Take the Time

I have heard about a couple suicides recently and it always deeply saddens me. When I was in 8th grade a very close friend of mine committed suicide. I remember the day like it was yesterday. Death impacts us no matter who it is or how they die. But for me his suicide was the hardest death for me. The loss feels greater because he chose to leave this earth, he chose to end his life. I think teen suicide is the worst because as a teen you do things so impulsively. You don't think things out, you just act. I think so many teens would change their minds if they just spent a little more time thinking about it before they did it. I remember being so devastated when I got the news my friend had committed suicide. You are left with this feeling that you failed them, that you should have done more, said more. Even though you aren't responsible, you feel responsible. And that feeling just never goes away. 

Yesterday I got word that my step-nephew committed suicide. He was just 15 years old. He had his whole life ahead of him, and he was feeling so bad about his life that he decided to end it before it was really started. I wasn't close to him because of the miles between us, but many members of my family are deeply feeling this loss and therefore I am as well. I know how they are feeling. And I feel helpless because there is nothing I can do to help them. I can't imagine wanting to die before you have had a chance to live. I pray each night for God to allow me to live on earth as long as possible so I can feel like I lived a full life here before I die. As I am praying to live, there are others like my friend and my step-nephew that are praying to die. 

That is why it is important to not get mad at the person that cuts you off in traffic, or bumps into you in the grocery store. That is why it is important to wave and smile at others even if they don't look happy or interested. That is why it is important to tell others how much they mean to you or compliment them on something. Hug them tight and take time to listen to what they need to say. Take the time to visit and touch base with others you care about every day. Facebook helps to make that easier to accomplish than we ever could before. You never know when that one smile, wave, or kind word might make someone that was contemplating death want to live another day.

Inspiration

So I have been reading some blogs lately and remembered that I actually had a blog forever ago! Because I have been enjoying reading blogs, I decided that I would probably really enjoy posting in one again! So I found mine! :) And luckily it still exists! One of the blogs I have been reading said that she keeps her blog (and saves her entries in pdf on her computer) so she can save the memories for her children to read later in life! I thought that was an awesome idea! I always mean to write things down in a notebook or in their baby books, but sadly I never get it done. And yes I have tons of pictures to scrapbook (when I have time-most likely when they are grown lol) but sometimes I worry that when I am scrapbooking the pictures I might not remember all the details of the moments. If I blog the funny stuff and save and print it, I will have it written as it happened. Nice clear details :) . So that is the new plan. I am going to blog those funny, happy, silly, sad, and special things. Not just my kids' but also my daycare kids too. I never want to forget their smiley faces or funny, special moments either. Added into that I will blog about the frustrations and other moments too. And probably, eventually, my creative projects too. And be prepared for lots of pictures to go along with it all! :) So here are the first pictures I am going to share. My silly boys playing in a black rope tub! It's amazing how much fun they can have together with something so simple! These are the magical moments! :)

Time Flies...

But of course everyone knows this. It just seems like sometimes you have one of those moments where it is more obvious...like it smacks you in the face! I think having children makes it more so too. You look back at an old picture or they do something totally "big kid" and you are like "where did time go?" "when did they get so smart?". I can't believe it is March 2010! I swear it just seems like I was a senior in high school...but of course then I realize that was fifteen years ago! I am thinking...seriously fifteen years has gone by already!?!?!

I am feeling accomplished...I finally finished Xavier's birth to one year scrapbook of his professional pictures. I have managed to do a few layouts in his birth to one year scrapbook of snapshots. I honestly printed enough pictures to do at least two books I think. But I am limiting myself to scrapping just one book a year. And considering he is over three now...and I am only on the first of three that should be done...I better get moving! Plus I still have his one year to two year professional pics to do as well. We haven't done professional pics since then. He got where he didn't enjoy them much, plus they were getting more expensive each time. And now we have a great digital and so we get lots of good pics! :)

Life is wonderful isn't it? I mean if you really look around at all you have, life is wonderful. Just having family and friends that love you make it wonderful, but look at all the other things too. If you live your life like a Christian and let God show you the way...even the bad things don't have to seem so bad. Just being able to have the internet and a Facebook page to keep in touch with those I have lost touch with before is wonderful. Life sometimes has this way of getting away from us and we lose touch with many people. I think anything that allows us to reconnect in a way that we can fit into the craziness of life. I mean sure I am at home...but I have a houseful of noisey kids...typing on Facebook you wouldn't know that...but if I called you on the phone you would! LOL!

Well I better go for now...my stomach is reminding me I haven't ate lunch yet...and since over half of the kids are napping and the rest are playing quietly now is definitely the time!

May God Bless You!

Sharing my work...

I am going to try to share my pages as I create them. I will be sharing both digital creations and paper creations. I try to get all the terms of use and previews of all the kits and stuff I download, but sometimes there aren't any included in the zip file and since I don't unzip as soon as I download sometimes I unzip something and find I have no idea where I got it. As I post my creations I will give credit under the pages as to where I got the different elements. If you don't see anything listed for a certain part of it that means it was one of those items that I don't have the information for.

Here is my first attempt at digital scrapbooking using Photoshop Elements 7.

I used paper and embellishments from a kit called "Summer Vacations" by Jaelop Designs.
Be sure to check out her stuff! :) The text was a font called "Socially Akward" that I found at kevinandamanda.com

Here is my first attempt at using selections to remove a portion of a picture and place it into another.
Here is the original picture...
I will have to find the original picture and reupload it. I must have deleted it from whereever I had it stored online at.

Here is the finished product.

The word art on the left is from the "Cherish Kit" by The Scrappin Sisters (it was originally all black) and the font is called "Digs My Hart". and I found it at kevinandamanda.com

Still surviving...

I haven't had a lot of time to post on here. I have been keeping pretty busy with the daycare and just every day things. I will try to get on here more often. Nothing too exciting going on...my iron is up to 10 and looks like in a couple weeks I will hopefully be back to normal. I am not bleeding anymore and I am on my second week of birth control pills. The dr. is hoping the pills will restart my system and I won't have any more long periods. I am going this Friday for an ultrasound to check for endometriosis and they are going to do labs to check my thyroid as well. While hearing that everything is normal is a great feeling, it is leaves me to wonder what is causing my problems too. So I am almost wishing something isn't normal...as long as they can treat it.

Xavier is still potty training well, peeing accidents are pretty much non-existant and he wakes up dry basically every morning. But pooping is still not going so well. But we keep working on it. Right now he has a cold so we got woke up at 1:30 am to him puking...in our bed! Drainage upsets his stomach and so he pukes, always has. It's not surprising he is sick...it seems like all the daycare kids are too!

Where did my weekend go??

I am sitting here going...it's Monday?!?! The weekend went by so fast! Friday night I babysit til 8 pm so wasn't really anything we could do after that. Saturday I spent all day scrapbooking! Well I spent the whole day at a scrapbook event...but I spent a lot of it eating, talking, and checking out stuff from the vendors. But I did get two pages done in Xavier's First Year Snapshot book. I was hoping my Tigger paper I ordered off of Ebay would have arrived in time so I could have finished his First Year Professional Pics book. All I have left to do in that book is make the intro page to his Tigger pics and mount them. It said it shipped Thursday...so hopefully it will arrive today. So that took most of Saturday. We had supper and game night with a friend.

Sunday is mostly wrapped up in Church. We go to church in the morning, have lunch with friends, and then have about 3 hours before having to jump on the church van to pick up kids for evening services. I spent yesterdays three hours trying to rid our house of fleas! We only have one dog in the house...but we have enough fleas for a dozen at least! I don't know where they are coming from!! We have bathed the dog, put a flea collar on her, used flea powder, kept her bedding washed, sprayed a indoor spray on the carpet and furniture, and on her bedding. We have also sprayed a bug spray that keeps all bugs from coming inside...all around the foundation of the house and the windows. But we still have a flea problem! Today I am only finding little tiny ones...so maybe if we can get them killed before they reproduce we can finally beat them! Anyone have any remedies for flea problems that I might not heard of?

Well going to close for now. I will try to take pictures of my paper layouts I have done in Xavier's books and post them! :)

Nervous...

Tomorrow I have to go see another dr. (Gynocologist). I went to one last week and she didn't know what to do for me. So I am trying another one before I have to go to Iowa City. My last period lasted for 33 days! And I have been spotting off and on every since the actual flow stopped. I don't have any pain during it, but it has dropped my iron to a point that I am severly anemic. I was on iron supplements for three weeks and when I went back to the dr. last week my iron count was only 8. So now I am taking three iron supplements a day, along with prenatal pills...all taken with a glass of orange to help absorb the iron. If I sit down during the day at any point for more than a few minutes I nod off. Try feeding an infant his bottle and stay awake...I mean they are cuddly enough without being so tired! I am afraid of what they might say is wrong and what I might have to do to fix it. We really want another baby and we knew it was going to be hard enough to get pregnant again (over three years to get pregnant with Xavier!) but we didn't need any additional problems added to the ones we already have between us as far as fertility goes. I am praying they don't say it is something else that will make getting pregnant harder or that it is something they can't do anything about. I doubt I sleep well tonight....

We are having a potty training backslide. Xavier has not wanted to go to the bathroom today...he has done worse today than the first day he was doing it. He just keeps peeing in his underwear, so I took his computer privileges away. He is old enough to understand why he can't play on the computer, and he understands the potty training. I mean for the last two days he had been stopping whatever he was doing and going to the bathroom all by his self. I know how much he loves his computer games, so I know he will get back on track quickly.

Hooray! Xavier took a bath a while ago and when he got out of the tub he said he wanted to go pee and so he got up on his step stool and went pee!! It's exciting cuz he could have just peed in his water and he didn't he waited til he got out!! :) That's my big boy!!

Well off to bed! :)