Could it be? A real update?? YES IT IS! A long one, too!

*deep breath*

First, I must apologize for my longer-than-anticipated absence from my blog. Needless to say, LIFE IS CRAAAAZY and sadly, the first thing to fall off the wagon was my hobby and all that comes with it.... including the blog. But, hopefully, this update will help everyone understand where I've been! :-) Let me go back to March.

In the beginning of March, I got a jury duty notice. I'd never had jury duty before, so I wasn't quite sure what to think about it, but it's my civic duty, so... on March 21st, I reported to the courthouse for jury selection. In my county, they only do selection on Monday's for the week's trials. This meant, 400+ people in one room getting selected to go to the court rooms for questioning. Luckily, I was in the second group to get called. We walk to the courtroom and selection begins. Fast forward about 2 hours and it was "Hi, my name is Carol and I'm juror #7 on a civil trial." So, for the next three days, I was sitting on a jury for a very heated, difficult, and exhausting trial. I can actually say though, that I really enjoyed it!! I'm not saying I'd volunteer for this duty, but it was such a learning experience and I really have a greater respect for our country's judicial system!

On March 24th, my first day after jury duty, I realized that something was missing from my life....... ladies, you understand. So that morning, I got up really early and this is what I found.

So.... that began a whole new world for me. Doctor's appointments and a few freak outs, but yes, hubby and I are expecting! After a few ultrasounds, it has been determined that we are due on December 1st. I am so ecstatic and afraid and happy and nervous... all at the same time!

What's the first thing hubby wanted to do after we found out? Of all things...........

Yes, that's right. He wanted us to buy a van! He's wanted a van since we first got married, but I firmly rebelled.... until now. We wouldn't have enough room in my little car for all of us (gotta count the dog), so I caved in and bought my very first brand new car! It's a Kia Sedona and as much as I hate to say it, I LOVE IT! Oh what have I become?

After we found out, I needed to plan a trip back to PA to tell my family. I went there for a week and my family is out of this world happy!!! I got to spend some great time with my beautiful niece! Aunt Carol even introduced this cute little almost-three year old to PLAY-DOH (which she calls her "colors"). Mommy wasn't too excited about this, but isn't that what aunts are for??

I also gave the little angel her birthday present a little early. It's a pen that reads books out loud for her and there's games and music on it. It comes in a little backpack that she never wanted to take off!!

My father's birthday was the week after I was to come back to FL, so we had a family celebration for him while I was home so I could actually be there for it! It was nice to be home for his party!!

I returned to FL in time for my first OB appointment and got my second ultrasound done. We got to see the little peanut AND we got to hear his/her heartbeat! What an AMAZING experience!! Both Jon and I were in tears! It's so incredible to think that there's a little tiny person with a heartbeat inside of me!

So that's the big reason I've been MIA so much lately..... this baby is kicking my butt! I've had horrible horrible morning sickness for the past few weeks to the point that there are often days that I am afraid to move because I know it's going to make me sick. I think I have finally found a few things that settle my stomach, so I'm going to try to work these into a routine so I can start getting back to normal.... at least until I get past this part of the pregnancy. :-)

LOL! When I think I found something that actually stayed down, my hubby went nuts and bought lots of it! Yes, that's ginger ale, saltines, sprite, and salt and vinegar chips!!!

When I finally had a day that I felt somewhat human and had some energy, I got into my scrap room as soon as I could! I wanted to make my Mother's Day cards before Mother's Day passed. I was so happy to get back in there. You don't realize how much you can miss a hobby until you're away from it for a month or more and finally get back to it!

Here is one of the cards that I made. I am so happy with how it turned out!

So, to finish up this looooooooooooong, but needed update, I will hopefully have LOTS to share with you after this weekend. For part of my Mother's Day gift, my hubby is sending me to a weekend long scrapbooking event at a camp near my city that's being hosted by a local scrapbook supply store! It starts at noon on Friday and it goes until 4pm on Sunday! I'm going with a new friend of mine and we are staying on-site. There is no internet access (even from my phone), so I won't be updating over the weekend, but as soon as I get home, get unpacked and get photos done, I'll share what I make!! I've never been to a scrapbooking event before, so I'm very excited. I have no idea what to take with me, but I'm still excited!!!

I hope this update helps you understand why I've been missing.... It's not that I don't still love my hobby, but baby and mommy's health comes first. :-)

I promise to try to stop in at least a bit more to post, but please know that I appreciate all of my followers and I still read all of your blogs as often as I can, even if I'm not posting or commenting!

Happy Crafting, everyone!

Some new layouts, projects, and tools!

Yes, it's an update! A REAL update! Let's see... where do I begin?

Let's go back to where my life began to have no semblance of order! :-) THANKSGIVING! My family came down (as I've already written about) and my great grandmother decided to stay with us. Well, her room is my craft room, so my time was limited in there. She went back to PA for the holiday with my uncle the week before Christmas, which didn't leave me much time to get ready for the holiday here! Needless to say, I did MUCH last minute Christmas shopping, baking, and cleaning! Christmas was wonderful with my family here in Florida! The holidays always remind me how blessed I truly am to have the family that I have, both biological and in-laws! So I survived Christmas. Then, right before New Year's, my uncle returned to go back to work (he's working in central Florida temporarily)... with my great grandmother! She loved the weather so much that she decided to come for a bit longer. That weekend, I had to go to Gainesville to start training for my job for three weeks.... which brings me to two weeks ago when I came back to Jax and we took my great-grandmother to VA to meet my Mom to take her back to PA. It was so great to have her here! She appreciated getting out of her house and away from the ice and snow for a while and I loved having her here (even though I didn't get to visit much with her on the second half of her trip).

Since then, I have spent as much time as I can undecorating the house (sad!) from the holiday and have been trying to get caught up on the cleaning and laundry that has been forgotten and neglected since THANKSGIVING! LOL! No... my house wasn't like one of those on "Hoarders" and we did have clean clothes to wear, but for a type-A neat freak who has had nothing else to do but clean her house for the past 18 months, it was driving me NUTS! I have also been getting used to my work-at-home schedule and getting back of the groove of even having a schedule!

Part of my new schedule is ME time! Soooooooooo.....

I have finally gotten some time back in my "play room"! Between Thanksgiving sales, Christmas gifts, after-Christmas sales, and New Year's clearance sales, I've gotten quite a few new things to play with (including a bunch of new cartridges, new papers, new stamps, and my new favorite tool, which I'll share below.) And I've gotten even more time to play with everything this week because (whether fortunately or unfortunately), my hours at work have been cut almost every single day to low volume of orders so I've been only getting a few hours of work a day, but that's been leaving me time to do what I really LOVE to do!

So here are some projects that I've done!

A very simple layout about my great-grandmother napping with our dog Princess. :-)

Another simple layout... again of our dog with Grammy. It was an ongoing joke that if you couldn't find the dog, just find Grammy because that's where she'd be!

One of my newest toys that I got just this week is The Cinch by We R Memory Keepers. I have been playing with it all week and I LOVE it!!!

Here is one of the projects that I made using The Cinch. I have been wanting to come up with a way to keep the cards that we get for the holidays or birthdays, etc. So.... here's our album of our 2010 Christmas cards! I bought the chipboard album covers and the binding wire and decorated it and put it together!

I also made a quick album of the all of the birthday/Mother's Day/Father's Day cards that we got as a family in 2009. For this album, I used old cereal boxes cut and covered in paper for the covers. :-) It's not at all fancy and I could have spent more time decorating it, but for this one, I was more interested in getting the cards all together for posterity sake since many of these are the last cards that my grandmother gave to us before she passed. I may re-do the covers someday, but for now, I am happy with them being in an album.

I have made some very quick and simple Valentine's Day and birthday cards that needed to go out pretty quickly, so again, nothing great, but I'd still much rather send out a simple handmade card than a store-bought card! :-)

My craft room is a disaster right now since I've been trying to put everything away, find homes for everything, and organize it for the new year of creating, so hopefully I'll get to spend some more time in there this weekend and get a few more things done! Hubby has to work tomorrow night..... and I'll be a football widow for ONE more Sunday, so perhaps another update with more projects and maybe a video will be coming on Sunday??

Hope you are all well, and dry, and warm!!! Happy Crafting!

Cards and Photos

Hello again, friends! Grammy went to bed and I'm not tired, so I have a few more minutes than I thought I did to update, so here's some photos!!

This is a photo of the invitations that I made and sent to our families for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was sooo excited to get a hand made card! I made 8 of them in total, but this is just two of them. I used a leaf die-cut and embossing folder in my Cuttlebug, inked them up, cut out a tag from Plantin Schoolbook (I think), stamped the sentiment on them, inked the edges of the tags and the card, and then tied them on with ribbon and pop-dotted everything!

This is a card that I made for no real reason other than I wanted to. LOL! Actually, I was playing with flocking on this one. I used it on Santa's hat to make if fluffy-like! It was my first time trying to use it and I like it, but I think I need different adhesive for it, so if anyone has any suggestions of good adhesive to use with flocking, I'd appreciate a comment!!!

I made this one to try the flocking again and to play with glitter and embossing powder as well! I flocked Rudolph's antlers, glittered his nose, and embossed the stamp "Oh Deer!" I love this card!!

This card was originally made for my entry for InkingItUpCrazy's call for her Winter Design Team. This is my all-time favorite card that I have made and that I am the most proud of!! The gingerbread man is from Winter Frolic. I embossed the bottom piece of paper before adhering, used buttons for embellishments, and Stickle'd him up really well! :-) Isn't he CUTE!?!?

Finally, here is a photo of some of our Thanksgiving dinner guests. :-) Obviously, I'm not in the photo, dear hubby is in front of me, so he wasn't in the photo either, and 2 of our guests hadn't arrived yet, but this is the crowd! It was certainly a day that I will not forget!!!

I suppose it's time to get off of here, but thanks for stopping by!

Finally!

I have finally had some time to do my crafting! I haven't been updating the blog with the photos, but I have spent a few nights the past week or so in my craft room playing around! I also found a new television show on TV that is about scrapbooking and has been giving me some great ideas (especially when I have it playing in the background while I'm playing around!)

My hubby has also been supporting my "habit", but more about that in a few!

Before I get to the crafting update, here is some updates about my personal life!

First, I have a stepdaughter that's a HIGH SCHOOLER! How scary is that!?! K started 9th grade on Monday and I think we were more nervous about how it would go than she was! So far, she loves it! She's amazed at how the teachers and administration is treating them like "adults"... the biggest shocker: That they don't have to ask to go to the bathroom at lunch time! :-) Oh I miss high school!

Secondly, we had a big birthday in our house this past week! Our puppy... well, not a puppy anymore, turned 4 (28 in human years, right?) Our Yorkie named Princess (nicknamed Princess Pie, P-Dub, SugarSugar, or many other unmentionable names!) celebrated her birthday on Tuesday.

No, I didn't really make her wear a hat. It's a "sticker" that I put on the photo on Picnik! But it looks real, doesn't it?

We are getting ready to head north to PA again next week for my mother's wedding. It'll be a very stressful and time-crunched trip, but I am still looking forward to seeing my family! I miss them so much! And I've FINALLY gotten my dress and shoes for the wedding. I hope they work!

So here's what else has been going on!

My hubby, as I said, has been supporting my habit by BUYING ME MORE CARTRIDGES! Recently, for a project that we volunteered me for, I had to purchase (yes, HAD to!) A Child's Year.

I can't write more about the project.. just in case... but as soon as it's complete, there will be LOTS of details!

Then, we heard that Michaels had a sale on their carts, so HUBBY suggested we go check them out! He had two carts in hand for me, but I talked him into only one. That was so backwards from what I THOUGHT was going to happen, but true story!

So we ended up purchasing what I think is my new favorite cartridge, Create-A-Critter!!! SO MUCH FUN!

Also last weekend, hubby WANTED to take me to Hobby Lobby and Joann's! I'm not quite sure what's gotten into him, but I'll take it while it's here!

Of course, then I had to play with these new toys! So here's what I've come up with!

This was a card that I made for hubby and I to give to our new high schooler with some words of encouragement for high school written on the inside! Made with the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge.

A friendship card made with the Stretch Your Imagination cart as well.

Card made with the Winter Frolic cartridge.

Card made with the Winter Frolic cartridge.

The card for my Mom's wedding. Made using the Cuttlebug and Stretch Your Imagination cart.

First Anniversary card made for my mother-in-law using Stretch Your Imagination cart.

Just a really neat image cut using the Happy Hauntings cart. It's a haunted house that I cut and pasted onto a sheet of 8.5x11" paper and then the "Enter if you Dare" image cut and glittered and glued. Don't know what I'm going to use it for, but I had to try it out!

I've also done quite a few scrapbook layouts, but will share those later!