june freehand scraps sneak peeks....

The June Freehand Scraps kit is adorable. It is full of grey, yellow, green and a very pretty salmon color. It has two alphas which I always love. The ribbon was gorgeous. I just loved it all.




Check out the full reveal of the kit and gallery on the 1st of June at Freehand Scraps.
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surgery day...

Yesterday was the big day for Cannon's surgery. He had to have his right testicle repaired. The procedure is called a right orchiopexy. I don't know if it is like this in other areas (it wasn't in Idaho), but here in Utah they don't tell you the time of your surgery until the day before because they set-up the schedule according to age. I was thinking we would be fairly early and of course was hoping we would be since Cannon couldn't eat after midnight the night before. So, I was pretty surprised when they told us not to get to the hospital until 11:45. I tried to keep Cannon preoccupied the best I could, but he was in the kitchen pointing at the cabinets and saying "more, more, more". Aww, so sad!

As you can see, he was getting pretty desperate on the way to the hospital...


Once we got there I gave them my insurance information for the 56th time and Cannon got his snazzy pj's for the day. These are very special pajamas because they have a tracking device in them. There are marked areas in the hospital the kids must stay inside of or an alarm goes off. Isn't that cool? We are lucky to have a brand new children's hospital by us and it is beautiful.
He HATED that arm band. He picked and pulled at it all day.
In the pre-op waiting room.
We were thrilled when we got there to learn that the doctor was an hour behind. Which actually ended up being 3.5 hours behind. Cannon found a way to pass the time....
He did SOOOO good. Once at the hospital he never asked for anything to eat and he was very happy to play with the toys in the waiting room. He was great for the entire 3.5 hours. About 15 minutes prior to going to anesthesia they gave him some versed to help him relax and induce short term amnesia so he would not remember the procedure or being taken away from us. During that 15 minutes he was not allowed to walk so I took him for a ride around the hospital in the wagon.
Getting his temperature and pulse taken one last time.
He was a charmer to the nurses. They all loved him and were constantly checking on him in the waiting room. They played games with him and read stories to him. You could tell they really love their job.
Then the medicine really kicked in and he was chiiiiillll.
Then he was taken off and we were sent to another waiting room. The procedure took about an hour and the doctor said everything went great. They usually have to make 2 incisions, but he only had to make one on Cannon. They called right away and said he was starting to wake up and I could go back to comfort him (only one parent could go at first). Then we got moved to another post-op area. Cannon started to wake up a little more and he was really, really mad. He tried to get the blood pressure cuff off his leg and when he couldn't move it, he lost it. I knew right away he was going to hold his breath. His monitors started beeping and the nurse and I were trying so hard to get him to breathe. She yanked him from my lap put him up on the bed. They had the oxygen turned on full blast and he was not responding. His back was arched and he had his head thrown back and he was very blue. He did not look good at all. Soon there were 6 nurses surrounding him all trying to get him to breathe. He took one huge breath and then panicked and quit breathing again. This time for a shorter period and then he snapped out of it. I kept thinking he was going to go into seizure again. I am not sure why he didn't because he was not breathing for a lot longer period than the time he did have the seizure. It took him a while (with a few more small breath holding incidents) to get calmed down. He was very hoarse from the breathing tube. He just sounded and looked miserable. After this the nurse said we were going to have to stay longer than usual to be sure he was going to be okay.

This was after the big breath holding event.


Right before all the action happened, they told Eric he was doing great and it was okay for him to come back and see him. He headed to room 1 as they told him and he walked in just as all the nurses were rushing. He turned around and walked out because he thought he must be in the wrong room since he was told his son was doing great. He confirmed room 1 and came back in just as Cannon started to breathe again. He didn't see me the first time, but this time he spotted me in the corner. I was crying and trying to keep it together. It is so crazy to be sitting back watching your child go through something like that and all you can do is pray.
He was very irritable so they gave him some juice. He sucked it down in record time and wanted more. Then they gave him some milk and some pain medication. We had to wait another hour just to be sure everything was good.
The nurse took him on another wagon ride to kill some time.
Then his spirits picked up and we were allowed to go. They gave us some crackers for the road.
And then about 5 minutes after I took this picture, he threw-up everywhere. All over himself, the carseat and the car. It was not pretty. It was so bad in fact we decided to just throw out the carseat and buy another one. He had some gatorade when we got home and then he was out for the night.

Overall, the little patient is doing pretty good today. He is still pretty crabby which they told us to expect for a day or two. He is a little loopy on the pain medicine. His pupils are dialated and his balance is off. He has been walking in to the walls and falling a lot. His incision area looks terribly painful. It is hard to look at. I can't imagine what it must feel like for the poor guy.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow and a fast recovery. I am so proud of him. Honestly, I could have done without the breath holding scare, but other than that he did so great.

Love you Mr. Cannon. Mommy is sorry you had to go through this but you are a total rockstar.

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cannon's monthly updates documented.......

I decided it was time to buckle down and try to get Cannon's first year album done. I still have quite a bit to do. Some of my favorite pages are his monthly updates, but I find them the hardest to do since they have so much text (which I just copy from here). For these I made a separate 6x12 page for all the text so I could focus on the photos on the 12x12 layouts.

These layouts are easy and simple. The nine month layout was made with the Cosmo Cricket Joyride line. I love these papers.


This one I pretty much copied from here. That yellow cloud paper is from Pebbles. It is one of my favorites right now. I love the yellow and anything with clouds.


This one was also pretty much a copy. I found it here. (the buddha belly page) I love that elephant paper and figured I better use it before it becomes too "baby" looking.



I think I have 2 more of these to put together. After 18 months, I will just do them yearly like I do for Charlie. Now, back to my scraproom...I have work to do!
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charlie's school album....

I have thought a lot about how I wanted to format Charlie's school years album. I had ordered the Becky Higgins school kit mostly because I just wanted the plastic envelopes that she created to hold artwork/paperwork from throughout the year. I just did not care for the rest of the kit and decided not to use it. Instead I just created 3 simple layouts.

There was way too much text that I wanted to include, so I just typed up a letter to Charlie about his first year and tucked it in the plastic envelope. So, the layouts were mostly focused on the pictures of his first days at both schools he attended. I kept the layout on the right very simple because the one on the left is pretty busy.


I really wanted to include his signature and handprint too. I wish that I would have done this at the beginning of the year, but figured it is better to do it now than never. I will just have to do it at the end of the year every year, but that may work out better anyway since I won't be putting the layouts together until then anyway. This is also very simple because I wanted the handprint and signature to be the focus.
Here is the envelope that I mentioned above. I love these things! It fits perfectly in the album and holds quite a bit. I just love that I can put all my favorite artwork and other paperwork from the year in here and it is all organized and included in the scrapbook.
I should have lots more scrapbooking stuff to share this week because I have been busy this weekend trying to get caught up. I also just got the June Freehand Scraps kit and can't wait to start working with that too!
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little lego maniac....

Charlie was so excited to get the mail the other day and see that GiGi had sent him a new lego set. He has been asking for a Prince of Persia set ever since he laid eyes on them at Target. We immediately ripped open the box and started sorting the pieces. I helped him put together the accessories and Eric helped him with the structure. I will be honest here and admit that was all I could handle. I actually like putting them together, but I have no patience with trying to teach Charlie how to read the directions. I just end up doing it myself. I know that he is not learning anything when I just do it for him. Definitely something I need to work on. Luckily, Eric is pretty patient and is good about working through it together with him. This has always been a downfall of mine, I use to hate group projects in school because I would end up doing all the work myself. I would make a terrible teacher!

Anyway, we have really been encouraging him to play with legos because they have helped with his fine motor skills so much. Not to mention all the creative play it facilitates. He comes up with some of the greatest creations. From concert stages to scenes from Spongebob, his imagination is always in overdrive.

Look at little Cannon trying to get in on the action. He was not happy that he couldn't help.



Playing with the final product.

Thanks Gigi! As you can see, he loves it and has been playing with it nonstop since the day it arrived.
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mother's day....

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

I had a very nice day hanging out with my favorite boys. We did a combination celebration since Eric's birthday was on Friday. Our friends took the boys and we drove up to Park City to go to the outlets. I got a super cute purse from Fossil. Then we drove around exploring downtown SLC. We drove through a gorgeous neighborhood called the Avenues. I am pretty sure I saw my dream home there. The homes looked like they were right out of the movies with beautiful tree lined streets and amazing architecture. Then we ate dinner at Pei Wei and finished the evening off with Iron Man 2. It was SO nice to get to sleep in this morning. We met up with our friends at The Gateway this afternoon and got some frozen yogurt. It was a perfect weekend and it certainly didn't hurt that the weather was beautiful!

This is what I made for my mom for Mother's Day.



I used the Freebird line from Moda. I love this fabric. I used this tutorial: Sew4Home. Next time I will probably get better towels. I got these at IKEA and I didn't like that they weren't actually 20 inches wide like they said they were. Of course I didn't measure them myself, so my fabric strips were a little off because of it. They turned out pretty cute anywayand think I just may need to make a few for myself!
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happy national scrapbooking day!......

It is national scrapbooking day! What are you all doing to celebrate? I have a few pages in the works that I am hoping to complete sometime today. In the meantime, I thought I would share my projects for the May Freehand Scraps kit.

This kit is full of pretty pink, turquoise and green. Since Mother's Day is coming up, I thought the papers and embellishments included would be perfect for some cards. I made 3 cards since I have my mom and 2 mother-in-laws. I like that they all turned out so different and they were made with each recipient in mind. I hope they like them! :)
The "happy" on this card was stamped with an older Heidi Swapp stamp. I loved the combination of the October Afternoon alphabet with the Jenni Bowlin Bingo Stamp. The felt embellishment is from American Crafts Dear Lizzy line. The patterned papers are AC Dear Lizzy and Crate Paper.
I think I did machine stitching on all my projects except for the card above. I just love the finishing touch it seems to add to my projects lately. If I find that it looks like something is missing, I usually add some stitching and am happy with the results. I handcut the flower from the AC Dear Lizzy paper. The flair embellishment is also from AC Dear Lizzy. The sentiment was printed from my computer.
On this one I cut the flowers with my Slice. I rolled up the edges to give it a little dimension and then hand cut the leaves and added the Jenni Bowlin button. The paper is actually fabric paper from AC Dear Lizzy and the alpha is October Afternoon.This kit has a little more pink than I would normally use on a "boy" page. I thought if there was any time I was going to get away with it, it would be Easter! I handcut the banner pieces from the AC Dear Lizzy paper and stitched it on. The cute felt bird is also Dear Lizzy. Paper from Fancy Pants, Crate Paper and American Crafts.
My kit came with an egg shaped card (I think there are eggs and bunnies, you get one or the other). I used it as a template and cut one out of the fabric polka dot paper. This is definately one of my all time favorite papers. The color is so great and it is polka dots, that explains it all. I added a few buttons and did some stitching and it all came together.
One of the first things I did this morning was check out the rest of the gallery. It was awesome this month! Check it out here.
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