I'm twitterpated.

It's funny to me that, as much of an anti-materialist as I used to be, I can be so completely obsessed with a product. Created by someone for the purpose of making money. 10 years ago I would have rolled my eyes at myself and extolled the virtues of a simple life, free from the love of shaved legs and spending money needlessly. After all, there are hungry children in China that would love those stamps of yours.

Can't say that I blame them, either.

I bought these little sweethearts about 3 weeks ago, and haven't had a chance to play with them until now. I used them to make the scalloped white strip behind the title. It's probably not that noticeable, and probably not even that cool when it comes to some of the amazing stuff some scrappers do, but for me, there's something about using a product and having it work out exactly the way I'd hoped, and realizing how much potential there is in it, that is so satisfying.

And it helps that I got 3 hours of virtually uninterrupted scrap time this afternoon. I can't remember the last time that happened. As soon as I'm done on the computer, I could probably squeeze in another hour or two before bed.

G'night all!

Come croppin'

I'm at Creating Pages this weekend, having a blast at our online crop! We have games and challenges and prizes and tons of fun planned...a good time will definitely be had by all!

Count it all joy...

1. In 2 1/2 weeks I get to drink coffee again!
2. I'm on the verge of losing another 10 lbs. (though so far I've only lost 2 or 3 since I started back up).
3. Tomorrow I should be able to scrap
4. Tomorrow night is date night!
5. I have a new QuicKutz!
6. I'm enjoying my Bible lately, more than I have in months.
7. Shiloh's healthy again.
8. Elijah learned a good lesson about putting his toys in the closet instead of putting them away.
9. Mariah and I have been bonding lately.
10. Essie is settling nicely into her big girl bed.
11. Dan's been enjoying work.
12. Homeschool group starts a new trimester on Friday.

I could go on, but it's harder to count my blessings when I'm overtired at 7:00am. So I'll leave you with a photo instead:

Maybe green poop isn't so bad after all.

This was the thought I had Tuesday afternoon.

Rewind a few hours. It was an uncharacteristically nice late winter day. I'd just gotten back from a couple hours of kid-free time, so I was in a good mood. And I had primroses to plant. So I took the kids outside. In the past, taking the kids outside and getting yard work done were somewhat of a contradiction unless they were in our little pen with the door to the house locked. However, the pen has been disassembled to make way for a bigger pen (by "pen" I mean "small fenced area outside our back door that was once a dog run but now is just there so I can get the kids outside without having to accompany them"). No problem though, right? Because the older kids are responsible now, and Mariah follows Shiloh around, and Esther sticks close to the house.

At one point I ran in to get my camera, and then spent some time taking pictures of Essie...I've been bad about taking pictures of late, since they all have dark backgrounds and half aren't correctly focused (not my fault). So we were overdue. Then spring fever started to bite, and I decided to take some pictures of "signs of spring" for a layout. I take about 5, and then turn around.

Esther's gone.

I quickly scan the front yard, she's not here. I peek through the gate to the backyard as I'm running out to the road, nothing. She's not in the road either, or near the road. She's nowhere. I get Shiloh to start looking around the yard--which of course is useless, because I don't trust her, and if she says Essie isn't in the backyard, I still have to go look back there. I'm getting more and more frantic by the minute. I'm running around the neighbors backyards, looking up and down the road, around the corner, wondering if I should run down to the playground. A neighbor drives up and says he hasn't seen her. He offers to drive around the block and look. I decide that I'll call the police if he comes back empty-handed.

I circle through the backyards again, finally deciding that I should call her, because even though she won't come, someone might hear me calling...and another neighbor asks if I'm looking for a little girl. She's safe and, of course, completely oblivious that anything might be wrong. I thank her, wait for the other neighbors to get back so they know she's ok, and we go home.

And that afternoon, when she removed her diaper during naptime and I had to go in her room and clean up a yucky mess, I thanked God for the mess to clean up. It's so much better than the alternative.

Here she is 5 minutes before I wondered if I'd lost her forever:

I never want to see green poop again.

When I used to talk about parenting to non-parents, I would tell them (among other things) that diaper-changing is one of the easier aspects of being a mom. That it doesn't even begin to touch sleep deprivation, self-doubt, the sacrifice of one's freedoms and pleasures, etc.....none of which is really that significant when compared to the joy of loving and investing in the most special and wonderful people you've ever known, blah blah blah...

My position on diapers is changing, however. Maybe because I'm so close to the end. Maybe because I've changed a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 20 diapers every day for 2342 days (6 years and 5 months, exactly). Maybe because even though 3 of my 4 kids are potty trained, 1 wets the bed and 1 still has "accidents" that I'm not entirely convinced are unintentional.

Esther, the last, resists wearing a diaper with everything in her. She takes it off within 5 min. of my putting it on her, every time. She takes it off in her crib, every night and every naptime. First thing she does every morning? Remove the diaper. If I can convince her to wear it during the day, she takes it off the second she poops or pees. Which can be quite messy.

So on my list today is bringing out the potty chair. And spending some time on my knees, begging the Lord for a quick transition for her into big girl panties and for me into a diaper-free existence.

More HSC stuff

Good Friday night, all!

I thought I should inform you that you all have 1 week left at the 6 months for the price of 5 deal on the Home Scrap Club kits at myscrapbooknook.com. Here are more examples of what the March kit can do (and I still have a bit left):



































Have a great evening!

No, Beccy, my coffee abstention isn't what has caused me to neglect my blog for the past couple weeks.

I've just been busy. Thanks for the reminder though. :)

Busy doing what, you ask? I had the opportunity to demo the coolest scissors in the world last week at the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup. It was fun doing something different for a few days, and Dan did a great job holding down the fort. He even took the kids to homeschool group on Friday, an activity which is not for the faint of heart.

So we're back to "normal" at home now. Doing school, wearing jeans (instead of "dress-up clothes"), folding copious amounts of laundry, chatting online with babes all day. My list is a mile long and I have no idea how I'm going to get it all done and still raise 4 kids and have the house just clean enough that Dan doesn't want to turn around and walk back out the door when he gets home. But I know it'll all get done, it always does.

Here's a new layout using the March HSC kit:



















Leah does an amazing job of picking products that go together without being too matchy-matchy. Being the tightwad that I am, I never liked the idea of monthly kits...until I started getting them! I tend to be very picky about what I spend my money on, and never liked the idea that I might be buying something I didn't want. But it turns out that getting a pre-selected kit of products not only saves the time and hassle of deciding which products to use, it actually inspires creativity. I get 16 photo corners and think, I can't use them all the same way...what's something different I can do here with them? AND it keeps me from dragging out every product I own, which keeps my scrap area much cleaner!

And speaking of kits, I was recently asked to join the team at Creating Pages! The great thing about that is that their kits tend to have lots of bright colors and geometric patterns...the perfect counterpoint to the lovely muted, distressed tones in the kits at HSC. The best of both worlds!

Off to tackle the list....