Day 5

Sorry for the post coming up late, but I had to be in the city for a good chunk of today.

Here’s today’s free gift:

--->Click to download<---

Day 4 Free Gift!

I can’t possibly begin to tell you how ready I am to be done with the whole free gifts deal. lol

First I was scrambling to get the gifts done in time for each posting, because ya’ know, I didn’t actually plan this out to well and get them all done before it all started… Then, I was stressed because I had no internet so there was no way I could get the free gifts all up before Christmas. I mean did I even want to continue it? Wouldn’t it be kinda silly once I finally got the internet back and all the Christmas season was over? But I kept plug-plug-plugging away working on the free gifts even though I wouldn’t be able to get them up on the blog on time. I decided that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t get the gifts up in time. I had gotten so many new views of the blog and people following the blog on Facebook, and it was all because of the other free gifts. I sort of felt I owed it to them all to follow through on the gifts.

Today’s gift is another template, and I do hope you all enjoy it.

--->CLICK TO DOWNLOAD<---

You can see the template in action here: First Crush | My Scrapbook Art

If you do follow me on Facebook you probably already saw this, but if not here are previews and a schedule of the other gifts coming this week.

The time away in pictures.

--December--

--January--

Saturday Scrapbooking

It’s too much to go back and update from when my internet first went out (I still used my mother’s computer to download the products I needed to work with) but here are my three favorites from during that time away.

(credits: 2 Generations of Sassy)

(credits: there is a fish)

(credits: 26 thoughts)

Totally by the way… did you know that my birthday was on the 7th? Yup, it was, I am now 26.

And now my pages for this week!

Traci (who happens to be guesting at The Lilypad this month!) had… um, four releases this week. A brush/doodle set, an AWESOME alpha, and two collaborations.



(Credits: on his seventh)

(Credits: Seven) Oh! Ryan’s birthday was on the 10th. My sweet angel is now, shocker, 7.

(Credits: sink bath)

And Darcy had these oh-so-cute sets. The font is a dingbat or you can get it in brush form. I used them up scattered around the background on the seven layout.

That’s it for this week’s pages! Well, I mean, there are like, more, but this is long enough and I need to get this done in enough time to still have it count as Saturday so I don’t end up with two posts on Sunday.

Hey, we’re back on.

So. I did a nice little vanishing act, didn’t I?

If you keep up with the blog on Facebook you hopefully saw on Christmas Eve the little announcement that I put out. John and I had a decision to make in mid-December. We could either pay the internet/cable bill, which lets be honest – right then we really didn’t even have the money for it anyway, or we could use that money to buy Christmas presents. See those cute faces up there? They scream “Buy me stuff!” It wasn’t even something we had to think twice on. John’s checks weren’t really even enough for us to just live on, let alone do cable/internet, AND Christmas. Thankfully, Santa did appear, and our family was just blessed all around. Never let anyone tell you that there is no such thing as Santa, because he is, and we got a good ol’ Christmas miracle up in my house.

You might remember that about the same time our internet died I also lost my job. Our PDO program was done, and even though my check wasn’t much it was a steady amount that we had to count on every week. And if you have ever had the main bulk of your family’s income be based on a commission check you know how nice it is even to have a small sum you can count on every week. We sorely, sorely, missed that steady little check.

Now, I don’t really know what was up with the shop John works at. I think it came down to a miscommunication or something between higher ups on the amount of work he was getting. Or I could be completely wrong about that. When John and my step-dad (they work together in different departments of the shop) got back to work after Christmas my step-dad went in and talked to the bosses and told them that something had to be done and immediately. After that John got a loan from the shop and his checks are finally back to normal.

It’s pretty amazing having someone willing to go in and fight some battles for you.

Well, we just got the internet and cable back on tonight – thank goodness!! – so I thought I would come on and update with WHY I went and did my vanishing act. For once it wasn’t just me NOT making the time and motivation to post. I’ll try to get everything back up to speed this weekend.

I could tell you how miserable Mason is.

I could tell you how miserable Mason is, however as a teething baby one expects him to be miserable. It is just an unfortunate side effect of the whole teething debacle.

Teething has basically shut Mason down.
He isn't sleeping for more than an hour at a time, he's refusing all solids. He's chewing so hard and often on his hands that those are hurting him too. He doesn't want to be put down, and his nose is so gross that now his eyes are steadily leaking gunk too.

He has three swollen areas of his gums; where the top two front teeth will be coming in and a bottom left tooth. He was like this right before corners of his teeth popped through on the bottom, so I hope it doesn’t last too much longer. All of my kids have always cut multiple teeth at once, but I’ve never had one get this miserable and icky during teething.

Yet the little dude still managed to smile every time I pointed the camera at him… I’ve trained him well.

Now lets talk about how the Mom is doing.

I am not doing well. Not one little bitty bit. I’m getting even less sleep than Mason because unlike him I can’t take any of those short naps during the day because I have Bella home. I can’t nap when she does because either Mason is awake or it’s too close to the time to pick the boys up. The few times it does seem like Mason and I will get a good amount of sleep at night Bella comes in to wake us up. I think this past week is the only time I have removed my daughter from my bed and told her to stay out of it and my room. She isn’t too happy with me.

When I am not trying to get sleep, and Mason is not trying to get sleep, I ‘m holding him. And he is rubbing his snotty gunky face on me, hitting my chest telling me he wants to nurse more – when he doesn’t, he just wants to latch on for comfort and I let him – or I am attempting to put him on the floor so I can quickly clean things up or go to the bathroom or eat. He screams at me the whole time. Or he crawls along behind me crying so pitifully. As usual since John had a bad day Friday he seems to think this qualifies him to not have to help with either child that is home and to walk around being in a pissy mood. I love my husband, and 99% of the time he’s great, but sometimes he can be really self-centered, this would be one of those times.

My lack of sleep and being able to really get even the most basic stuff done around the house is wearing on me. I’m short tempered and foul. Just ask Bella, I’m sure she’s willing to testify to that.

I’m going to go and start the roast for tonight then I’m going and waking John’s butt up so that he can be with Bella so that I can hopefully get a little more sleep while Mason is down.

New hair.

OHMUHGOODNESS! I’M A GINGER NOW!

UM, DUDE, YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A GINGER.

I’M A GINGER-ER GINGER NOW!

In case you are wondering where the last two free gifts are, I posted this to the blog’s Facebook account:

“If you are wondering about Wednesday and Fridays free gifts, well, I have one rockingly teething babe, so I'm lucky to even get on the actual computer and not just the Kindle. I hope to have those two, along with Mondays, on the blog by Monday afternoon.”