Wonder"Fall" Crop at MSAM + my projects

My Scraps & More is hosting a Wonder"Fall" crop this weekend/first half of the week. Each of the DT members, and Tammi, has put up 2-3 fun Fall challenges. All challenges will be due by midnight on Wednesday, September 28th. Complete at least 1/2 of the challenges and go into a drawing for the "Finally Fall" collection by Bella Blvd.

Here are the projects I created. To check out the challenges, head on over to My Scraps and More!

My "Trick or Treat" challenge:

and my color challenge:

Be sure to join us in October as My Scraps & More is having a month long sketch contest! Each weekday a new sketch will be unveiled on the forums along with a challenge from a design team member. At the end of each week, a winner will be drawn from all that participated to receive a great scrappy prize! Many challenges will even have RAK’s involved!! Head over to the forums at My Scraps & More to sign up today! This contest runs from Oct 3rd – Oct. 31st.

Have a wonderful week! I hope to see you on the boards. :)

some cards for a blog hop

I came across a blog hop for Paper Secrets via a friend on facebook- it looked like a fun hop and challenge, and I have been itching to create, so I jumped right in. The challenges were to use a card sketch with a twist to each one; using a specific item along with the sketch. Here is a link.

Here are the cards I created:

Ashlyn is still sick, Skye is sick, and I am starting to get sick. I hope I can keep it at bay. I plan to lie low today and watch football, read a bit, work on homework with Ashlyn and maybe scrap.
Have a great week!

school and layouts to share

School got off to a great start for the girls! Ashlyn adjusted very well- much to the delight of us and her therapist. We did start off with a few kinks, but by the second day, things were quickly changed to meet her needs. She was pulled from PE on the first day of her having to do it, and was instead placed into a core math class- both things I had requested, but were denied prior to school starting. She was also placed under the care of a nurses aide, so she gets two welfare checks during the day and this same aide delivers her formula to her for both lunch and 5th period. She is a wonderful woman and I am thankful that we have her to look out for Ashlyn.

I really wasn't sure that this was going to work out, but now that I know she is being cared for in the ways that she needs, I feel so much better about sending her. We will still have to work on meeting her nutritional needs trhoughout the day, but that will have to be adjusted as needed, and the school acted immediately upon my first request to provide her with more formula so this will not be an issue. Tomorrow morning we meet to complete her officical 504 plan. Her therapist has spoken with the school counselor to express her opinions on Ashlyn's needs and we will bring all these ideas to a formal proposal which will then be passed to each of her teachers. So far they have been wonderful and I think this will be a successful year- provided she can stay healthy. She is already sick and this will be day 2 missed, with tomorrow being another day at home as well. Her body has a lot of adjusting to undergo and hopefully she'll be able to manage this.

here she is on her first day (Sept. 7th):

Skylar is also attending the high school this year. She is super excited because she got some primo classes, that are REALLY hard to get into, especially as a Sophomore. Seniors and Jr's take priority, but somehow even with this, she made the cut for both of them; Technical Theatre (class started with 25 kids, and was cut down to 13 after the first 3 days- she made the cut- woot!) and Video Media Production. She will more than likely be the news anchor for the school tv news network- her teacher likes her vibrant and bubbly and friendly personality and thinks she will be a great success on "TV". She is over the moon excited about both of these classes and is sure to learn a lot.

Skye on her first day:

Emily is a Junior and although she did not get most of the electives she wanted, she got some great art classes- she is really great with art! and manged she also get into Biology, which is huge for her. She is in most IEP academic classes, so for her to be placed into a "regular" science class is exciting for her. Both her and Skye are in biology but have different teachers, thankfully. I was a bit concerned that they might end up in the same class at the same time with the same teacher.
Emily on her first day:


Here are some recent layouts and a card I created for some of my challenges on My Scraps and More:

 

one more thing before I leave you: My Scraps & More is having a mini crop and we would love for you to play along! The crop will be held on Saturday, September 24th and all challenges will be due by the end of the day on September 28th. The winner will walk away with the "Finally Fall" collection from Bella Blvd.! Head to the message board and get yourself signed up today!

more crop layouts and Ashlyn update.

It has been a crazy week around here. On Tuesday, Kenny and I took Ashlyn to Seattle for her GI appt. Overall she is looking good, just a few small isses- she is having some tests run to determine the course of action for them. She was also enrolled in a 20 year study, which is pretty cool! She get's a $20 check every six months for the next 20 years to answer a few health questions, mostly about how her disease affects school, social life and work. The dr. provides all the medical info. The purpose of the study is to track these kids and see how the early onset of disease affects their teens, 20's and even early/mid 30's. As well as the medication effects, as the kids use adult medications because that is all that is available. It's the first of it's kind and ultimately the goal is to develop new ideas for future generations. We decided to do it as a day trip- which equals about 10 hours of driving, but I was glad to have done it that way.

Ashlyn had her "first" day of Middle School on Thursday. All the 6th graders, were brought in for 3 hours in which they were able to get their schedule, locker, textbooks, and go through a shortened day traveling from each class and navigating the hallways. It was very overwhelming for her, but overall she did OK. Unfortunately, the school cannot locate all the medical notes that I had the dr's fax over in early June, so until those papers are in, she cannot qualify for a 504 or anything. This is so frustrating to me as I wanted everything set up and ready to go before she began school. Now, we will have to wait 3 weeks for a formal 504 meeting. I scrambled yesterday to get the papers to the dr's and wasn't successful- as it is a holiday weekend. I am hoping Tuesday will be more successful. All this time I have had to waste the past few days because of an error on their behalf. AND this directly affects Ashlyn. They didn't even have the relase for the school counselor to speak with Ashlyn's therapist, who really feels that it is important that certain things happen before Ashlyn starts school- but now they are telling me to come back on the first day and they "hope" to have the form I need. It's a really good thing that I have learned the art of patience and am able to breathe through this situation and handle it maturely. I am boiling inside, but anger will not help. I just need to continue to be focued and get done what needs to get done.

Anywho--- here are two more layouts I created using some challenges from the MSAM crop. All projects are due tomorrow, so there is still time to play. I was unable to finish all the challenges like I had hoped, but with a full week, it was difficult to keep my focus.

And this layout is from the weekly {stash} challenge I was hosting on 8/30. The challenge I posted was to use a not-so-great photo on your layout as well as supplies over 6 months old.

Off for now. Have a wonderful weekend all! :)