whewwww.

I am alive! I just let the whole summer go by with out one blog, and we are now well into the fall! What has been going on? WELL, we went to the beach for a week during the summer, spent alot of time at local parks, summer school, and work for me. Josh is doing well, trying to adjust to 1st grade. Unfortunately it is not going as great as we thought it would be, but we are dealing with it! Hunter is growing and learning more and more each day. He moved up to the "big kid" class at day care. He is loving that! We are getting ready to experience some amazing changes in the coming days. In 22 days, my sister is coming home. The boys will have their mom back, which will be good for them. I am trying to find a way to keep life as normal as possible, because I do not want the boys world to turn completely upside down. We are also getting ready to move into a bigger space, to give my sister space. An added bonus would be that I am getting a craft room! YAY for that, it will be my safe haven! I am so excited to have a place to dedicate to my craftiness. OHHHH over the summer I also purchase a Cricut Expression and it is my new love. I have one of the smaller cricuts, but the bigger one is soo nice to have! So This weekend is going to be devoted to packing, homework, and of course halloween! The boys are going as Thomas the train and Spiderman....pictures to follow.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Kindergarten graduation!

Yay, Josh is a kindergarten graduate! The school had a whole program where the kids sang sungs, did some dancing and then got their diplomas, followed by tastey treats. I made gift bags for Josh's class with a book mark, eraser, pencil and of course some M&Ms. I made a little bag for Hunter because I knew he would want one. According to the teacher they were a big hit. I also made an explosion box for the teacher but I just realized I did not get a picture of it. Such a BUMMER! Josh was soo nervous that morning, as he does not handle change well, I guess being in foster care will do that to a child. Instead of being excited he acted up, which frustrated me a bit, but we dealt with it. Now we are getting ready for Father's day, and then going to the beach for a week on Monday! Hunter is very excited, only I think that when Josh and I say beach, Hunter thinks we are going to the pool. The reason why I get this impression is because we walked by the pool the other day and he started pointing and saying " beach, beach." hehe, he will learn soon enough! Have a great weekend!

End of the school Year!

Well hello there! It's the end of the school year for Josh and me! I took my final exams last week and just checked my grades a few moments ago, and I got all A's, so I am very pleased! Josh has three and a half days of school this week, and the half day is for his kindergarten graduation party. Josh is VERY excited to be a 1st grader but sad to leave his teacher behind, which I understand because she is amazing!

Anyhow, since it is graduation time, I have made a couple gifts from some co workers, and one for a girl that works at Hunter's day care! This was my first time making an explosion box, and I am pretty pleased with them as I did not follow any directions, and did not have a scoring board or anything! Create a Critter is still my favorite Cricut cartridge ( so much that I had to let someone borrow it so I could study for finals, now that is bad!!).

I will be posting more this week, since I am still working on the teacher's end of the year gift and Im making little gift bags for the kids in Josh's class. hehe yeah I use my free time well!

I'm baaaaaaaaack,,,for now hehe..

Whoa, did not realize I had not blogged for a while. Silly me, letting my life get busy! Ah well I am back, for now anyway. Anyway This next week is teacher appreciation week, so I made something special for Josh's teacher because she is nothing short of AMAZING! I had so much fun creating this, I got the idea from the Cricut message boards! So much fun!

My hand at card making....eeeek.

So I have these boxes of blank cards taking up space in my scrapbooking stuff, so I figured I would use them up finally. I have done a couple and wanted to share them... so here you go... don't laugh I'm new to this!

girls trip 2010

I love my friends! I know that I have said it before, but I truly do! I have been friends with Miranda, Krista, and Alycia since middle school... so its been a while. Thanks to the internet we are able to keep in contact with eachother, with out it we would be in big trouble. Back in December, Miranda and I decided we were going to plan a girls trip to the Oregon Coast. We let Krista and Alycia know that we expected them to be there, and they came! Miranda's sister-in-law got us an amazing penthouse suite, right on the beach. Of course it rained the entire time were were there! But that did not get us down! We still walked on the beach (backwards because the wind was blowing), hung out in the hot tub (which was super neat because the lights changed colors), did a little drinking, and of course shopped. It was soo nice to just be me for a minute. Some bad things did happen on this trip: My camera broke (oh No!), Miranda slammed the air hockey puck into my fingers (right after my camera broke) and that freakin' hurt!. and they got some aweful pictures of me! But revenge is sweet, and I got some AMAZING pictures of them that I cannot wait to scrap *smirk*. We are planning a trip to Ireland in 2012, I hope we can do that!

Some of my pages.

I love to scrap! LOVE it, I love being creative, its messy and its fun. Okay so maybe it is not always messy for everyone, but for me... I am REDICULOUS! Seri

ously! I do not have a scrapbook area so I have to bring it all out, and then spread it out. But the cool thing about it is, if I bring it all out, I'll work on pages for a couple days, I usually get 6-8 pages done in my Scrap-A-Thon, then I put it all away. One day though, I will have a designated space just for my scrappin'! Here are some of my pages, I did these a while ago, I need to get pictures of my recent ones. Some of these I need to fix, just a little warning!

The best of the best!

Do you have someone that you can tell all your secrets to, no matter how horrible, embarassing, funny, or sad they are? I really do hope so! My best friend is Julie, and she has been there since we were four years old. Most of my childhood memories include this lovely lady. She is the person I can say "remember when," and know what I am going to say before I even finish. She is the one that can make me laugh like no one else can, understands me for who I am. I think that she is amazing, an amazing mother and friend ( and I'm sure her husband would say wife). She is quite the crafter, has lots of style, and is a good cook. Of course I would love her just the same if she did not have any of these qualities, but they make her extra special. Currently Julie is going to nursing school, which is time consuming. So time consuming that since school has started we have been talking less and less, I try to give her time to study, and have time with her family, because that is what is most important. I am very proud of what she is doing, and she is motivating me to finish school for myself. I cannot wait for her to become a nurse, because its her dream! And selffishly I want my best friend back. But for now I will sit here quietly cheering her on, I just hope she does not forget about me.

Brotherly Love

I grew up with several and I mean several ( try six) siblings, and as much as we fought ( someone was always fighting someone) I loved that I always had someone to talk to and play with. So when Josh started talking to me about how he missed his brother and sister, I thought I should do something about it. It made no sense to me why he should feel like an only child when he clearly is not an only child. So, I talked to Hunters Grandma, who was taking care of him, and told her it was time for the boys to be together. That It was not fair to either one of them to be separated, it is not their fault that their mom has made the choices she made. So we started the boys out with weekend visits in September. Then in November, we went to weekly visits, and by Christmas Hunter moved in. It is so great to see how they interact. Josh loves being a big brother and teaching Hunter new things. His favorite thing to do is trying to get Hunter to say new words, as Hunter is almost two and is talking ALOT! The both have a love for cars, and usually they are fighting over the same cars, even if they both have the same cars. Ahh the love of siblings. It is also a blessing for me, because I have gotten to spend more time with Hunter, and he is the sweetest little guy, loves to cuddle. But at the same time he is the one who is demanding and yells alot, you can hear him say "NOW" with everything. He will come up to me witha juice cup and say "juice NOW". It is funny but I have to hold back the giggles, because he will only keep doing it. Winter break is almost over, and Josh usually loves school but he told me today he much rather stay home with Hunter all day, because he does not want his little brother to be alone. I think having his brother here is going to help him grow emotionally, and see that he does have a family.

I might go crazy, I might want to scream but I have to remember that it is all worthwhile... the boys will grow up together, but they will have those memories of loving, playing and fighting with eachother!