Shock, Surprise and Sadness

Sorry it has been a while since I posted. Life was crazy there for about 10 days…so let me fill you in. Sunday June 12, after a nice dinner with the family and a big mojito, Joel made me buy a pregnancy test as I was a wee bit late. I, obviously, did not think I was pregnant or I would not have had el grande mojito! You can imagine my shock when I saw the positive sign on the pregnancy test. After 12 years of marriage, twins via IVF 5 years ago, I did not know that natural conception was in the cards for us! SO the following days were filled with surprise, thinking how our lives would be changing (you know I have only mentioned how excited I am about the girls starting kindergarten, what maybe a 100 times?) Planning where we might put a baby, (the stamping room is severely off limits!) Planning what kind of exercise I could do, (Bikram was probably out for sure!) and oh yeah, traveling to Oklahoma for our visit. Like I said surprise and craziness were rampant. I kept thinking that a normal healthy pregnancy might be doable, it would be nice to actually hear my baby’s first cry, have my husband there for the delivery, take my baby home when I go home from the hospital, just have one baby to focus on instead of spread thin with two…all those things that we did NOT have with the girls! So mentally, I was getting prepared and excited. We still had not quite adjusted to being in Oklahoma yet, but we then traveled down to my Dad’s for the weekend to visit him and see a few Oklahoma sights. We took the kids to the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum in Seminole on Saturday, which I have to say, was absolutely fabulous! The girls had a ball and I noticed a little brown spotting while I was there. That continued for 4 days, but from all my internet research didn’t appear to be much cause for worry. I was still adjusting to the fact that I was really pregnant, which means in translation….going through coffee withdrawals and hormones sans alcohol. Intolerable conditions! (You guys probably think I am a lush..I am doing good having 1 drink per weekend..but I sure enjoy it!!!) Tuesday, I took the girls to swimming lessons and noticed some red bleeding. Bummer…definitely not a good sign!

I spent the rest of the day at the ER where they did an ultrasound and saw a gestational sac, but no baby. My hcg levels were ok for a 5 week pregnancy, but when I didn’t see any baby, I just knew something was wrong. I saw the girls heartbeats at 4 weeks! But the doctors could only tell me it was 50/50 at that point. They told me to come back on Thursday and check my hcg level again. Today I went in, and found out that my hcg level had dropped significantly. I found out that my situation is called a blighted ovum. I had the feeling on Tuesday that all was not right, so in most ways, I was prepared for today. It still stinks and I am sad, but at the same time, I was also still in shock that I was pregnant at all! Especially when I had no idea that we could procreate!

On a happier note, I will be able to enjoy my trip to Salt Lake City for the Stampin’ Up Convention much more! I was worried about being overtired and all the walking. I also know that everything happens for a reason and I could not have done justice to my family if I had had a difficult pregnancy. As big as my girls are getting, they still need Mom in so many ways and I must be available for that!

In between all this drama, I have been designing cards like crazy to prepare for convention, although I haven’t photographed anything yet! Yikes! I made about 20 samples and my sister in law and I each picked three to work on for our swaps. We are also designing two 3d swaps as well. I am going to make either a post-it note holder, or a planner and Amy is going to make a bag tag. I think I finally have it all designed, we have a bunch of stuff cut up and we are just waiting on our order to finalize everything.

For your eye candy today, I had not shown you yet our friend PK’s birthday invitation. She is having a fun penguin pool party. Wish we could be there! Here’s what her invites look like:

So that sums up the past 10 days! Much happier topics the next time around, I promise. But it is what it is, and life goes on…and the little arms I had around my neck tonight at bedtime make every moment worthwhile!

Ciao for now………Deidre

Leaving on a jet plane

Hey everyone…so we leave Tuesday to go spend some time in Oklahoma. Woohoo! I don’t know exactly what I am thinking, leaving 80 degree weather to go to 109 degrees, but sacrifices must be made! We are really looking forward to spending time with our family and friends and I can’t wait to get some serious stamping done with my sister in law! Other than that, I am sure we will be hitting up the always amusing, Bartlesville Kiddie Park…..home of rides a plenty, tantrums galore and cotton candy or snow cone highs, whichever poison you prefer! You can’t imagine the fun we will have sweating, swatting mosquitoes and dealing with screaming children and that WILL happen when they are up past their bedtime and haven’t gotten exactly what they think they need. Ahh, the sounds of summer!

So, I have been packing up most of my stamping supplies to take with me so I can make all my convention swaps and such while I am there. Of course I tried to make a quick gift for our new neighbors today and was missing something I had already mailed to myself in Oklahoma! DOH! No worries though, I made do!

Here is what I made this week for our little friend Thatcher’s birthday, which was today. His room is all Hawaiian cutie stuff so I thought he could use a surfboard name frame…now how cute is this? (YILM)

I had seen the petals from pick a petal before used as surfboards and I just thought the idea was fantastic! I had so much fun making this!

Here’s the card I made to match:

Now the only thing that would have made this card better would have been if I had an airplane button or brad instead of the corduroy button and believe me I looked through my stash; but alas, did not have anything. I did dye my red corduroy button to match by taking the kraft colored corduroy buttons and using a few drops of reinker and water and dying the button. Now how brilliant is that idea? (Thanks, Janet Wakeland!) Any color is possible with those suckers!

In case you are wondering how to make the clouds, I just used a scalloped circle punched out and used my sponge to shade around the edges of it onto the paper to create the edge of the clouds…very easy and adds lots of dimension.

So last but not least, Thatcher had a sock monkey party where the kids ate bananas and had chocolate milk! How fun is that? Here are the invites I made for his party….I thought they turned out really cute!

So there is Thatcher’s birthday in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed it! I am sure the next time I post it will be from Oklahoma. Pray we have an easy trip!

Ciao for now! Deidre

Happy 4th of July..a little late!

So I hope everyone had a happy 4th! We went to one of Joel’s coworkers house for a barbeque. One of the guests was a personal trainer, she informed me that I was a “grazer,” yeah like I did not know that! Grazers eat little bites all day long so they don’t feel like they are eating too much yet they are consuming lots of calories and yep that is me to a “T!” The eternal battle with the same five pounds! I gain them and loose them on a regular basis. Wish they would just go find somewhere else to hang out besides my hips!

We are still being tortured by the mockingbird. Last night at 9 it was so peaceful, then voila about 11:40, dude starts going to town. I must be getting used to him or extremely sleep deprived as I went right to sleep, despite his wicked ways.

I wanted to share with you guys what the girls and I made for the 4th of July. It was a fun project to work on together. I can’t say it is an original idea but I will give you the link so I am not stealing anyone’s stuff!

Cute Huh? I got the idea from this great blog:

http://pamperingbeki.blogspot.com/2009/06/4th-of-july-wreath.html

Wish I could have found that polka dot material...that would have been great. I think I will have my Mom be on the lookout for orange and black and purple clothes at garage sales and make a Halloween one! The girls got to work on their tying skills too. Win, win!

So since I was casing (copy and sharing everything in stamper speak) this holiday, here is the card I cased to take to the Barbeque…loved this!

http://weeinklings.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-happy-mail.html

too cute not to copy… hey they don’t all have to be original ideas sometimes!

But since I am working on swaps for convention, at least trying to figure out what I am going to do, I have been playing with the new set, “More the Merrier” and this set is giving me fits, I have to say. It must be the same for everyone else because there are only a handful of cards made with it on splitcoast so far..what gives people? There are like 200 images of circle circus and 8 of more the merrier and they came out at the same time....we all need some help with this one I think!

I am not the best watercolorer, but here is one attempt that I kind of liked…it probably won’t be a swap card, but hey I am trying…..

There is even sewing on this one..impressive huh? Too much time though..it went into the craft show basket….time to try again…I am thinking the pumpkins this time! Take care!

Ciao for now…..Deidre

Torture

One of the things I love about living in San Diego is sleeping with the windows open.  We hardly ever need the air conditioning and the house is so nice and cool at night.  Despite living closer to our neighbors than we ever have, the neighborhood is so peaceful and quiet it just makes for a great night’s sleep.  (When I am not tending to the wee children that is!)  BUT, we are now in the mating season for mockingbirds and my peaceful slumber is being tortured on a regular basis.  Mockingbirds get going ‘round about midnight and let me tell you those suckers are loud!  Screeching and calling, they “mock” everything, so it is always changing and always loud….you can’t get used to one thing because they change it up so much.  Let me tell you, peaceful it is not, around here right now.  My neighbor fell down his stairs trying to get rid of his annoying bird.  Luckily, our bird likes to move around so we get him about every other night.  I want to commit homicide and it is the first time I have ever even thought those words!  I did some research and unfortunately the little suckers are covered under the federal migratory act.  Some people suggest burning newspaper under the tree.  Anyone have any ideas?  Luckily I have read that it only lasts about a month.  Let’s hope the little bugger gets laid soon so I can get some sleep!!!  

The girls and I went to their “best friend in the whole world” (everyone is that these days) birthday party yesterday.  It was a slip and slide party and the girls had a blast.  They had dirt cake and a pinata.  Fun for all!  We (meaning I) made the birthday girl a cupcake kit and a name frame.  It was a hit!  Here is the cupcake kit I made.  Bailey’s favorite colors are pink and red so when I found these heart shaped silcone rubber baking cups at Target, I thought man those are prefect!

Here is a close up of the little cupcake pick toppers I made:

I used a pop up glue dot ( I call them snot dots because it looks like a glob of snot, nice huh?) to hold two punched scalloped circles together with a toothpick stuck in the middle of the glue dot.  Very easy!  I made them for some fourth of July cupcakes I made to take to a Barbeque and I wanted to see how they would hold together and they did great!

Here is the name frame I made for her as well…I thought it turned out really cute!

Here’s hoping that our mockingbird torture will end very soon! 

Ciao for now……Deidre