SNOW?!?!

Yup it is SNOWING out. And not just snowing, but I can barely see down the street it's coming down so bad right now. Unbelievable. Actually, this is the norm for around these parts. I had Brayden on April 29th of 2010 and I remember it snowed while I was in the hospital..... We've also had snow in May.... but hopefully this is the last storm of this winter!

So I have started a new blog for our updates with Brayden.... not sure but I think you can find it linked to my username with this blog? Anyhoo, I won't be updating about him on here, I'll leave it all for that blog... and just keep using this one for crafty stuff and other fun stuff I might feel like sharing...

This layout I completed the other day when I was in need of some 'scrap therapy'. I opened up some of the new Echo Park 'For The Record' collection! Not sure how often I'll get new ones posted, but I will definately post when I can. :)

I hope your day is a much more beautiful one than it is around Snow Lake! LOL!

Oh Sunday Sunday....

Welcome to another 'Chelsea's Picks' reveal for the month of April!! I decided to go with My Mind's Eye's 'Good Day Sunshine - Boy' paper pack. I was worried one small paper pack wouldn't be enough, I'm not used to having only one sheet each of any double sided paper... but it was perfect! The colors are perfect for those 'cool dude' layouts of your little boy, but work just fine for some girly layouts too!! But if you prefer, Lori also has the Girl collection in the store ;)

Here are my layouts and cards that I created using all of this yummy stuff!!

And now, here comes the very hard part... :(

I am very sad to say that I have accepted a leave of absence from the Creative Team here at LIITD, and this will be my last monthly reveal for awhile. Lori and Paul are so understanding and generous, and they have asked me if I would like a break until the New Year.

For those of you that only frequent the blog and not the forum to know my reasons, I will keep it brief. My youngest son, Brayden, was diagnosed with 2 congenital heart defects and congestive heart failure about 2 weeks ago, after fighting for months with the doctor to get him tested. He is turning a year old at the end of April, and otherwise is a very happy and amazing guy that just fills our house with nothing but sunshine. The next year will be full of ups and downs, surgery, doctors appointments, and a lot of travelling, as we live 7 hours away from Winnipeg where all of his testing needs to be done.

My family means the world to me, and they have to be my #1 priority in my life in every single way. Those extra moments I have on any given day need to be used to spend quality time with the older kids that are going to be feeling the effects of us being gone a lot, and just to let them know that I am here for them.

LIITD is my home away from home, I love everyone there.... and this has been a very very difficult decision to make. I will still be around, but without the commitments of the Creative Team. :) I hope that when this is all behind us, I can rejoin my special little 'family' and we can pick up where we are leaving off.

Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement, it means so much to me!!!

To Lori, Lisa & Amber.... thanks for everything, ladies.... you guys are wonderful and I am not even going to try and put into words how I feel about ya!!!!!

Now go and enjoy your family and friends, cherish your time together....

Little Brayden Update

So we went down to Winnipeg last Sunday, and had Braydens cardiologist appointment on Monday.... the tests were fast and we didn't have to wait long for the doctor, so we figured it was good news. It was not good news. We were kind of blown out of the water.

Brayden was diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease and Congestive Heart Failure. He has 2 defects, one in his aorta and one in his mitral valve. This has also affected his lungs and has caused his heart to enlarge. We are now waiting on a call from Winnipeg to head back down for a CT scan to confirm the aortal defect and once that is finished, they will book the first surgery in Edmonton or Vancouver, probably Edmonton. There will probably be at least one more surgery to follow, if not more.

We are overwhelmed, in shock, and just sad that we didn't get better results. I had prepared myself for the possibility of surgery but this was even worse than I had prepared myself for. However, we have amazing support from all of our family and friends, and Brayden is a trooper and I know that in the end, he will get better and we will all be ok. His health and well being is being FIRST in all of our decisions from here on out.

Please send all of your prayers and love to this little peanut as we embark on a very scary and unknown journey..... thank you everyone!!!!!

Oh how I love Sundays..... because every Sunday at Love is in the Details, a different Creative Team member has their own special reveal. Even though we aren't working with 'kits' exactly, we are still working with what we call 'our picks' each month. Sometimes it's brand new stuff, sometimes it's older product that we want to bring out and show what it can do....

For the month of March, I chose October Afternoon's Schoolhouse line.... and in the end, only one layout was really using a 'school' picture. LOL! The colors were fantastic, I absolutely adored working with them for both boy AND girl layouts. Here is what I managed to create with this awesome line.....

My friend Kelly sent me this picture of her littlest girl on picture day last year!

It's so hard to believe that my little Makenna has started Kindergarten... and she is loving it...

Jackson tried SOOOO very hard to pull the sword from the stone at Disneyland!

My oldest daughter, Tayla, is an amazing big sister to Brayden.... she is a little mother, and adores looking after him and playing with him!!

This is another friends little girl named Calyn, she is so adorable.... I am loving doing a few layouts of her now and then....

Thanks for taking a peek!!!

I would highly recommend purchasing these papers..... you won't regret it!!!
I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, and has an even better week ahead!

:)

Stuck on the couch

Happy Friday everyone! I am chillaxin on my couch this afternoon, after my mom kidnapped the 2 kids that are home in the afternoons.... I am not feeling well at all, so I can't even take this time to scrap. :( But thank goodness for laptops, I can at least surf the net!!

I have a 'recipe challenge' up at LIITD for the month of March, if you want to take part just hop on over HERE and take a stab at it! The picture is from when I took my Tayla to her very first concert, Justin Bieber of course! LOL! She had a blast, it was a fantastic trip with her and my niece, me and Brayden.... very quick but the look on their faces during the show was well worth the 14 hour round trip drive!!

Amber also has a sketch challenge, and Lisa will be posting another new one tomorrow! Always something to check out!!

Lori is starting to list some new items on the shopping page so you might want to check it out early and often, as things seem to fly right out of my cart if I'm not quick enough! LOL!!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, whatever you do... have fun!!

This feels soooo good ;)

Scrapping on a Saturday, that is! I have had a bit of 'quiet time', as quiet as it gets in this house, anyways... and decided to sit and scrap. Housework will wait ;) I can't show you everything I'm working on, as some of it is top secret for another week or so.... but there is one that I did do that I can post!

I finally ordered ALL of my Disneyland pictures from October... almost 500 of them. I don't know what I'm going to do with them all, I know they won't all get scrapped, but I couldn't pick and choose so I just hit 'select all'. LOL!!

Anyways, this pictures if from that huge pile... and while it doesn't show Disney at all, it is from there, and a picture is worth a thousand words. Jackson shone at Disney, he opened up and was like a completely different boy. Having his momma to himself (along with his baby bro) was something he doesn't get a whole lot of, and he made the most of it. I loved his excitement, his hugs, his kisses, and hearing 'I love you' every hour. LOL!!

I hope he never forgets our trip together, the magical moments, we made some amazing memories. I wish we could go back... we're lucky that my mom is taking each of the grandkids when they turn 8.... because it's not something I'm able to do for them right now.....

TGIF?

Are Fridays a GOOD day for you? For me, it means breakfast out with my boyfriend and our little Brayden... Darcy is off on Fridays, the rest of the kids are in school... so we've started taking that time as our little date. Even with Brayden, we love it. LOL!

This weekend we're not doing a heck of a lot! We curl Fridays, so that's on for tonight, but after that it's alllll open. I think some scrapbooking is in order, don't you? I have a few things I need to work on for the next week or two, and some other things I want to try just for fun!!

Whatever you are doing, wherever you are... I hope you have a fantastic weekend!