Sadness and healing

A friend of mine lost one of her sons yesterday. It has been a hard fight. He ended up in the Hospital about a month ago with lower abdominal pain. The doctors found a that he had bleeding in his intestines and thought that he might have colitis plus they had to insert a tube in his neck but I am unsure what it was for. He ended up getting a ecoli infection in that tube by his neck and it was not responding to treatment so the Doctors decided to fly him to Calgary to the Peter Lougheed Hospital were he would be under the care of several specialist with the hopes that they could get him better. For about 3 weeks it was all looking positive and then his body stopped responding to the drugs. Saturday afternoon the Doctors had exhausted all their knowledge and it was now a waiting game. Yesterday afternoon the Lord called him home and he left this earthly plane. I sit here writing this and cry. As a parent we should not have to watch our children suffer and die. My HEART hurts for my friends so much. I wish I could be there to give them hugs and to cry with them. I am so grate full that my children are all healthy and strong. Having found out that he has passed away makes me want to go and grab each of my children and just hug them close and not let go. I cant imagine what they are going through. I am so grateful for my beliefs and that I know without a dought that they will be together again for all time and eternity after this life. That is a huge comfort to know that should anything happen they will be a family again in our Heavenly Father's home. Their son is now free of pain and hurt, he is in the healing embrace of our Lord and I am sure he will be an angel watching over his loving mom.

Winter is here

Weather reports says it will snow for the next 3 days. Well this morning I woke up and saw blowing white stuff. It is sad really because the Christmas lights are not up outside yet and it is blowing like crazy. Temp is   -3 right now with it getting colder by this afternoon. Up to 5cm of snow but we wont know it because it is all blowing away. It rained last night before it snowed so the roads are going to be slick. Tyler started working today at 6am which is nice because he will then be home at 2pm. I start working next Monday at Cleo in the evenings. We have been seeing how Cara does without me in the evenings. Leaving her in the living room with Tyler or Michaela and then I hit my scrapbook room down the hall and stay there. If she doesn't see me or hear my voice she is fine. If she does see/hear me she crawls down the hall to me. It is very cute. She should be fine while I am gone. She is still nursing but eats foods to so they should be able to feed her something until I get home after 9pm. I look forward to working in the evenings as it will give me something to do and I love Cleo and the people I work with there. I would love to go back to full time but that will have to wait until the kids are in school, childcare is way to much money! Off to enjoy staying indoors and reading/stitching with the kidlets :)

Super Saturday

What a crazy weekend it has been. Relief Society had our Super Saturday and man it was busy. Had to take Cara with me because it was an all day event and she is not ready to stay home yet. She did really well in the morning playing in the playpen but come lunch and the afternoon she was not cooperating. Was able to feed her and get her to sleep for about an hour so I could go eat. All the homemade soups were wonderful and the squares too. I love my sweets, LOL. So the classes that I took were an beautiful Advent calendar that said "Tis the Season for CHRIST" then most of the squares had pictures of Christ on them. I used some pics of little children praying, sharing, etc. as well. It turned out wonderfully. Each one that was done turned out differently. I used snowflakes and blues for the card stock because I did not want it to be Christmas designs even though it is a Christmas decoration. I also attended a cupcake decorating class and am finally able to make roses out of icing! So excited that I can do that. Now just need to buy more tips since my have disappeared. Also made little tutus for the girls. Veronica's is a little large, oops and Cara's is a Tutu dress which still needs to get done. Plus made matching head bands for them.

Monday will be a busy day for me this week, Nov. 11 is a holiday so I have all the kids I normally babysit and my sisters 3 kids while my mom and Bill are in court to find out if they stay in custody or if my sister gets them back. They were here Thursday and Friday for the same reason and mom said it looks good that the kids will be staying in care. That means private guardianship for my mom and Bill. But Nicole's Lawyer still has to present his case and that happens on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday the Judge will also make a decision on what happens to the kids. I hope they stay with mom and Bill because they will at least get the help they need mentally and physically. If they go back to Nicole I can see that with in a year they will be back in care. There is no way she will be able to take care of the boys. She has not had them in over 2 years and has no clue at their behaviour issues or that there are mental problems too. She refuses to except the fact that both boys are ADHD, and that they need medication. She "feels" that is just a label. Fred has been diagnosed with ADHD and is on medication that seems to help him and it makes his life much more productive. Once a decision has been made I will post at let you all know. This whole process is very frustrating because the kids should of only been in care for a year and then this should of been in court, it was handle very poorly by social services and for the longest time they didn't think there was an issue with Nicole but now that all the experts have had a say in the case it just shows that she is incapable of taking care of kids.

Busy so busy

Sorry it has been over a month and I have not posted anything. I must put this onto my "To Do" list so that I can at the very least post something once a week. Well it is the start of November which means my favourite season. I LOVE winter time and Christmas. I love the snow, but hate the cold, I love all the decorated house, but hate putting up lights, and I love the spirit that seems to catch almost everyone. I cant wait to put up all my Christmas decorations and tree. I love a traditional Christmas so my house tends to be more classically decorated. I believe in the less is more and those things that do come out for decorations should reflect that. I need to get out my lights for the outside of the house because those have to go up before it snows. We left the clips up last year so just need to get out the light strings. If I remember correctly some of them need to be replaced. Will have to hit the dollar store soon to pick up a couple of things for gifts I am in the process of making. Going to do a lot of baking and hand that out to friends, you can never have too many homemade goodies at Christmas time.

OK so for Halloween, Veronica dressed up as Tigger of course and Opa is the one that found the costume and sent it to her. Cara wore Veronica's Tigger outfit from last year so I had to Tiggers. Michaela was a Druid Goddess and Fred was a wizard from one of the D&D books he is reading. Saturday I took the 2 littlest ones to the Trunk & Treat at the church, Veronica loved it going from each car saying "Treat peas". Sunday Michaela had a concert down at the mall and they were to wear their costumes. Then once she was done we went and stopped at Jason & his Girlfriends place were the kids got popcorn balls, Yum. Then off to pick up Tyler and show off the costumes to Shaun's mom. Once we got home Tyler took Veronica out trick or treating. She LOVED it but I think she loved handing out the candy to the kids once she got home too.
Cara is moving all over the place. She went from rolling to creeping in 1 1/2 weeks. Now she is combat crawling and trying to get up on her hands and knees. She is already very quick and I am not completely looking forward to the real crawl because then it will be next to impossible to keep her somewhere. She has even started to follow me down the hall to my scrap booking room to be close to me. She is a mamma's girl for sure. She is being very difficult when it comes to learning to eat solids. If she can put it in her mouth then she is willing to eat it. I have found a few things she will let me feed her. Yogurt, Vanilla custard, chocolate pudding and of course french fries.
Well that should bring everyone up to date. I will do my darnedest to post something new within the next 7 days. Until then have a wonderful life everyone.

Crafts

So I love crafts. Anyone that knows me, knows I love to cross stitch and my second favourite past time is scrap booking which has evolved into any paper crafts and altering items, LOL. I said to Tyler a couple of months ago that I would LOVE to learn about cake decorating, his response was "don't you have enough hobbies?" Well I will put the cake decorating on hold for now because it really doesn't fit into my busy life. So now my days consist of watching kids, my own and others, house duties, crafting and if I am lucky until Hockey season starts watching my favourite shows, Bones, Criminal Minds, House, Smallville, Fringe and Dances with the Stars. Add on top of that, time on the computer maybe playing WOW (world of warcraft), Facebook, correspondences, church callings, and 2 blogs. Yes 2 blogs, this one for my journal and one just to showcase my creative designs, which I hope to start selling my cross stitch from in a couple of months.  If you want to check it out here is the address http://drayia.blogspot.com/ . My friends think I am insane or a superwoman because all I do, I just laugh because there is so much more that I should do but don't and they just see the surface things. They still tell me I am amazing and I just shrug and just keep going. Most of what I do helps keep me from going crazy because watching little kids all day can drive me nuts, I love it and love the age that I watch but some days when they are all whiny or screaming I just want to run away. So my crafts and most importantly my cross stitch gives me the patience I need to deal with them day in and day out.

One of those weeks

I have no idea were this week went. Doesn't seem like I got anything done but Friday is here already. Have you ever had one of those weeks were everyday seems to continue even if you have had sleep. That's what if feels like to me. I know I have been very busy but it doesn't look like it. There is still so much to do. I have to finish my paper work to take Jason back to court, I will not go in to that here as this blog is for my family and not for me to vent. Laundry, clean the downstairs which is our main living space, move somethings around, help Michaela go through her closet and organize it so that somethings can be moved around. Need to measure her room and plan how I am going to put Veronica and Cara in there this February. Measure the office, were Cara is now and plan on how I am going to fit my scrapbook stuff in there. I like it all to be planned out before I move everyone around. Come February every one's room is changing except Tyler's and mine. It will be a pain but is needed. Veronica and Cara get the master bedroom upstairs, Fred moves into Veronica's room, and Michaela moves into Fred's room. All my scrappy stuff which is in the master bedroom downstairs moves into the office and we get our Bedroom back which will be nice. Looks like we will be staying here even if the rent goes up, wanted to get into a rent-to-own but so far not possible. They want a 3% down for you to move into their houses, if I had a down payment or was able to save one I would not want to go into a rent to own I would just go to the bank for a mortgage. Oh well we will see how things go in the spring. Anyways off I go to get started on my list of things to do for Friday so that my weekend can be somewhat free of chores :D

Pasttimes

I have hobbies as I am sure everyone has. I have always loved to make things with my hands but never thought of myself as that creative. My mom's opinion is I am very creative but then moms are suppose to be supportive no matter how bad we actually are. I have been scrap booking for years, way back when all you did was crop, punch, journal and add some flat stickers and that was a page. Of course scrap booking has become so much more now a days. There are some truly gorgeous layouts out there. I still consider myself to be a basic, simple scrap booker even if everything I do has to have some sort of bling on it. My hobby started out as an obsession with colour, glitter, scent, etc pens. Figured I use put all these pens to use that I was buying and collecting. Tried my hand at scrap booking when Michaela was 5, she is now 16. That first summer I spent over $500, I know this because I had a punch card at the store and had to get a second one by August of 2005. I finished Michaela's album until she was 6, Jason and mine wedding album, Frederick's first 3 years and a general family album. Then I stopped for no reason then the fact Jason did not like my work nor the fact that I cropped the pics I used. When I got remarried and pregnant it was time to start again. I have a ton of pics to do, from when Michaela and Frederick were young to now. I have Veronica's first year layouts done but not all the pics printed. I have layouts for Cara's album but again need to print out the pics. Want to start on a album for Michaela to give her when she graduates next year so have to start on that. Need to start on a album Tyler & my wedding as well as a general family album too.
Now in the last 3 years I joined sb.com and have been doing swaps and building up my supplies, which now I must start to use :) In the last year I have started to do card making as well, which I find very fun to do. This past summer I started to alter things for my scrap room which I one day will have, as well as doing some very creative swaps that have nothing to do with scrap booking but push my comfort zone in creativity. All this is good as once Veronica and Cara are in school, in 5 years, I will be going back to work. I will be going after a management job with my favourite store here called Scrapbookers Paradise. It seems that every 10 months or so they are looking for a manager, from what the staff is willing to tell me it is because the ppl they keep hiring have no clue when it comes to management and are limited in their creativity. I am hoping that when I am ready to come back to work that I will have quite a portfolio of different paper crafts/creations for them to see as well as my previous experience working for a national retail store in Management. I know that is far in the future but it never hurts to start planning now.