Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, guys!  Wow, it’s been a really long time since I posted last.  Like everyone else I’ve been busy with family and the holidays and it’s been wonderful!  My brothers (all except one of them and he lives in New Zealand, so he’s excused, lol) and their families all came down here to Arizona to visit for Thanksgiving.  My parents live right down the road from me, so it was really nice to have so much of the family here with us.  It’s the first time my boys got to meet any of their cousins!  Here’s a layout I did of them all together.  (Those are my two on the far left.  Yes, the crying one is mine.  Of course.  lol)

I used Flergs and Eva Kipler’s Leaf It to Me.  It’s one of my favorite autumn kits!

My husband is starting school again in January and we had to run some paperwork over today.  Fortunately, my parents had agreed to take the boys for the morning, so we didn’t have to drag them all over town with us (because there’s nothing five year olds love more than being stuck in a car all morning)!  When we went back to pick them up my mom had made gingerbread men and she said the boys helped!  Adam helped cut them out and Lukey frosted them, and there was a whole plate waiting for us!  Have I mentioned how much I love gingerbread?  Especially the kind made with so much love?!  Haha!

Anyway, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  I hope it’s wonderful and you get to spend lots of warm and happy time with your loved ones!  Be safe and have a great weekend!

It seems like so long since I last posted anything but new products and freebies, that I think maybe people have forgotten me.  :lol:   I’ve been busy with real life (who hasn’t been?!) and let myself fall into the routine of just posting when there’s something new in the shop.  So I thought I’d talk about myself for a bit and what’s been going on (try to contain your excitement).  LOL

We have been caught in the awful economy with my husband losing his job and not being able to find another – not just another in his field, but another at all.  2010 was a very rough year.  We’re hoping that 2011 will be better and he’ll be able to find something soon.   But life hasn’t been all bad!  Early last year we moved into a new house and that has been wonderful.  We’ve lived in apartments most of our married lives and having a house with a yard for the boys to play in has been better than awesome!

The boys also moved to a new school, which I was apprehensive about since I LOVED their old school, but I shouldn’t have worried.  Their new school is just as wonderful and I adore their teacher and therapists!  The boys turned four in September, but they have some developmental delays so they go to a special preschool and they love it.  Luke has just been diagnosed as being autistic.  I had been thinking this for a couple of years now, but no one would diagnose him.  The doctors just kept telling me that the boys were simply a little delayed and they would catch up.  So we finally have a diagnosis for Luke and are working on a diagnosis for Adam.  I don’t believe he’s autistic, but he might be.  He does have sensory issues and is just barely starting to speak real words with real intent.  Anyway, Luke was just transferred to a new school with a program better equipped for his needs, so he and Adam are split up for the first time in their lives but they are both coping with it great!   With the boys settled I am feeling much more settled, too.  The only thing I really don’t like is that they catch every little cold or cough that comes around at school and bring it home.  They are sick so much!  Is that normal?  They aren’t normally sickly kids (they weren’t sick at all through the summer break), but for some reason they seem to be sick a lot since starting school.

I’ve been trying to scrap more this year and with that in mind I signed up for a journaling class called Tell Me More by Chelle of Chelle’s Creations at ScrapMatters.  So far, so good!  I like to scrap, but I never journal enough, so this should be a great class for me.  Speaking of scrapping, here are a couple of layouts I’ve done in the last little while.  (And while I do use my own designs to scrap with sometimes, by the time I’m done designing them I need a break from them, so I scrap a lot with other designers, too!  You’ll notice that I’m a big fan of Flergs.)

And I think that Luke might be taking after me and getting into doodling!  Check out his artwork on the living room wall (sorry about the lighting!):

He loves to draw these little happy people!  I know, I know, we DO try to keep the Sharpies away from him, but the kid is a houdini and can get into/on top of/through anything!  You can’t tell from the photo, but this little beauty is about four feet tall.  :lol:  There are five more of them in his bedroom and I really need to paint over them, but they are so cute that I find myself procrastinating.  Of course, he did get a scolding for this, but I can’t help feeling a little proud of him, too.

Alrighty, I’ve got sick kids and they’re waking up so I need to run, but I’m going to try to post just regular stuff about life on my blog at least once a week, so I’ll be back to bore you with more later!  LOL

Have a great week!

Thank you to everyone who left a comment or suggestion (or just plain sympathy!) concerning my caffeine withdrawals.  I’ve had a miserable few days, but am finally starting to feel better.  I’ve been drinking more water and Crystal Lite (what are your favorite flavors?  I’m really liking Raspberry Ice!) and have been valiantly taking my vitamins, so hopefully I will be back to good in a day or two.

I’m working on a new kit, but I have no idea when I’ll be finished with it.  The lack of caffeine has stolen my mojo as well as my energy, I think.  lol  Right now I’m just trying to relax and spend time with the kids.

However, I am participating in the ADSR4 and amazingly I got my first layout finished!  You know how I feel about my own attempts at scrapping, so this whole race is a huge challenge for me, but I’m excited about having a bunch of cool layouts at the end of the race.  Here’s my LO from the first challenge:

Are you racing, too?  Did you enjoy the first challenge?

I probably won’t be posting for a couple of days.  Lynn Kurland’s latest book is coming out tomorrow (I’ll be on my way to Borders as soon as they open!) and I just got a notice that Amazon shipped a whole boxful of books I ordered last week, so I may be occupied for a little while.  lol  It’s going to be a very nice week, I think!

Have a great week yourselves!