started talking about Paris Hilton and wondered why she was so famous. I forget what they came up with, but I told them she's famous for her namesake and then having a reality show on MTV. Then they all said, "ooooh." Like they got it. Here's some shots from the night.

I wanted to share ( if you don't already know)that I'm going to be teaching on a cruise with Candice and the Red Bee! I'm super excited and would love to see some familiar faces. It's really inexpensive and you can get all the details here.

CHA

If you don't already know, CHA (Craft Hobby trade show) has now come and gone! I spent the last 4 days participating in all the fun. On Saturday was the consumer part of the tradeshow. There were 7 of us girls that went and shopped and scrapped and shopped some more and then finally sat and scrapped the rest of the evening at the World's Largest Crop. Scrapbook Royalty, which I simply love and is the most amazing non-profit, put on the event. I don't think they made it, but none the less they raised over $10K for charity. They do lots of free demos and make & takes and then TONS of raffles, which are really fun.

Sunday and Monday I helped out Teresa Collins in her booth launching her new line. What a fun day that was. Tiring, but a good time. Tuesday I walked the show floor with a couple of girls from the Red Bee design team and had even more fun learning new techniques for the store! Today I'm just pooped. Trying to catch up. Everyone is happy life is back to normal. Ryan admitted that I do "this" better. Meaning staying home and taking care of the kids. Thanks honey! I do have to agree ;)

Here's a couple of pics from a crazy fun weekend!

Valentine

Here are 2 layouts I did the other night

Nothing fancy, just need to get caught up. I'm exactly 2yrs behind in my scrapbooking. One of these days I'll get caught up! I do have lots of fun events planned for this year, a couple of retreats, a cruise and a big workshop in Vegas! Maybe by then I'll be caught up.

Yesterday Zachary had the flu...yuck. He woke up at 5am threw up in his bed, ran down the hall to our room and threw up in the doorway then all the way down to the bathroom. I was cleaning that up for about 40 minutes. What a way to wake up. He ran a low fever and fortunately did not throw up again. He's anxious to go to school today. For me that means I'm free to go to the gym. I'm not feeling it today. When I get really off track its hard to get back on. Next week with CHA I'll be off. So I'm in a bit of a gym funk! But I'll go because it's the right thing for my body!

Scrapbook Expo

Yesterday I spent the day at the Orange County Scrapbook Expo with Darlene. We took 3 classes; 2 Basic Grey classes and 1 from Tattered Angels. I 've never used "glimmer mist" until yesterday and I really enjoyed it. Though it was super messy for me! This is what we made:

A travel book. I'm not sure what I'd use it for? The colors are really dark and not me, but I still like it. I do need to finish it up, so I'm thinking of incorporating more blue tones.

After the expo we headed over to Grace's house for dinner and some scrappin! Marie & Grace were cooking up some dinner for us and made a homemade chicken pot pie~it was sooooo good! Then we scrapped until about 2am. Good times with great friends!

It's a New Year

And I have decided that I will keep on blogging! I know that it's been a very, very long time. I kind of got sucked in to facebook and thought that was good enough. But I've noticed not as many people are posting there and I miss reading and seeing what my friends are up to. I also got my very own laptop and now there is NO REASON for me not to upload pics or blog! So don't give up on me, I promise to be faithful blogging again! So...here's to my first post.......

If you didn't already know, we were in Maui Jan 1 -9. What an AMAZING time! All grown-ups, no kids. Such freedom. With lots of juggling my family and friend helped us out with the kids. We bonded with some really great people and I miss seeing and speaking to them daily. We went with a company that Ryan does business with. It was technically a business trip, but it was definitely more fun than anything else. We were spoiled and got to stay at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. Wow! To live the lifestyle of a rich person for a week was fun! I uploaded my pics in my sidebar, so take a look. I did let myself down by not snapping a million photos, so I'm hoping our friends got lots too and I can soon share those.

While we were away, Austin was at his 6th grade outdoor science camp. He had a great time too. He brought home a disposable camera.....funny, he didn't leave with one!?! We shall see what's on that!

Thanks for reading...and I promise, more posts on a regular basis!