I'm still here.

Hey Everyone! I'm still here.

The past few months I haven't been on forums, chat rooms, etc. I've missed everyone, but I realize that I spent way too much time on all that and although I connected with many and made many friends, I wasn't getting anything done creatively or doing what I enjoy. I've mainly been on facebook as it's a place I can connect with scrappy friends and the others that don't scrap.

The big news is that we are SO close to purchasing a new home. This is something I've dreamed of for the past year. I feel it'll be a great start for my family and I in a new location, meet new people and my kiddo's will have a TON of room to roam. The hardest thing is the financing right now due to our apartment rentals and all that brings along. BUT, I'm not giving up hope yet on that. I know something will work out.

Well lunch is over and I need to head back to work. I hope to post more some day soon :)

I really am a horrible blogger. Just haven't felt up to blogging, I have thought in my head of blogging and think about things to blog about...but never get it on "paper".

However Drea has given me a reason to. I received the above blogging award, what a great reason to blog!

Here's the dealio...

*Say thank you and give a link to the presenter of the award
*Share “10 Honest Things” about myself
*Present the award to 9 other bloggers whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design or to those who have encouraged me
*Be sure to tell the 9 bloggers chosen that you are giving them the Honest Scrap award and provide the guidelines for them

So now I will tell you 10 things about me:

1. I listen to Christian music in the car when I'm alone. It's my quiet time during the busy hustle and bustle. There really are some great bands out there with meaningful messages.

2. I won't be winning mother of the year anytime soon. There are so many things I do wrong or could do better. Oh well. They have a roof over their heads, food on the table and they aren't in jail. Win, Win.

3. I love to laugh. I surround myself with funny people that keep me smiling and laughing all day. Sorry if you are not my friend. Must mean you aren't funny.

4. If I didn't scrap I don't know what I would do. Being creative is my therapy and my way to escape the real world.

5. Honestly I don't know that I can come up with 5 more things.

6. I am hugely self conscious.

7. One of my biggest dreams in life is to get my degree and graduate from college.

8. Hi, my name is Wendy and I have OCD.

9. Only one more honest thing to think of.

10. I eat raw cookie dough. I have a very soft spot for sweets and could eat candy and anything else that is not good for you all day long!

Instead of tagging people (I'm too lazy to hyperlink their names, etc), if you are reading this, thank you, I want you to steal this award and post these 10 honest things on your blog too!
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Well not much is going on. Life is good.

I'm heading to four day scrapbook retreat next weekend and I can't wait. I'm so excited to spend four days with myself and paper. No kids. No husband. My mp3 and I are going to melt away the worries of life and just scrap. Did I mention I will be receiving a massage while I'm there too? Well, I am and I can't wait for that also! My back has really been hurting lately and I haven't been sleeping well so I think the four days of rest and relaxation is needed.

I hear from a lot that I go away to scrapbook things a lot. Yes, I do. I actually take offense from a few that make it sound like I don't spend the time with my family that I should. That going and having fun, scrapbooking, etc ... that time should be spent at home.

I'm proud that I am able to do what I'm able to do. I have a very supportive husband that has his hobbies and so he kicks me out the door often to go do my own thing. The kids are in very capable hands while I'm gone. I miss them tremendously while I'm gone, but I also need my time to myself.

I also do what I do to support a local company/business. I really enjoy my local scrapbook store owner and anything I can do to keep her business going I will. I know that I am blessed to have extra cha-ching to go and enjoy my hobby and to have the family that supports it.

I will have photo's soon of Olivia's first dance performance. She was in a parade, but didn't perform. This time they will actually be dancing. I'm super excited to see it tomorrow!

Signing off for now. I hope to post again soon.

Hey Peeps!

Here are just a couple photo's from ScrapFest. I will take photo's of creations next week after I attend another crop this weekend.

Here is Olivia helping Mom take photo's and put things away. These are just a few of the goodies from Stampendous. Ok, the Hi rubon's shouldn't have been in the photo lol.

Here are the two of us.

Not much other than that is new. I'm going to a Scrap Pink crop this weekend locally and am super excited. There is a group of us gals that gather a few times a year and we have SUCH a great time. This year we will NOT be drinking! The "just one" last year turned into an entire night and we never made it back to the crop. I'm off today at lunch to find some fun shirts to wear..."Boobs Rock"..."Save the Boobies"...etc. My husband will LOVE the shirts and women will appreciate it for other reasons.

I will be posting photo's of creations soon. Right now everything is packed up.

The weather...can I just say we are on borrowed time?! It's been so beautiful outside and each day that it continues means one less day of ... ugh ... *winter*.

ScrapFest Hangover

I have a hangover. No, not from alcohol. It's from ScrapFest 09. This hangover not only affected me, but my pocketbook. It was so worth it all though.

I'll post photo's later. I'll give you a little run down now.

Friday - I left West Fargo and headed to St. Cloud to pick up Renee. I've met her one other time, but know her well from online. It's fun to be with new people, we got along great and never had a moment where we weren't visiting (or gawking at the strange people in the MOA).

We went to our first crop of the weekend at the Coon Rapids Archiver's. This crop was sponsored by EK Success. They gave a few give aways, visited a bit, we ate, scrapped and left. Now, I am a good driver. I really am. However, this night I must have been more tired that I realized. We had a little issue, ok, we had two issues on the drive to the hotel. It was late, dark and luckily we didn't end up with a flat tire. (We did have a good laugh about it and I still chuckle outloud now and then thinking about it)

Saturday was jam packed with fun stuff. I took in two workshops. The first one ROCKED! I was SO pleased with Scrappy Cat. Holy wow batman. The workshop was to do a 12x12 album. They gave us the album, paper and TONS of embellishments. It was way more product than what we paid for the workshop. And the products are fabulous. I have another crop this weekend locally and these album pages are something I'm going to work on. It was nice to have pages put together that I can just add photo's and embellish. THANK YOU SCRAPPY CAT.

The second workshop I did that day was Hero Arts. They have very cute stamps and we put together some fun cards.

We attended another crop that night in Maple Grove. Stampendous. WOW. They supplied us with more goodies than I can describe. Include the cutest apron.

I'll be showing you photo's soon and you'll see how generous Stampendous was!

I'm going to crawl into bed now. I'll return soon :)

Night night.

I'm off!

I'm super excited. I'm heading out the door in just moments and heading to ScrapFest! Tonight is a crop, tomorrow workshops, another crop tomorrow night and even more workshops on Sunday.

Another reason I'm excited is I'm heading there with a dear friend Renee I met online. We are going to have a lot of fun, we'll see how much we scrap...I'm sure we'll be chatting away!

I'm also going to stop by Crafts Direct first in St. Cloud to pick her up. YES, it's going to be dangerous to be shopping for scrap goodies even before we get to Minneapolis.

I'll miss you all but will return with TONS of photo's and other fun goodies!

BUSY week.

This week has been packed with meetings and doing appreciation things at work. For me it feels that things I have busy weeks and weeks where it's quiet. Things are not spread out. But I enjoy doing things for others so it's been a fun week.

Last night I had a Basic Grey class at my LSS. I dread leaving the house and family to do these things because I feel there are more important things to be done, but it's so fun once I get there. We work on beautiful layouts and I really enjoy catching up with my fellow scrapbookers.

Tonight is dance for Olivia. I'm really excited :). She's super cute and I can't wait to see how she does in her second class of the year. She did very well the last time, for her that means she attended without crying.

Then I'm watching Big Brother! I can't wait to see who wins and have them all be together to hash things out. Plus I think Julie (host) will be glad that the show is over, she must be 12 months pregnant.

It's a three day work week for me! Wahoo. I don't have daycare Thurs and Fri so I'm going to stay home with the kiddo's. Plus I'm heading to Minneapolis this weekend to attend Scrapfest with Renee. I can't wait to spend some quality time with her and my paper.

Four day weekend. Gotta love it

Summer. Over.

This weekend will be one of our last at the lakes. It's kinda cold today too, but I'm hoping we can enjoy the day at the lakes.

We have flag football, then it's off to a Cub Scout event. Then...we are leavin' town!

I have the cutest GeoCaching journal I made. I can't wait to get photo's and post it on etsy. I'm finding that if I just get into the craft room for a few minutes here or there, I get a lot done. This morning I went in for 1/2 hour and got a lot packed for ScrapFest next weekend.

I'm hoping I have some fun photo's from today, if so I'll post them!

An afternoon to myself.

This afternoon was nice. Ok, so only a few hours, however I did get a lot done during this time. I had the house to myself and it was great.

I blasted 80's music XM Radio on Direct TV. I was so into what I was doing that I didn't even realize there was a funnel cloud above our house. A coworker called me wondering if I was in the basement. Looking out the window it was beautiful outside. Well after I walked outside the sirens were going and there were dark clouds. I was shocked lol. It ended up that it was cold air funnel clouds. I guess those are not dangerous? lol Some excitement for the afternoon.

I have a lot to do on my list. #1 - clean - some of this I got done but there is a lot more to do. #2 - make Olivia's puppy dance costume for an upcoming parade - CHECK! #3 - work on Etsy stuff - some of this is done, but I have more I want to add to the store and make #4 - make posters for cub scouts - I have this to do yet, need tagboard #5 - start packing for ScrapFest at Mall of America - um yah, this is going to take awhile.

So here are some fun things that I was able to get into my Etsy Shop today. You can find these Blessings - Glass Beads - HERE.

I've had a great time making some GeoCaching items!

This is a fun hobby our family has had a great time doing lately.

Here are some glass beads that can be left as caches, made into magnets or jewelry.

You can find the listing HERE.

Some more fun glass beads you can find HERE.

So I'm off to work more on LilyPadCraftStudio. It's been fun to get back into things that I love to do. Playing with glue lately has been great! It's been so busy for our family that doing crafty things has been nice.

Fun!

This is my cousin, he's someone who you think will beat the crap out of you...but he is the nicest person you would ever meet instead.

We had a great time this past weekend. It's great how an extra day can really make the weekend seem so long and enjoyable. The weather was perfect! As I sit and listen to the rain coming down really heavy and filling the storm drains I realize how great last week really was.

Growing up we always had my cousins at my grandparents lake place to play with and we were there all the time. My kids don't have cousins around here, however my cousins are young at heart and we all have such a great time. I'm still waiting on some major blood and scraps. We've had some tears but my boys are learning how to be tough lol.

This past weekend I played Bunco for the first time! It's a fun game. Some of us at work are starting up a Bunco night each month. The competative bone in my body can't wait!

I am not going back to school. It's too expensive. So I revert back to my "being mom" identity for now and hope it's possible down the road.

I made some awesome Geocaching items to sell on Etsy. I love how they turned out and can't wait to get photo's of them to put up on Etsy. I turned off my store when Olivia had happens going on and we were out of town. Never got back to it. However now I'm finding some fun things to make and am going to try and get them up this week.

Olivia had dance tonight. She did great. No tears! She didn't do the dance moves, more just looked around and watched the others. But maybe in a few weeks she'll start shakin' her booty.

Lucas starts soccer tomorrow night and it didn't come soon enough. This child is BURSTING at the seams to start soccer. He's watched his brother all these years and now it's HIS turn! Praise the Lord that Wednesday is here.

I'm signing off. I hope to update more soon with photo's of Lucas at soccer and some Etsy things for sale!

It's been awhile since I've blogged, no excuses.

Let's see what's been going on. Matthew started school last week and with that Football started tonight as well. School is going great for him and I think 5th grade will be a good challenge for him.

Lucas starts another year of preschool, we have the best daycare ever. He also starts soccer next week. He CAN'T WAIT to get started. He's seen big brother do so much lately that he really wants to do things too.

Olivia is doing GREAT. I still can't get over how overwhelmed I was when she was having the seizures. Life seemed to stop. I was so prepared for the worst and having a lifetime of her having them. I felt her whole future flash in front of me. The next day, she was ok. *Poof* Just like that her seizures are gone. A great friend Melissa said "it's someone's way to remind you they are there". I thought that was very well said! Thanks Melissa :)

I haven't really created much lately. I've worked on some things for work, but that is about it. I have two up coming crops and they are going to be ME time. I'm organizing things at night when the kiddo's are in bed so I can be ready. This also helps me keep the scrap room clean and at least I can touch scrappy goodness being I haven't played with it much.

Chris and I visited with the lawyer today to obtain another 12 apartment units. I can't believe the deal that Chris was able to work out to buy the buildings. What Chris has done for our rentals is amazing. He's really done well and it's a good supplement for his insurance business. I really can't and shouldn't complain when he's working on the buildings in the evenings, etc because it puts the bread on the table.

We are having a gathering at the lakes this weekend. I love to entertain and I'm glad that our lake place is somewhat capable now of being able to have people over.

I'm trying to reconnect with my online friends. Those on facebook I "see" daily. The others such as blogs and forums...I'm trying to get in the swing of things again.

On top of the Allen hustle and bustle. I'm thinking of going back to work. I think it is a really far fetched idea. I've wanted to finish school for awhile now. Not that a degree would further my career, but it's always been on my "to do" list. The issue is...money. We don't want to go into debt because of it. But it's so expensive. I'd have to give up some of the things we are able to do now. And it would mean even less time for my online friends. But it's something I really want to do. I meet with the college on Thursday afternoon so we'll see what they say about tuition.

Big Brother sucks. Natalie, Michelle and Kevin should have been gone along time ago. They have been riding the coat tails of all the strong players and now when it matters they decide to start playing the game. It's the lesser of the three evils winning. The only hope is that Jordan leaves instead of Jeff but we all know that isn't going to happen. Jeff is too big of a player for them to keep him in the house.

So I'm signing off now. I'm going to try and be a better friend and visit some blogs :)