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Happy Sunday! :) I am finally uploading the Valentine's Day banner that I made for Skylar. Late is better than never, right?

That's it for today. Have a wonderful day!

update on Ashlyn and a layout to share

Hi! We had several beautiful days earlier in the week and I took full advantage of them! I did a lot of work in both our front and back yards, which were neglected last year due to Ashlyn's health and her multiple dr. appt's every single week. Although she is still not healthy, my mind is in a better place and I want to have a pretty yard/garden again (OK, I'll settle for decent).

I came across a blog this week, Designs By Ashley Rock, and she has a couple of sketch challenges this month. She has some wonderful sketches and I was eager to give one a try. Here is my take on the monthly sketch which you can find here:

I also incorportated the last of the Throwdown challenges over at Memorable Seasons on this. AND I tried something new for me- tape! The strips are tape that I adhered to white cardstock and then cut down. The tape is really fun, and I am sure I will be using it again real soon. :)

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and here is an update on Ashlyn:
I took her to her GI doc in Seattle on Wednesday and Overall, things are looking OK with Ashlyn. There are going to be several medicine changes over the next few weeks. She's dropping 4 meds over the next few weeks, one which we have already stopped. Her GI doc has been doing some research and reviewing her file, and she beleives that the nerves along Ashlyn's gi tract are damaged due to years of undiagnosed inflammation, so she is going to start taking GABAPENTIN for the nerve pain in about 3 weeks, as well as starting a medication used to treat siezures- but this one will not be added for several more weeks, if not a few months. Then pending the results of her bloodwork she had done on Wed., she wants to treat Ashlyn's Crohn's more aggresively, so if all is well, then she will up the Mercaptopurine, but we won't know until sometime mid next week if she will be able to handle this. This will also cause her immunity to lower even more than it is now- however, with Summer break just weeks away, this is the best time since her exposure to others can be extremely monitored and limited.


The NG tube is also not coming out anytime soon, in fact she is going to remain on a formla diet for at least another 8 weeks before we try to re-introduce solid foods. Since she presented with a lot of inflamation and diease in her stomach (which is rare for Crohn's), this will hopeully help it to settle down, if not then she will get a permanet g-tube and will only have a liquid diet. She has issues with her feeds already, and are running the pump super slow - hence the reason for the continual clogs (we've had to change her tube 3 times in the 6 weeks she's had it and she should be able to go 6 weeks without changing it). We did try a different tube on Tuesday, and it is working a lot better. I hope this will work until we need to replace it in 6 weeks.

For now we just continue to take it day by day, even hour by hour at times. I know she'll feel better soon, it's just going to take a lot longer than we had hoped and expected. She's had a lot of setbacks, but the important thing is that she has continued to make some forward progress. Slowly but surely she'll get "healthy" again.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

more Memorable Seasons LYB Saturdays....

I finished off my last projects of the month using the Little Yellow Bicycle Saturdays collection that you can find here in the Memorable Seasons store. I really enjoyed this collection!

I created this card for Audrey's appetizer challenge last week. The rubons are Fancy Pants Designs and are
from my stash. They were perfect for the organic feel of this card.

I also have the layout I created for Audrey's Throwdown challenge last week. This week is the last week and I have ejoyed each challenge. I'll have my card and layout for Joni's challenges in a few days.

I really like how this layout turned out! It's pretty much just scraps and some old Fancy Pants Designs chipboard pieces that I have been hoarding, I mean saving. ;)

One more thing before I sign off... Memorable Seasons is having a DT call. You can get all the info HERE on the blog.

Be sure to check out all the new arrivals in the What's New section of the Memorable Seasons store.

Have a beautiful weekend! It's supposed to be a pretty nice one here! I do work this weekend, but will enjoy what I can. :)

Easter bottle sets

Hi! Today it's short and sweet. I have the sets of Easter bottles I made for Skylar and Emily. I used one of the cute new Jillibean collections, Southern Chicken Dumpling Soup for them. I actually bought this collection with this idea in mind and they turned out even better than I would have imagined.

Skylar gotr the bunny set and Emily got the chick set. They loved them, especially how I used the phrases along the bottles. Makes my heart happy.

That's it for today. Take it easy. :)

MIA and some layouts

Hi! :) I was MIA for awhile because my step-dd, Meghan, came home for a 9 day visit and I wanted to enjoy every moment I had with her! She is in the Navy and is stationed in Japan, and the last time we saw her was about 16 months ago. We had a great time just hanging out and really doing a bunch of nothing, but that is really all that she wanted to do. Her visit was refreshing for all of us. We really do not know the next time we will get to see her, so we needed to make every moment count.

Here is a photo of her and Ashlyn:

and her and Skylar:

these were taken by Meghan on her phone- and you know what, I didn't take a single photo of her or us while she was here. At all. What on earth was I thinking?!!!! I just got so caught up in having her home that I never once thought about taking a photo. I get the epic fail award for this one :(

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Today I will share the remaining three layouts I created for the My Scraps And More March Lift It challenge.

See you soon! :)

My April Memorable Seasons kit

Hello! This month I got to work with the beautiful Saturdays collection by Little Yellow Bicycle. These papers remind me of being on a beach and I had a few photos that were perfect for my vision. You can find them HERE in the Memorable Seasons store.

Here are two layouts and a card I have created so far:

The Shell Seeking layout was created for the week 4 Throwdown challenge which is Wendy's main course- pizza. To see this weeks challenges (and previous), you can go here.  

On a HAPPY Note- my stepdd Meghan arrived from Japan late last night! WOHOO!!! :) She's going to be here for 9 wonderful days before she heads back. She's in the Navy and stationed over there- we haven't seen her since Christmas of 2010, so it's a true blessing that she is here with us. We've missed her so much and it,s been extremely hard for her to be so far away from home and her family. We plan to enjoy and cherish each precious moment we have with her.  :)

April SWAT sketch layout and more layouts

hello! Today I have the April sketch to share from Sketches With A Twist.

Here is the sketch this month:

the Twist is to use mesh of any kind on your project. It could be Magic Mesh, mesh from a fruitbag, or any kind of mesh you can find in your household.

I had a lot of fun with the sketch. I used some Magic Mesh and yellow tulle on my layout:

If you'd like to join in on the challenge this month head on over to the SWAT blog for all the details.

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I have several more layouts to share that I created from the Let's Lift It challenge that was hosted last month over at My Scraps And More.

Here are a few:

that'll be it for today, although I still have 3 more layouts I completed for the challenges to share with you soon- I also have Skylar's Valentines Day banner I forgot all about.

I hope your week is off to a great start! :)

LCTS #126 and some other layouts to share

Here is the fabulous sketch #126 from Let's Capture These Sketches:

I had so much fun working with this one! Here is my layout:

I love this new collection from Echo Park! I also used some of my wooden treasures that I have been hoarding from Pink Paislee and Studio Calico.

You can check out what the other amazing girls did with this sketch here.

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My Scraps and More hosted a "Let' Lift It" challenge during March. I was really excited for the challenges. Unfortunately I didn't get to over half of the lift challenges, however I did manage to get 13 layouts done, and dug into my stash for a few of them as well, so I am happy with that.

Here are a few of my layouts for this fun challenge:

(and yes, I did spell CHLOE incorrectly on this layout, but it is fixed now- I love it when I do that. lol)

I'll share a few more tomorrow. :)