One of my recent scrapbooking projects

Here are a few pages from a 7x7 CM album that I made for my mother-in-law. Jessica is not well enough to travel and my in-laws go to a lot of family reunions, so I made this album for her so she could share our family with many relatives that we don't even know. Apparently quite a few people took interest in the album and it was passed around a lot. It's a nice way to be able to share our family even if we can't all go to the reunion. oh... looks like I took some of the pictures before journaling, but oh well. Enjoy:

My new addiction

My new addiction has a lot to do with my 4-year obsession... scrapbooking. (Not quite the type of addiction you were expecting? hehe... too bad.) I've been a Creative Memories Consultant now for almost 4 years. My CM unit hosted a weekend retreat two weeks ago and it was great! Ok, now on to my newest addiction: die cutting! My sweet hubby (he's sweet tonight because he was nice to me today - lol) bought me a Big Shot die cutting system several months ago. I recently found out that it not only uses the regular Sizzix dies, the Sizzlit dies, but also the QuicKuts dies. I have got to restrain myself... I can see a yellow warning light going off in my head when I go to websites that have SALES...... ohhhhhh, I just have to have that little tiara and wand dies because I've got a lot of princess pictures from Jessica's birthday party last month to scrapbook.... oh, gotta have the tent and campfire dies, Brandon spent a week at boy scout camp... those balloons and birthday cake dies are a MUST because all my kids have birthday parties that need to be scrapbooked... see where I'm going with this? The cool part is that I can use all my Creative Memories paper with the die cuts and ta-da! I have my awesome CM pages that I just love sharing with everyone. Miss Jess loves her albums too... afterall, they are all about her.

Here we go again

2:45am and still up. I had Jess all ready for bed and then a thunderstorm popped up and she was too scared to sleep. After the storm was over her meds had worn off and couldn't sleep...... so I just gave her more meds and am hoping she goes to sleep so I can.

I hate monsoons......

zombie.......

It's nearly 3:45am and what am I doing up??? Trying to get Miss Jess to settle in to sleep. I absolutely HATE this. No wonder I'm grouchy and my house is a mess, I don't get much sleep. Jess must be part vampire or just nocturnal... poor kid can't sleep. Well, let's put it this way. Sometimes she can't sleep, other times she WON'T sleep. This girl has taken enough drugs (yes, doctor prescribed) to take down a 400 lb person, yet this little 126 pounder is going strong. I believe she stayed awake (crying and feeling sorry for herself - and throwing a temper tantrum) during the peak time that the meds were working so she missed her opportunity for the meds to work well.

We are supposed to see the pulmonary doctor at 10:00 am but I don't know how we will make it now. We rescheduled the last appointment because she had just gotten out of the hospital and was sleeping. I guess the interns, or whoever, didn't let the pulmonary doc know she had been admitted for CHF so she could see Jess while she was there. Oh well.... she has finished eating her snack so I had better see if I can get her tucked in. Again.

My family

This is the most recent picture of my family. This picture was taken 2 years ago by Sergio Lopez . pictured L to R, (back) Me, Karl, Justen, (front) Jessica, Brandon and Austin.

Two years ago Jessica was placed into a home hospice program because she was having frequent lung bleeds and after many tests, it was determined there was nothing more that could be done for her. Someone from a CHD online support group, pdheart, contacted Sergio and paid for some wonderful family portraits. Sergio did a wonderful job and we thank him and our annonymous friend who has given us some priceless gifts.

Little did we know that starting morphine therapy would help prevent lung bleeds. yay! It has been over a year since Jessica has experienced a significant lung bleed.... just traces of blood, wish is such an improvement! Hospice had to discharge her from their care, but they come by to visit every once in a while just for fun. They are also a great team.

I blame Jo

I went to Jo's blog, and tried to leave her a message. The darn thing wouldn't let me unless I was a registered user. So here I am. Thanks Jo. (not sure if that had a touch of sarcasm or not?)

What am I doing?

I can't believe I got sucked into this blogging thing. I can't say that I'll post here very often but hey, at least I started, right? Anyway, I'm new at this stuff so it'll probably take me awhile to figure it all out. Just be patient... or close out the window. Your choice.