One of my favorite kits and it's partner!

I have made some really fun layouts from one of my favorite kits that I got at Sunshine Studio Scraps called Just Another Girl Kit pictured below.




Here are a few:






Now I need to get the matching kit for my boys, Just Another Boy kit:



To see more examples or to purchase these great kits or others visit Sunshine Studio Scraps or any of the links above

Another great DS kit!

Sun has another new kit that is absolutely gorgeous! I love the colors and that it has so much versatility and possibilities to it! Check it out:




Check it out at the Sun Store!

New Love

I have a new love. Digi-scrapping! I've always enjoyed scrap-booking but with 3 little ones and all the STUFF that goes along with it, I've never had the time or space to do it without distractions. My favorite part of DS is that I can do it anywhere and everything I need is at my fingertips! And I love Sunshine Studio Scraps. I did my first "Speed Scrap" today and I'm very pleased with the result.



Also, they've got these great kits that you can purchase or possibly even win. Sometimes they even give things away for FREE! A new one at Sunshine is this ADORABLE winter kit!




Check it out and jump in the digi-scrap train with me!

Winning Prizes... I like to, do you??

My lovely friend, Joye @ the Joyeful Journey is celebrating her 100th post and she's giving away some awesome prizes! If you're interested in see what she has to give away, check it out here! As part of her giveaway, she put in a good word for my main squeeze's Father's Day photo and asked for votes for him! Isn't that sweet?? Thank you all for voting and for your support of us and her! Love you Joye!

Sweet Summertime

Well, summer is in full swing around here. Although, this last week it

may have been hard to tell by looking out the window, but it's here.

We've enjoyed numerous walks/bike rides.

So Big Guy needed his own bike. And he's doing awesome!

We've played at the playground

until we were all played out.

We've been swimming a couple times and...

my little Princess is growing, growing, growing!

Campaigning For Father's Day

I have submitted Matt in a Father's Day photo contest!  

All we need is a few voters.  

Now, if you know Matt you know that he is a won

derful father!  He has always done the kids' baths and does the bedtime routine many nights.  It's time that they cherish with him and most of the time, I need to tell the boys that bath time is over cause they would stay in there for over an hour playing with Matt if I let them.  He is always taking them for bike rides or to the park.  He takes them to the children's museum whenever he can.  Now, the deal is that we need voters.  You can register once for every email address you have and then each registration allows you to vote 5 times EVERYDAY!

What you need to do is click this link and then click "register" below the login.  Fill out the form and it will send a confimation email which you must go to and click on to confirm your email.  Then you can log in and start voting!  Feel free to register more than one email address and vote EVERYDAY!  Thanks for your support.  Oh yeah... we don't want to win.  We just want to get 2nd or 3rd so that we can get the $250 to Builder's Warehouse (like a Menards).  Matt would like a recliner but we have a lot of home improvement projects that he'd rather get done!

Tragedy

Last week, in my hometown, a 16 year old girl was killed in a car accident on her way to school.  She was the youngest of 3 children in this family and her two older brothers and her parents grieved the loss of this young girl.  Yesterday, tragedy struck this family again in the form of a car accident.  The two boys were driving and ran into a vehicle west of town.  The middle brother (19) was driving and his brother (21) was killed in the accident.  The parents were following them, although I'm not sure if they saw it.  I cannot imagine, as they grieve the loss of their daughter and sister, what facing another shocking tragedy like this will do the parents and remaining brother.  From the information I'm given, the brother that is left has had been very unstable in the past following a break-up and I'm not sure if him or his brother are/were Christians.  I'm pretty sure the young girl was.  I cannot imagine going through this without God.  Even as a Christian it would be near impossible to bear.  Please pray for this family.  They need every prayer they can get on their behalf.

Freedom Conquest and Family Time

This weekend we visited my dad and brother at their new home. It was such an exciting thing, to be able to stay with them. The boys loved visiting Papa. The men, my husband, dad and brother, went to an event hosted by Mission Nebraska called Freedom Conquest. For them, it seemed that it was a very encouraging and challenging event. They listened to speakers and the main message was that men are the leaders of this world and they have a lot of power and influence and they should be using that influence to bring the friends and family, especially their children, to a committment in Christ. Not only that, but they were challenged to not compartmentalize their life and to be diligent in spending time with God. I was really excited for my husband to attend this event and to be challenged to take on his role as the spiritual leader of our family. His sinus infection throughout the week before, and exhaustion as a rusult, worried me, but I knew that God could and would give him the energy and stamina to make it through the day and to really get what he needed out of the event. Please pray that he was challenged.

My Princess

My princess arrived early Saturday morning. It was a long process...kind of.

Beginning Wednesday evening my braxton hicks changed to what I thought was real contractions. They were coming every 20 minutes or so and sometimes closer together. I was due on Thurday and had an appointment scheduled for Thursday so I was excited and anxious thinking that she could be coming early. We called my mom and told her that she MAY need to make a trip so it was up to her to come early Wednesday night or else to possible come in the middle of the night. She decided to come down right away. I went to bed because I figured that either the contractions would go away or else they'd get worse and I'd be glad I got some rest. Well... they went away. I woke up a few times in the night and had them randomly but the next morning they were gone and I headed to work. That day at school was normal. No pains or cramping. Then, I had my appointment after school. On Monday, I had been 2cm and "thick" but by Thursday at 4:30 I was a tight 3cm and 70% effaced. I was excited that the contractions were doing something. The Dr. hooked me up to the monitor to watch her heartrate and she was fine. During that time I had a contraction like I'd had the night before and Dr. B confirmed that they were in fact contractions. After going home I began to have them more regularly around 6:00. They were eventually coming every 12-15 minutes. My mom was sure that she was coming so she called my sister to tell her to she might need to come down. Overly excited, her and her boyfriend made the trip. They got here a couple hours after I went to bed, around 12:00. Again, I woke up a few times in the night, more with bladder issues than from contractions I believe. But I would usually have one every time. The next morning, Friday, I woke up and started to get ready for work. It was a workday for School Improvement and I had about 3 contractions while I was getting ready so I called my principal and told him I wouldn't make it. Then they stopped. All morning and afternoon, I felt so guilty for not going to work because I wasn't having any more contractions. Then I decided that afternoon that I would do some walking. The dogs' bedding needed washed so I walked it down to the laundry mat and put it in the wash. Then I walked the 6 blocks home. After about 20 minutes I walked back to put it in the dryer, then walked home. After another 20 minutes I walked back to bring the laundry home. All this time, I was praying and talking to friends about my frustration. I really wanted to submit to God's timing but I was really ready to have this baby. It all helped.

That evening, for the first night, I didn't have regular contractions. I think I had a few sporadic ones but nothing like the last two nights. After some research online, I decided that what I'd been having was false labor and I gave all my expectations to God. I knew that he had perfect timing and a perfect plan. I went to bed around 10. One of the boys climbed into bed with us around 2:30 and around 3 I got up with contractions. These were coming much closer so I got up and came into the living room to deal with them and write down the times. They were about 4-5 minutes apart. After a 1/2 hour I decided to let my husband know what was going on. I told him we might need to go to the hospital tonight. I started calling my mom who'd gone to a friends house for the night. She didn't answer. After about 10 minutes of calling my mom, I went back in to my husband, who was back asleep and told him he HAD to get up. Eventually I got ahold of my mom as well. My husband started timing contractions and we were around 2:30 minutes apart. Mom and he both agreed that these were real, they could tell by the look on my face. So after one more contraction, 2:15 minutes after the last, he said we were going. We drove to the hospital, leaving at 4:15, and I decided to call our babysitter instead of waiting until getting checked at the hospital. We got to the ER and my husband dropped me off to get started while he parked. When he came back I told him, "I better be at least 7cm." because they were so close and intense. Finally, the nurse came down to get me and up we went to the family birth center. She wheeled me into the room and I felt the urge to go to the bathroom. In the back of my mind, I knew it COULD be baby, but I wasn't going to say anything, thinking it wasn't possible I was 9-10 cm. So I asked the nurse to check me so I could go potty. She hooked me up to monitor baby and then checked my cervix. After what seemed like a very long time, she said... "Well, I'd call you a 9cm stretchy but I'm going to have the other nurse check you to make sure." It was 4:45. The other nurse confirmed and the race was on. They called Dr. B. I told them to make sure they got out gloves since my last one had basically fallen out and Dr. B had to catch him with his gown because someone had forgotten to put out gloves. After about 8 minutes Dr. B arrived and he put on his gear. He wanted me to breathe through a couple contractions, he checked me and then they put up my legs and let me push. At the next contraction, I gave 3 good pushes and we had a head. One more good push and the shoulders were out. My husband fervently watched and announced, "IT'S A GIRL!" Our princess was born at 5:01am. She was 8 lb. 2 oz. and 2o inches long.

The Boys' Room!

We finished up the closet and got the boys' bunkbeds moved into the room. Their clothes fit nicely and we fit the dresser in there so all their clothes are put away. We then had to take apart the crib to get it through the doorway and we got that room all set up. It took them quite awhile to fall asleep last night, no doubt that was made worse by the time change and lack of naps but tonight they're actually doing quite well. Tonight Bubba insisted on reading the stories to Dad and his brother like at preschool.

I found out a little bit ago that a coworker of mine (who is expecting and due this friday the 13th) is going to be induced on Friday. I'm very excited for her. It's her first. But, it does make it all seem very real because we're only 2 weeks apart. Like I told her husband, ready or not here they (these babies) come.

New Blog

I decided I'd join the movement and start a family blog for our family. If nothing else, it'll be something for me to look back on. I've added a few of you to an email list so that you will be notified whenever a new blog is posted. If you don't want to be on that list, let me know and I'll remove you or if you haven't gotten one in the past and you'd like me to add you, let me know that as well. I anticipate there will be much to post about over the next month with the coming of #3 and I also suspect there will be a number of people that check daily. You can subscribe to the feed if you are interested in that. I look forward to interacting with all of you!

Spring Ahead

Today was a day to prepare. We began preparing to move the boys into the same room. It started out that we would just move the furniture. Then we decided we'd just paint the "nursery" halfway so that it could be customized after the baby is born. What we ended up doing was building a closet into the boys room. The bedroom that our lil guy is in now previously had NO closet. How does someone live without a closet in every bedroom? Beats me! Well, we had gotten by the last 3 years with a wardrobe that had a rod in it for hanging up the boys' small shirts and what not. With them both moving into that room AND growing, we new that it would never suffice so I broke down and we went to Menards. We were pleasantly surprised to find they had a construction sale and 2x4's and drywall were both on sale. At this point we are just framing and drywalling and will mud, and paint at a later date. My handyman husband is done framing and about 75% of the drywall is up. Tomorrow we will be going back to Menards to get a different closet system. I'm excited to get it installed and get the boys in the room. All their clothes will have a spot and the baby will have an entire closet to itself! Then I can finally start getting out baby stuff. It's all still in the shed. With under 3 weeks til the due date, it's probably about time.Now, it's 10:50, which is technically 11:50 since time will change tonight and I'm heading off to bed. I really felt like something might happen with the baby today. For some reason I just had a suspicion that we'd get that closet started and my water would break or who knows. I had some pressure and pains throughout the day but nothing consistent. I think baby is just getting comfortable. Check back tomorrow for progress on the closet and any further updates!