Love, Max; Love, Mason

Just a couple of layouts depicting Max and Mason's 1st (and 2nd, for Max) Valentines.

Layout is a scraplift of a Lisa Dickinson layout in the latest Scrapbook Trends Quick & Easy magazine. I used Studio Calico's Candy Shoppe kit and add-ons from last month and some of that luscious baker's twine in Caribbean from The Twinery.

Another Candy Shoppe layout. The circle stamp is from the previous month's kit. I also used more baker's twine in Pink Sorbet and some Mister Huey in Schoolhouse and Piglet. The lollipop sticks are just a piece of white cardstock rolled tightly and slipped through two hole punches.

Picking the last of Apple Orchard

I have a hard time breaking down my scrapbook kits into my regular stash. I leave them whole as long as possible, down to the last itty bitty pieces. Making a handful of cards is the easiest way for me to use up those remaining bits.

I finished up Studio Calico's Apple Orchard this week, making a few needed Thank You cards and some extras to have handy. Stamps are from Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday.

Girl-ified!

McKelle went up to Spokane for the weekend last month with some friends. Laser tag, a trip to the temple and some mall shopping were on the agenda. I had to laugh when one of the friends posted on Facebook in (mock) horror - "they've ruined her. McKelle has been girl-ified!" She did come home with new make-up, new clothes and not much change!

(Studio Calido Candy Shoppe kit, mainly the Licorice Twist -on. Also used some Black Zing and SC's doily stamps.)

...but Miss Leanne said!

How is it that a mother can try for years to get her child to do or try a certain thing with no luck, but a beloved preschool teacher simply suggests that thing...and it is gospel to the child?!

All of my children have had well-loved teachers. Teachers who could say nothing wrong, whose word was absolute. But nothing quite to the extent of Mason and his preschool teacher, Miss Leanne. During the first few weeks of school, Miss Leanne taught the children the "Seven Days in a Week" song. Mason miss-heard the lyrics and was convinced that there were ten. No amount of cajoling, arguing, counting or even showing him a calendar could sway his stance...until Miss Leanne sang the song with them again and he heard it correctly.

(Layout is a Studio Calico Sunday Sketch, using On the Easel from October 2010)

Grandma loved blue

My Grandma Stott loved blue. Her bedspread, the house dresses she wore, little touches here and there around the old ranch house. My grandma of the snowy white hair. Of 50+ tricot baby blankets, hand-quilted in tiny, precise stitches creating a generation of grandchildren addicted to sleeping in silky softness (I still sleep with mine!) Of sugary cereals stashed away for a grandchild's visit, the kind our mothers never let us eat.

My grandma, sitting on the concrete front steps, shelling fresh garden peas and I'm certain, knowing exactly how many peas I sneaked into my mouth instead of the bowl. Of playing library in her basement with all the old Reader's Digest books. My grandma, worthy of admiration and respect, a hard-working wife to a Montana rancher with 12 children who loved and adored her.

Almost seven years has passed since she left this earthly life, but I can still smell and taste the hot bread loaves, fresh from her oven. I can still hear the marbles as they roll back and forth on the homemade marble track, a favorite toy in her basement. I can still see small heads making a bump under her current quilt, tacked up on the old wooden frames.

My Grandma loved blue.

Montana love

I could have been a cowgirl.

My dad grew up on a ranch in Montana and I lived there until we moved to Washington. I was six. Old enough to have learned to ride a horse, to have milked a cow or two and to have steered the pickup while my dad threw bales of hay off the back for the cattle. My mom tells stories of me climbing up on top of the hay baler when I was very tiny (I climbed everything!)

I could have been a cowgirl. But my family moved away when the cattle ranch was not enough to support all the brothers and their families. I never got to experience driving with a sibling (one on the steering wheel, one on the gas pedal) down to the main road to catch the school bus or having animals in 4-H every year or laying pipe out on the ranch to earn spending money (thank goodness!) I grew up instead in a city and I doubt my own children would even know what a hay baler looks like.

Their memories of Montana are limited to Holland Lake, the pristine mountain setting where the Stotts have held reunions for longer than my lifetime. When my oldest children were babies, we trekked faithfully to the familiar campsite. Matthew was only 12 days old on his first trip to Lolo National Forest. I was excited for them to repeat my favorite memories of childhood - learning to ski behind Uncle Roy's boat, volleyball games over the buoy line in the water, Aunt Bon's big black inner tube (and trying to stand on it!), late night games and uproarious laughter with all my hilarious aunties, cheesy eggs for breakfast...

But we moved away, too. Back east for school. Midwest for internship and residency. Always a little too far to travel with a large family and a miniscule student budget. When we finally moved back to the west, one of my very first thoughts was that we would be close enough for Holland Lake again. I hope my children make lots of favorite memories in Montana.

Studio Calico Apple Orchard (still working on using up old kits!)

Hoarder tendencies

I come by it honestly. My dad is a bit of a hoarder. And all those years Michael was in school/training (17!!), I used, re-used and recycled the heck out of stuff. These days, my soul longs for a simpler, cleaner, leaner life but the habits are deeply ingrained. And when my hoarder tendencies are rewarded, it's just that much harder to let go!

Case in point: this lovely little cardboard ring has been kicking around the house since before Christmas. I must have picked it up a dozen times to throw it away, but kept returning it to my desk.

But wait! Add a little Jenni Bowlin Malted Milk Paint to the edge and voila! A pretty nifty addition to my layout, don't you think?

Studio Calico Apple Orchard kit June 2008

There is surely some happy middle ground between the overwhelming stuff that I tend to save and accumulate and a stream-lined house that would probably do very little to spark creativity, but I'll probably continue saving my cast-off ribbon tubes and popsicle sticks (see Caramel what? layout from yesterday) til I figure it all out.

Out with the old...

The amount of gorgeous, must-have scrappy goodies introduced at this winter's CHA was overwhelming! I promised myself that I would use up/throw out/give away a bunch of older kits and supplies in my room before ordering  opening the boxes I ordered and diving in.

I brought two huge boxes of older stuff, mostly Creative Memories from back in the day and hundreds of borders from border swaps I used to do, to a Stop-and-Swap at our church. One woman took home the entire box of borders and was thrilled! I am so happy they went to a good home :) I came home with nothing - yay me!!

These two layouts are from my second Studio Calico kit, Apple Orchard. I used SC's doily stamps and embossed them on the first layout.

You have to know Max to know that the caramel lemon is just so him! He is the worst eater ever and refuses to try most things. But then he goes and eats the weirdest stuff! Let it be known that I did NOT force the lemon on him. I offered other fruits that I thought might be good with caramel. HE chose the lemon. I'm anxious to see what next fall's annual caramel apple making will bring.

And now, I've been so good, I think I'll go rip open all my new Mister Huey's and SC Fabrips!

More than bacon!

I haven't shared anything scrappy in ages...mostly because I haven't scrapped in ages. My desk (and tables and floor!) got messy with decorating projects and I just couldn't find the energy to clean it all up. I finally made myself tackle the dreaded task this past weekend and it was so good to sit down with a clean place to work today. Added bonus - I found the wooden letter I was missing for this layout so I was finally able to finish it!

This is a Studio Calico kit from January of last year, Whodunit, plus bits and pieces from a couple of the add-ons. I also used the Addy alpha stamps.

Even though I started this layout last spring, this one-upping game continues with Mason! The journaling reads:

Every day, Mason has to one-up my "I love yous." "I love you infinity" is a common expression. Lately it has been "I love you a googleplex." Some of our favorites: "...to the moon and back", "love you with a Mommy's love" (trumps all!!), "bigger than the universe" and "all around the house."

Things I'm loving on Valentine's Day

Love that my link-up got featured at one of my favorite blogs! Scroll down at eighteen25! (I may or may not have made additional touch-ups to the mantle since that photo was taken...)

Love that Max is loving reading! This nose-in-a-book picture is very reminiscent of my childhood!

Love treating all my sweethearts to something a little special for breakfast.

 Love my gorgeous girl and her beautiful flute playing (pictures from Solo & Ensemble last weekend.) And love, love, love what a great big sister she is!

Last, but certainly not least, I'm loving this guy. He's been hanging around for almost 20 years now and hasn't ditched me yet, even when we had matching bald heads! We've been through a lot together and I can't imagine anyone I'd rather go through life with. 

Love how truly blessed I am!!

When preschool boys do crafts...

Mason had a playdate with two of his BFFs from preschool (his words! He and Max have been talking about how many BFFs they have lately.) Mostly, they played outside in the gorgeous sunshine, chased each other through the house and raised the decibel level a bit upon finding Micah's drum set in the basement.

But being a crafty mom ;), I told Mason the other day that he could do some chocolate covered pretzels with his buddies when they came over. I figured that a craft involving food would appeal to even the most die-hard anti-craft boy.

Probably should have figured out a different delivery method for the sprinkles...ha!

Looking at Mason's face, I think it was probably worth the mess. :)

Thanks, J & C, for a great playdate!

Cha cha cha changes!

There are many things that are frustrating about this house, but one thing I love is my mantle! Actually, I have two, but this one just begs to be decorated. And I just can't seem to help myself, adding and changing, adjusting and shifting, putting up just one more thing to get it to look just perfect.

I added the banner this morning - duck cloth/canvas cut into pennant shapes and stamped with red acrylic paint. I tried using PTI's Boxy Banner Die (scroll down) but it didn't quite cut through the canvas. Not sure if I had the die cutting "sandwich" just right because those dies cut through felt like butter. It did, however, make a great pattern and it was easy to follow the almost-cut-through lines with my Ginghers. To keep things simple, I just attached the pennants to red twine with cute little clothes pins I picked up at Hobby Lobby (yay for the new one in Kennewick, which is only an hour from my house!)

Edited to add - Letter M & Ws and the number 8 (we have 8 in our family) came from Restoration Hardware. Had a friends & family coupon last fall and splurged a little! :)

I was absolutely giddy when eighteen25 put another free printable on their blog for Valentine's Day. I LOVE these!!

Picked up the white W and 8 balls at Pier One. Couldn't find any Ms.

Just a few little red hearts and tinsel in jars and an older canvas I made for Michael's office back in Minnesota. Yes, Max often made that face for pictures :)

Do you decorate for Valentine's Day? This mama to 5 boys and 1 very anti-pink/anything frilly daughter relishes the opportunity!

Posted this at my very first linky party over at eighteen25.

Valentines - less than a week away!

I saw these all over the web last year and wanted to make them for Max's kindergarten class, but February 2010 was a bit of an earache-y, bells palsey-ish blur. I *think* we went with something store bought, but I couldn't tell you for sure.

This year, I'm on top of it! Other than a little drama from Max about posing for the picture, these were super easy and turned out really cute.

I'm not sure who to credit for the original idea as I saw it on several blogs last year. Here's one from Brassy Apple and she linked from 24*7*365.

Cleveland Clinic trip

I posted this on Facebook, but I have a few friends and loved ones who don't hang out on FB, so I'm copying it here.



A quick (ha!) summary of my trip to CC, mostly so I don't have to type it out or text it over and over :)

First appointment was with Dr. Carol Langford, who is one of the leading docs in the nation dealing with Wegs patients. I was very impressed - so knowledgeable, very personable, sat and answered all our questions (mine were a little more emotional; Michael's were much more on the clinical/technical side as you might imagine.) Her initial impression is that the Wegs is still active and I need to shift to a different medication but she had several tests she wanted to run as well as other docs I should see while at CCF before making the final decisions.

Had blood drawn - kidneys are functioning well; sed rate is still high; CRP is high (C reactive protein - levels rise in response to inflammation), glucose was somewhat high. Pretty much confirmed that the disease is still active and that I am now diabetic (steroid induced.)

CT chest showed some small nodular opacities consistent with Wegs as well as ground-glass opacities. Again, consistent with Wegs, but hard to determine when all this formed. A CT back in Feb of 2010 was clear, so obviously sometime in between, but no way to tell from the CT if it happened early on or more recently.

Also, the CT showed I have a severely atrophic spleen - didn't get a chance to ask Dr. Langford about that but I haven't read anything that connects Wegs and spleen atrophy. I'll have to check into it further when she calls me this week.  Unfortunately, since I'm already immuno-compromised, lack of a well-functioning spleen means I am even more prone to bacterial infection, etc.

Met with the pulmonologist on Thursday and he went over the CT chest results with me. He thinks there is some bronchial obstruction and wanted to do a bronchoscopy. He was actually able to find a spot to squeeze me in...but then we ended up not being able to do it because Michael had already flown home. I needed a "responsible adult" to be with me since it is done under conscious sedation. I even promised to sit in the waiting room all day, but it was a no go. I seriously offered to "rent" a responsible adult if one was available! I'm working on getting that done through the pulmonologist here in Walla Walla. (update is that we are waiting for my films to come from the radiology library at CCF and they are currently stuck in all that snow - UPS is showing "adverse weather condition exception" with no estimated date of delivery.

Friday was ENT day. Got a nasal and tracheal endoscopy. Wegs tends to attack the subglottic portion of the trachea and they were checking to see if that was a cause for my shortness of breath and voice changes. Fortunately, there was only some slight narrowing (about 20%, which is not a lot by Wegs standards) and some inflammation, but nothing severe. The ENT also suspects bronchial obstruction since nothing in the trachea was a problem.

Nose is a different story - everything started in the sinuses back in Oct of 2009 and it is pretty messy. Deviated septum, lots of scarring, crusting...all kinds of gross stuff. He recommended a couple of scrips, one for an nasal cream formulated right there at CCF for Wegs patients and then another ointment you mix with saline for nasal irrigation. Much more aggressive than the neti pot ;). But, he said that the majority of his patients who follow these two recommendations are able to avoid future nasal surgery and saddle nose deformity (a very common Wegs defect.)

Pending the results of the bronchoscopy, it looks like I will by stopping the Cytoxan (chemo) and starting on Rituximab. CCF was just part of a big study with this drug and the results are promising. Could possibly become the "gold standard" for Wegs treatment and I read yesterday on a Wegs support group site that they are expecting FDA approval for Rituximab in treating Wegs patients. Currently, no drug (not even the Cytoxan, which has been used for 25-30 years) is FDA approved for Wegs.

It is administered by infusion, two treatments two weeks apart. Takes about 6 hours at the infusion center. But then it is good for about a year, at which time I would hopefully be in medical remission. It is super expensive because it is a targeted drug (targets B cells instead of the broad spectrum kill like Cytoxan) so I may have to fight a bit with our insurance, but Dr. Langford said she didn't feel it would be a problem since I've already had almost 10 months of chemo without the results we want. She is very willing to write letters, etc. to get it approved.

Prednisone -ugh! Unfortunately, it is a very unique drug and I will have to stay on it at a high dose for awhile, at least through the induction period for the Rituximab, but Dr. Langford was also anxious to begin tapering ASAP. Yay!

So that's about it. Very, very worth the trip. Just to be seen by people that see Wegs patients all the time was huge. It affects about 3 in 100,000, so I imagine I'm the only Weggie hanging out in Walla Walla :)

Using up a pile of SC paper bags (not for the time crunched!)

Studio Calico kits arrive monthly in lovely brown bags. I always save them for awhile, feeling guilty about throwing them away.  And then they end up in the recycle bin, ideas for their re-use never coming to fruition. But this month, I actually used almost two months worth of bags! 

There are tons of wreath projects around the web...and I'm still wanting to make a book page wreath, but

I really love how this one turned out.

Supplies needed:

12 SC bags

1 hard styrofoam wreath form

scalloped circle punch

glue gun

pencil

ribbon, tulle, a strip of muslin, etc. for the bow hanger

Straighten out your paper bags, but leave them whole (so the punch is going through both layers.) Punch....and punch...and punch. I used 12 bags, approximately 108 circles per bag.

I used Stampin Up's scalloped circle punch. I did have to sharpen it with tin foil about half-way through. The punch definitely got a workout!

Remember this technique from way back in preschool? My older kids attended an excellent little preschool in Philadelphia at the Smith Family Playhouse. Every spring, Miss Christine would have the kids take out their pencils and little squares of yellow tissue paper to make freesia art (freesia was always the first plant to flower in Philly.)

Take each individual scalloped circle and curl it around the eraser end of a pencil.

Use your hot glue gun to put a dot of glue on the end of your blossom and attach to the wreath form. Do this 1295 more times ;)

I attached mine very, very close together. You could probably do it a little further apart and have a less dense look.

I left the back of my wreath without blossoms. In retrospect, I wish I had wrapped the wreath form in muslin or something prior to attaching the blossoms. It lies very nicely and flat against the wall, but when I put it up in front of the mirror, you can see just a bit of the green from certain angles.

The finished project!