Bad, Bad Blogger

Shame on me. I am like the worst blogger ever. Its been forever since I blogged. I have been busy actually creating layouts and developing photoshop skills. And lets face it, with two busy boys they actually want to go outside in the beautiful weather. Crazy me I thought when I changed my work hours three weeks ago, I would be able to be a better blogger, not worse.

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I changed my work schedule to help alleviate some stress from my eldest child. He was getting behind on homework and projects. This spring has been an experiment in chemistry once again. We have changed medicines a few times over the last few months and it helps a bit. But he is still struggling to manage himself throughout the school day. And he was not getting his homework done at afterschool and by the time we would get home and start on it, the medicine was wearing out and he could not get his homework down. So now I leave work to pick Josh up from school and then we go home and have plenty of time to do homework before picking up my little guy from daycare. I still have to complete my Asperger's Rating scale for the school. I have insisted on the school evaluate him for Asperger's, but I am suffering from a case of be careful what you wish for.

Its been great and definately an adjustment for our schedule. I am looking forward to reigning in my scrap obsession long enough to start cooking a decent meal in the evenings again. Its kinda cool having afternoons off, I almost feel like a stay at home mom again. Still tweaking the schedule and developing my self-discipline to only scrap during scrapping time and not like all the time when I am not doing kid stuff.

Ok, so let me share some layouts with you. OOOOOh and speaking of layouts, I must say I was mighty proud to be the featured scrapper for the scraplift challenge over at digital freebies last week. Truth known, I have been coveting that small honor for a few months now.

I've been scrapping alot of late so here are some of my recent layouts:

Here is a layout from Easter.

I used the Young Beauty and Easter Add On kits by Misty Cato.
I love Misty's stuff, she is so talented. See all credits here.

This is a layout of my baby, when he was actually a baby, just about 18 months old. I just fell in love with the Weeds N Wildflowers Welcoming Spring Kit as soon as I saw it. I just had to scrap something with it. I played with this layout for hours before settling on this:

see credits here

Speaking of Weeds N Wildflowers, here is my layout for their Creative Team call that ends today. I nearly had a coronary when I saw they were having a call. I know it is a total longshot, but I would so love to be on their creative team. Its kinda weird, but I have so many pictures of my kids sleeping. They just look so sweet when they are asleep.

see credits here

One more layout before I go...I gotta put my kids to bed...their in bed, just not realizing it is sleeping time. This layout was completed for Maria's Weekly Challenge at Digital Freebies. I must credit Digital Freebies for lighting the digi-scrapping fire beneath me. Anyway, Maria issued a template challenge a couple of weeks ago, but you had to embellish the template with additional elements. Here's my take on the challenge:

I used a Quick Page from the In Memory of Miles Kit.
You can find the kit and quick pages here.
See all the credits for the layout here.

Well, that's all for tonight. I will do better about posting blogs. I am working on another freebie and possibly a tutorial. Check back in soon....

Sparkly Egg Freebies

Okay....Okay here's another Easter Freebie...sparkly eggs for your layouts! Enjoy!

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Special thanks to Atomic Cupcake!

We dyed our eggs last night. With the amazing super speedy egg dying boys it took us about oh, ten minutes. And I must say, we did much better with keeping the dye in the cups this year. My boys actually employed those amazing egg dippers this year instead of just plunging their hands into the cups to retrieve their eggs. Pics of our actual eggs:

Our Eggs...dyed in a frenzy of creativity.

Egg Artists proud of their Masterpieces!

Craisins, ADHD, and Easter Egg Freebie

I just can't be trusted with craisins (dried cranberries). I cannot stop myself from eating the entire package the same day I get them. I bought some the other day to add to my oatmeal, they did not last 24 hours. So I did find an oatmeal made by a Sturms Farms and sold at Walmart of all places that has some dried cranberries in their mix and no sugar added. Its completely organic and even includes flax seeds and plant sterols!? Not sure what the plant sterols are, but I don't care I get a moderate portion of craisins and I won't eat half a pound of them in like 2 hours.

So what's with all the food talk, huh? Well I have returned to my six week body makeover plan as of last week. Yes, I know I actually bought a diet plan, ehem...lifestyle plan...as a result of an informercial and yes I made 6 or 7 payments of 39.95. A lot of money I know, but before you fall out of your chair laughing at me, let me tell you this...it works! And I paid less than someone else would pay to go to a weightloss center and I get to keep it forever and it came in this really cool kit with a resistance band, and, and , and.....Ok enough of the qualifying statements. The plan itself promotes healthy eating, so I am now 4 weeks clean from diet cokes or soda in general (I am a true addict with diet coke), and two weeks into limiting flour, sugar and salt. I am going organic where I can afford it. And I have lost 7 pounds in about ten days.

The change in diet obviously is good for my family as well. I am modifying my children's diet, switching to organic milk/yogurts and eliminating as much fast food as possible. I have had my kids off of red dye for years and let me tell you, when they get there hands on it by "accident" they are through the roof hyper. My oldest has extreme ADHD, (no really extreme ADHD) and is also gifted and has the sweetest heart I have ever known. If you know anything about ADHD you may know that ADHD, Aspergers and Autism are on the same line or continuum. Well, my child's ADHD confounds every teacher he has, because (and I hear this every year) "he's not like the other ADHD students I've taught." And no, he's not like the other kids, his ADHD is so far along on the line, that he is getting into Asperger's territory. So I am willing to try almost anything to help minimize his symptoms. So we are beginning to cut out the junk, eat more pure foods and we started back at the chiropracter yesterday to help with some of these issuses as well as his motor development.

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Ok, ok...enough of the scraps o' my life stuff. I promised you a freebie and here it is. Be gentle on me its my first freebie, leave me some love and constructive critism if you see something that can improve, 'cause I want to learn and improve my skills.

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I boiled eggs last night to get ready to dye them tonight and here are some already dyed eggs for you:

Click Here for download

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