Getting behind

Ok, so I'm falling behind on my blogging. It's been a busy few weeks. I also fought a cold bug and finally won. We had a good Thanksgiving. I've been watching Shay and Hunter for Crystal while she works. I have been staying home most of the time with the baby because our office isn't finished yet with the remodel on one wall. That's a story for another time. We have gotten a new contractor to redo/finish it and will be taking legal action against the previous contractor. But since the weather has been so cold it's not a big deal for me to stay home. I can keep my work caught up on the weekends. It's taking a little time getting used to a new schedule. I have to get up much earlier and then have Hunter ready for preschool. Grandpa takes him to school and also picks him up in the afternoon. And it's been a challenge getting used to having a baby around again. It's been 4 years since we've had one in the family. It keeps me busy but I enjoy all those toothy smiles she's been handing out. Just starting to coo a bit now. She weighs a whopping 8 pounds but she still seems to be the boss of me. LOL Oh, I'd love to give the person that invented the pacifier a piece of my mind. That evil green glob of plastic is a pain in the neck. She loses it a hundred times a day and it's my job to plug it back in. It isn't even one of those cutsie ones. It is the one she got in the hospital and the only one she likes. I went through this with my first daughter and decided the second one wasn't getting anywhere near a one!! Life was much simpler without it.

Here's a picture of my boss and her "Sass-afire". See? It's about to fall out right now. Oh well, I guess that's job security.

Weekend

It's been a pretty quiet weekend at our house. It makes for long evenings now that it gets dark so early. We did go to the grocery store Saturday and that's always a shock. I only go once or twice a month and so it seems like I spend a lot. I spent part of the week baking for Thanksgiving. I have rolls, noodles, and pumpkin bars in the freezer. I am going to do more this week since the weather is going to be rainy. We don't have much going on at the office so I get more time at home.
We went to JoAnn Fabrics today. There is a big sale on fleece. It was 50% off and I had a bonus coupon for another 10% off my total purchase. I had the cutting lines backed up for awhile! It was really busy in there. Everyone always asks me what I'm going to do with that much fleece. I ended up spending $400 and that was after a 60% savings. I love a good sale!!
We went to watch the older boys play their second basketball game tonight. It's so fun to watch them. They are learning and getting better at playing.
For some reason I have been sorting through kitchen cabinets this week. I need to purge some of the dishes and things that I never use. Why do we keep these things? I don't get this "urge to purge" very often so I need to take advantage of it. I have been asking for a craft room to be added on for that past several years. Finally got hubby to call and get someone to come and give us an estimate on building a room and they have never made it here to see what we want. Guess I will have to remind him to call them back again tomorrow. But it will probably be over our budget. If so, I will be redoing my basement instead. Talk about purging......that will be a major job!! We have been under construction at the office for the past 2 months. The contractor is sooooo slow. We are fed up with them but they were paid last December and we're stuck with them until the job is finished. (Needless to say we aren't asking them for a bid for my new craft room.) Construction is never a fun time but, I'd be willing to put up with it for a new craft room. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year!! Maybe not......

Shay's first portraits

This one was taken by me. How lucky to catch a smile!!

Hunter (4) and Shay (2 1/2 wks) had their pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. I was so happy to get a CD with all of the poses and a release to print them. I need to do that and scrap them but we all know that takes awhile to get acomplished. I still think my favorite picture of Shay is one I captured by accident. Just as I took it she gave me a big smile. She was 2 weeks old in my picture.

Way Behind

I'm way behind on posting my swaps. This should catch me up. I enjoy going back and seeing all the ones that I have done.

My recipe swaps

A couple of Card swaps

Bookmarks for a swap last month.

I promise

Note to self: I promise to update my blog this week. I have lots of swap pictures that I want to upload. I have some Halloween pics to share. I even have a story to tell. But this is all I got right now!

She's Here

Mom & baby Shay

Aunt Randi gets to hold her first.

Grandma & Hunter are checking her out.

Mom and kids

Proud Grandpa and grandkids

Our newest grandbaby, Shaylynn Marie, arrived at 11pm Tuesday evening. Randi and I watched as she was pushed into her new world. It was a very easy delivery and both mom and baby are fine. Hunter and grandpa were there too and got to watch as the nurse cleaned her up and took all measurments. She weighed 6lbs 15 ozs and was 19 inches long. Such a sweet baby and didn't utter a cry. Just whimpered a time or two and went to sleep. When the nurse wrapped her in the blanket she was opening her mouth everytime the blanket touched her cheek. She was ready to eat. Her fingernails were very long and needed trimmed. Hunter is a proud big brother. The other boys came up to the hospital Wednesday night and I got all their hands washed so they could take turns holding their new cousin. I printed a picture of Hunter holding baby Shay so he could take it to preschool. His teacher told me this morning that everytime somebody mentioned it yesterday he would whip the picture out of his pocket and show them. She thought that was cute. I brought mom and baby home yesterday and they are getting settled in to a new routine. They went to surprise Hunter by picking him up at school. He was very happy to see them. I drove him to school today so mom could rest. I took a lot of pictures so I'll be scrapping on Sunday afternoon. Glad I have a couple of albums ready to just add pics.

Baby is getting closer

Our daughter went to the doctor today and had a "membrane sweep" done. She is 2 1/2 cm dilated and 60% effaced. The doctor said she probably wouldn't make it till next Friday. If she does they will induce. So I guess I only have a week left to get ready for a new baby in the family. It will be interesting to see how Hunter acts when he finally gets to meet his baby sister. I just hope and pray that labor starts in the daytime. I am stressing about getting a middle of the night call and making the 30 minute trip to the hospital. Can't wait to meet the new baby face to face. I'm going to guess a weght of 6lbs 10 0zs and see how close I get to the actual birth weight. It's been a little over 4 years since we had a new baby. They were arriving on a regular basis for awhile! It will be fun to see the difference between grandsons and granddaughters. She will have lots of protectors when she gets in school. Four boys will watch her like a hawk and make sure she is treated good by any boyfriends. She will probably hate it though. I'll update when she arrives and post at least 1000 pictures. (Just kidding!!) I already have the camcorder loaded in the car. My digital camera is always in my purse so this scrappin' granny is ready and waiting.

Grandparents Day

Grandpa, Hunter, Jared, Cole & Darrin

Cole is always MIA. He's the hardest one to get pics of.

Larry and I went to eat lunch at school with all 4 of the boys last week. It was nice to see so many grandparents showing up and being involved in their grandkids school activities. We try to attend all the kids functions and I even went on a field trip with Cole last year. I will probably go on Hunter's first field trip because his baby sister is due at the same time. This year we have Jared (7) in second grade, Darrin (6) in first grade, Cole (5) in kindergarten & Hunter (4) in preschool.

We celebrate 3 birthdays in September. Mine is on the 6th, our daughter-in-law's is the 10th, and our oldest daughter celebrates on the 22nd. We haven't been to a truck pull in the last two weeks because of the rain. That gave me a chance to do some cleaning in my basement. I still have a lot of purging to do though. Remember the Beanie Baby craze??? Well, Larry and I were crazed too and collected lots of them! Now what do you do with all those rubbermaid containers of McDonald beanies and the Ty beanies that have no value now???? I guess you just store them and let your kids inherit them. I don't even want to talk about how much money we invested in them. As my mom used to say "Live & Learn"!
I have been painting at Crystal's house and still have a couple more rooms to do but I'm taking a break this week. New carpet is the best excuse to paint. I'm trying to talk Larry into letting me have a room added to our house so I can have all my scrapping and sewing supplies in one spot. I'm not confident that I can talk him into it. He doesn't have the same passion for scapping and sewing that I have. LOL My sewing machine is in the basement right now and my scrap supplies are in the dining room. I would love to have a room upstairs for everything. Probably won't happen soon. But that won't stop me from trying to sway him to see my point of view. He just looks at the cost. Now if I could just sell all those beanies......