Not much going on here.  Alice is sick, but it seems like that’s the norm for everyone’s kids this winter.  She’s had two ear infections in the last month and now we’ve moved on to strep throat.  Alice is usually a good natured little being but not so much today.  All morning I heard “I’m not feeling very well; I want to go to the doctor’s.”  Of course that was all said while wailing.  But I was rather impressed with my 3 year old’s grammer!  Hee Hee

On the way to the doctor’s one sentence would be the above and the next would be “I don’t feel very good; I don’t want to go to the doctor’s!”  Once there and since it’s been “Why did I have to go to the doctor’s?  I didn’t want to go to the doctor’s!”  I’m so happy that she is finally soundly asleep in her crib!  (Yes, that would be crib she’s not getting out of until she goes to kindergarten or there’s another baby to take residence in it!)

The last couple of days I’ve been madly working away on the May kit.  Generally I have everything figured out long before this point but a couple vendors pushed out their delivery dates so I scrambled to put something new together and I really love it!

These two papers were the inspiration

and this one 

Ok, I know I usually don’t share so early on but I’m too excited to hold back completely!  I think you will have to wait a bit longer to see the rest!

The kids are in school every morning which is necessary to get some work done.  But, I’ve really been enjoying spring break and going at a more leisurely pace with them in the morning.  Today we were in jammies until noon but then again I worked until 4am so I wasn’t really moving all that well this morning!  I think last night’s effort will pay off because I am SOOOO excited about the kit I was designing!!!  I love it when everything just seems to come together organically!

Today we were supposed to have another day of pouring rain — luckily all those meteorologists were wrong — it is gorgeous!  I love spring; I think I appreciate a pretty day so much more when they are occassional then when they come one on top of the other as in summer.  And, there is no better place to experience spring than in central Oregon!  Everything is so green and fresh.  The biggest crop here is grass seed so the valley floor is covered with open green, green fields of grass.  On most fields there’s a herd of sheep grazing.   Add in all the flowering fruit trees and it’s like a painting.  I love spring here!

Here’s some photos of our front yard right now.  Hope spring is sprung where you are too!

I hope you had a fun holiday!  We had a very nice day!

First off, as promised, here is a photo of the new do.  This is post-gym so probably not at it’s finest!  (Speaking of gyms, only 7 more work outs for the month to make my goal for March!  I can do it!)

Ever so slightly shorter!  Definitely easier to deal with.  Now, if I could just remember to send off all those braids to Locks of Love….

Ever Saturday Scott and Alice go to swimming lessons.  I decided to go check them out this weekend as Alice will be graduating to the big girl lessons without her daddy.  Alice mistakenly thinks she actually knows how to swim.  She is getting pretty close but isn’t quite there.  She tells Scott not to hold her and when she jumps off the side of the wall,  “Move back Daddy, move back more!  More!”  I like this shot of her.

Sunday we celebrated Easter with Ali, Chris and Simon.  Ali  created these amazing Easter suitcases (I did contribute a few things and Alice already had the frog)!  The kids loved their suitcases and are playing away with them as I write this.

Each of the kids seemed to have their designated jobs yesterday.

Simon hid the eggs over and over.

Alice found the eggs over and over.

Jack in the meantime was responsible for playing with every toy Simon owns.

I tried to dress Alice in a very cute, traditional way for the day.  She had other thoughts.  She decided it was a metallic pink cowboy boot day (worn on the wrong feet of course).  Maybe she was right…

After brunch we all went to see the Wiggles.  I’ve got to say they were actually pretty darn entertaining!  Alice dance like a mad woman.  Simon looked like he was about to explode with excitement (that is until he crashed in Chris’ lap).  Jack sat placidly in his chair although later he said he really had fun.

Scott took the kids home and I hung at Ali’s a bit longer.  Because….

we were picking out product for a new kit that she will be doing for Cocoa Daisy!  I’m so excited to be working with Ali again and I think this is going to be an amazingly fun kit!  We will probably  release it in July, possibly August.

And… DON’T FORGET — starting today we will be drawing a random winner a day for the next 20 days from those who post on the message board.  How easy is that?

Have a great Monday!

There is actually a momentary break in the rain right now so the kids are outside playing.  I’m so glad they are able to enjoy it.  Sun has been even more scare than usual during the last few weeks.  Apparently they better enjoy it because this is supposed to be the only break until next week!  Won’t the Easter egg hunt be fun?

Last Friday I took Hannah in for a follow-up visit and to get her stitches out.  Adding to her woes she had a staph infection at the site but fortunately she seems to be healing from that now.  They also did another platelet count and last night the vet called with the results.  Not good.  Even with a week and a half of steroids there was zero improvement in her count.  Fortunately he wasn’t telling us we should run more tests or try any aggressive treatments.  I was thankful for that.  Hannah is my baby and I want her around as long as possible, but I am not going to put her through anything radical.  Our primary vet told us now it’s just a matter of quality of life.  She seems a bit more tired than usual but how do you really tell with a dog that generally sleeps most of the day anyway?  She still wants her walk each day.  Hopefully we’ll have her around for several more months.  But, that call last night really hit home.  Until then I could imagine that she was actually going to be ok.  Not now.  I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn’t really.  She’s been such an amazing dog it is going to be so hard to let her go.  I can’t imagine not having her quirky little self around.  I’m planning to spoil her rotten from here on out.  Treats and cheese whenever she wants it!  And lots of pats too.

Here’s Hannah on a better day…

I was looking through some older photos to find this of Hannah and came across this one.  Can you believe that’s Alice?  Jack never seemed to change but she looks like a completely different child (other than the eyes)! And man, was she ever roly-poly!!

As for me, I was going to take a photo of the new do today.  But… I tried to leave it curly today.  Mistake.  It is literally sticking out 5″ from the side of my head (yep, that’s the thinned out version!!).  I’ll do a not-so-natural version tomorrow and take a photo!

Wow!  I just looked at the date of my last post and it’s definitely been a while!  I feel like I’ve lost the last month of my life and the blog became a victim of that!

Things started to get crazy when we started getting set for the CK Portland convention.  It was an incredible amount of work and it seemed that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  Including Wendy’s husband finding out that he had to go to Ireland for the entire week leading up to the show until the day after the show.  That pretty much put her out of commission that week.  Fortunately my mother came to town to watch our kids and she was sweet enough to watch Wendy’s Teagan as well!  Aren’t mom’s the best???  Somehow we managed to pull it all together and I think we did a fairly good job of it!  We were pleased with the way the booth came out and with the way the show went in general.  I think the best part was meeting several of our subscribers in person!  After communicating for so long by email and phone it was so nice to put a face with the name!

The next week was a total blur — We got home about 10 pm Saturday night.  We spent the morning trying to bring some semblance of order to everything that we brought to Portland (ie semi-neat piles in the garage), went out to breakfast and then threw a birthday party in the evening for little Alice!

(Nothing like opening your present in your underwear!)

I can’t believe she is already 3!!!  It turned out be a smaller party than the small party we had planned.  My friend’s twins were both sick so they weren’t able to come so it was just one other family (their youngest is Alice’s best friend and is only 2 days younger), her former babysitter and her Marmee (my mother).  And it was perfect!  Alice’s friend Lily gave her a stamp set and Marmee gave her paint daubers (do you think she’ ll be a scrapbooker one day?) so the four kids sat at the table for an hour creating artwork.

Monday I actually spent a bit of time with my mother — lunch and a little shopping.  My mom actually found THE perfect throw rug for the entryway that matches my living room unbelieveable well!  Monday was also dealing with the repair man for GE who told me it was almost impossible to get GE to buy back an appliance.  We just replaced the previous dishwasher in November because it was recalled as it was a fire hazard.  Then our replacement melts down.  Our GE hood microwave is under recall because it’s a fire hazard.  Hmmm…. I don’t think I’m feeling that confident in their appliances anymore.  I spent most of the time that I wasn’t out with my mom on the phone with GE and the store we bought it from trying to figure out how we could get our money back so that we could buy a different brand. No one was very sympathetic with our position; they just wanted to repair the machine.  Ever so slightly frustrating!

Tuesday was spenting working to get everyone’s kits out the door.  Then that evening I noticed Hannah’s (our dog)face was bleeding.  I tried to get under all the fur without much luck, but it looked like she had a gash in her face.  I knew I’d be gone most of the next day in Portland taking my mother to the airport so I decided not to mess around and took her to the emergency vet.  It turns out it was a uclerative mass that wouldn’t stop bleeding.  They wanted to remove it immediately.  They did blood work before the surgery and it turned out she had really low platelets.  They said that was either indicative of cancer or her body was attacking herself and causing the low platelets.  Either way, the dog that we thought was incredibly healthy for almost 11 (briards only live to be 10-11) probably isn’t.  I think this episode is signaling the beginning of the end.  Not a happy thought when it pertains to our very loved pooch!

Then to top that day off I got a call from our babysitter.  She was supposed to watch the kids in the morning so that I wouldn’t have to drag the kids to Portland with me.  Turns out she had so many unpaid parking tickets that she got a boot on her car and wouldn’t be able to get it off until the following day.

So, the next day, I drag the kids to Portland.  It was too much for Alice.  She was already pretty sick and that put her over the edge.  That evening she started saying really odd things and she was burning up.  I took her temp and it was 104.6!  I called her pediatrician and he told me to bring her into the emergency room.  Yay, a second night in an emergency room waiting room!  After 3 hours we found out that she had a nasty ear infection.  Poor baby…

The rest of the week sort of went along the same vein.   I was so glad when it was over as I was giving serious consideration to going out and buying my own straight jacket!!

This Monday, the store we bought the dishwasher called and offered to buy back the dishwasher!  That was a huge relief!  Then the next day we got another call.  The week before Scott had filed a report with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  When I had talked to GE they were thoroughly nasty, but, once Scott filed that, the whole tone changed.  The call was from the chairman’s office, wanting to buy back the dishwasher!  Very interesting….  I’m happy to report our new kitchenaid was installed Thursday and is happily running right now!

Worked all morning with Lisa getting the April kit assembled.  Yesterday I had Pam and Megan over helping as well and we all think this is our favorite yet!  Hope you feel the same way!  I’m hoping I can get Scott to take photos in a few minutes and I can get those posted today.  (He’s doing it right now!)

I got a wild hair (I guess the pun IS intended) and decided I couldn’t stand dealing with my hair.  I made an appointment to get it all chopped off for Locks of Love.  I had originally planned to get it go a few more months but, I tend to be a spontaneous person and I just went with it.  Now I’m looking forward to about 2 yrs from now when my hair is long again!  My main motivation for getting it chopped was I wanted a style.  I felt like it was just there and I wanted a pick-me-up.  I love my hairstylist/former neighbor so I trusted him and let him do what he thought would be best.  But… instead of being being edgy and fun, I look like a frumpy old lady!  So, brain child that I can be, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go somewhere else and see if they can style it a bit different to make it more fun.”  Made an appointment at a place that I know friends with cute hair had gone to.  Apparently they had not gone to that stylist.  I let her talk me into thinning my hair, but that was it.  That might just have been a mistake.  I’m not sure yet because her flat iron was so bad that my hair now looks worse than when I went in.  I don’t know if the ends feel all wierd because they are semi-flat ironed or because they are just going to feel that way because of what she did.  Here’s the kicker.  It was $10.  Perhaps I should have asked her her prices beforehand because I certainly wasn’t on the lookout for someone who would do a $10 job!

Bottom line — they put my hair into 4 braids yesterday (they said each was equivalent to what most people have on their head) and it will all hopefully be used for a good cause.  And.  It’s only hair.  Maybe I look like crap for a bit but it will grow back.  I’ll show you I photo after I, the non-hair-doer, flat irons it.  Even I am going to be able to do a better job than her!

Here’s the before (is it apparent that I’m totally exhaused?)

Well, at least we have fun plans for the night!  The kids are going to our gym for parents’ night out.  They set up all these inflatables and they have a blast.  We are kicking off the inauguration of our dinner club.  It’s 6 couples and we’ll go out to dinner once a month.  Should be fun!