Another Cricut Cart...

Yes, I ordered a new cricut cartridge! Is this a sickness I will ever overcome?LOL I have 3 or 4 cartridges that I haven't even opened yet and I couldn't stop myself from ordering a new one tonight. I tried, I left and went back to creativexpress 4 times and the 5th time I just went for it! I had been trying to think of shapes to put together in the design studio to make an owl. Well, I decided to go see what was new at cricut.com and seen the Wild Card cartridge has an owl! I had to have it, I just love all the cute owl stuff that's out these days. I have always loved those little guys, I think they are so adorable and so mysterious at the same time! The girls always laugh at me because every year at the fair I go find "Zoo to You" so I can see their most adorable little owl. I don't remember what kind he is but he is tiny and just too cute for words! Anyway, I hope I can get busy with my Cricut and use all these cartridges I have. I also hope Cris never figures out that I have so many cartridges and that I havne't even used all of them yet...hehehe

Happy cutting!

Belated Happy Thanksgiving...

WOW! Where does the time go? I'm sorry this is late, I just wanted to make sure I did wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and hope realize all the blessings in your life this day and everyday. I am so thankful for my family & my friends, I don't know what I would do without all of you.

We are heading back to the childrens hospital with Lindsey on Thursday... I am nervous, but I think what Mom wouldn't be? She is still thriving and I hope they can give me reassurance again that she will continue. I know they can't give me a guarrantee or promise me that she will never be sick but I guess I will find comfort in their evaluation on that day -given they agree that she is thriving and dont find any signs of the CF. For her health and for Carley & Em's health as well I am very thankful for right now. These girls are what make my world go round for sure! So, if you could please just say a little prayer to see us through this week and another prayer that Lindsey is going to show us and the doctors that she isn't just a miracle in herself but she is a miracle when it comes to CF too...

I am going to finish priming my walls in the bathroom in the morning and then I'm hoping to sit down and make some cards! YEAH!!! I can't wait until my bathroom is completely finished, I think it's going to look pretty nice. Of course the work wont end there, I still have the family room and kitchen to paint and I'm still trying to talk Cris into letting me wall paper one of the walls in the family room. It's all coming together, hope I find the time/energy to get it completed. Of course I will have to paint the living room and hallway too because I know it's going to look terrible compared to the other rooms once we are done. The girls are about due for a little makeover in their bedroom too and my bedroom still has gold carpet in it from the 60's... My room and the master bathroom are the only rooms I haven't tackled yet with any improvements. I suppose it will always be a neverending job with keeping the house up, ha? I will just be happy to get everything dusted and complete what we've started, then I'll have another project that can drag out for a few months, I'm sure of it!LOL

Love & Hugs to you all...

I need to get motivated! Wanna do a card swap?

I am hosting a Monochromatic Card swap at pccrafter, you can check out the details here:
http://messageboard.pccrafter.com/tm.aspx?m=527948
This will be a huge challenge to me, but I love a challenge and I also love to see what everyone else comes up with. I will share my cards here when I am done and hope others will let me post pictures of their cards here as well. Check back or better yet, head on over to pccrafter and join us! :D

Have you heard about "Blog Candy"?

Tonight is the first time I have heard of or seen anything about "blog candy" and I gotta say I can't wait to share some blog candy of my own. :) You can visit this blog www.passionforcrafts.blogspot.com for a chance to win some awesome blog candy. If you don't know what blog candy is, it's a chance to win something for free - all you have to do is add a link to your blog and post back. How cool is that??? Hurry and check it out, your chance to win ends in just a few short days...

look at all these purse templates!

http://melstampz.blogspot.com/2008/03/purse-templates-galore-little-handbag.html

Dazzling Dragonflies came in #2

Wowwwy, what a weekend! It was the end of year playoffs for my daughters soccer league and it was a long weekend! 6 games and the girls came in 2nd place in their division - it was so close. Carley scored an awesome goal and just put her heart and everything she had into all of the games. Next stop, Santa Ynez... This is so exciting! Nobody, and I mean nobody seen this team having such a great year. They only lost one game and just creamed everyone they played. The one team they lost to was undefeated up until this weekend and that was who they won on Saturday to make it to today. It was just awesome and so exciting! So, it was an exhausting weekend but so worth it, the girls are extremely excited!

Cystic Fibrosis --You can help...

As an Advocate for CF, I let my members of Congress know how they can
support efforts to find a cure and control for CF. The more they hear from
the CF community, the greater the impact we can have on funding for CF
research, access to quality, affordable health care, and public awareness
for this disease. Join me by signing up as a CF Advocate. You will receive
monthly updates on CF-related legislative developments and have the
opportunity to tell your members of Congress how CF affects your life.
Together, we can make a difference for people with CF.

Click on this URL to take action now
http://capwiz.com/cff/taf/

When we found out that Lindsey may have CF and got past the first visit to
the childrens hospital, Cris and I discussed the importance of being
advocates for CF because whether Lindsey had it or she was just a carrier it
will be a part of her life and part of her future when she decides to start
her own family. Now that we know she has it I really feel like it's
important for us to become educated on CF and educate all of our friends and
family as well. Research is not funded by the government at all for CF, we
need to help change that. All research that goes into CF is privately
funded through donations, it needs more attention not just for Lindsey but
for everyone that is affected by this disease. If you want to learn more
about people that live with this disease you can visit this webiste
http://www.cysticfibrosis.com/cftube/index.cfm . You can also learn more at
www.cff.org There are different degrees of the disease and they can't tell
you how one will be affected or when - this is what scares me, the unknown
and the what ifs... I will not lose hope though and Lindsey is still the little sweet pea we welcomed into this world just a couple months ago~ I hope they will learn that a person can have the genes and be well always, living a very long life!

Love from our family to yours,

Cris, Lisa, Carley, Emily, & Lindsey

wood vase with scrapbook paper and hugware graphic

This is another quick and easy craft (my favorite kind)... I made this for a secret sister swap. I simply laid the vase down on the scrapbook paper and traced each side and cut it out. I then applied modge podge to the vase to glue the scrapbook paper on. I printed out the cute angel from pccrafter and cut it out, ran it through the xyron to stick onto the vase. Then added the flower and ribbon using e6000 glue. That's it! You can also paint the inside of the vase too...

Angel Feather Ornament

There are a couple different versions of a poem to go with the angel feather ornaments. You can do a google search to find them, this the angel feather ornament I made. I added some super fine irridescent glitter to it too but it really doesn't show up in the picture. These are quick and easy ornaments to make and friends and family have really loved receiving them. :)

My baby & Cystic Firbrosis

We got the news on Friday that Lindsey does have Cystic Fibrosis. This breaks my heart, but it I am going to keep a good attitude and hope that she will have mild symptoms or better yet NO symptoms and will teach the doctors something new with this disease!

They have only been screening newborns for CF for a little over a year, before this a child usually wasn't diagnosed with CF until around 2 1/2 - 3 years old, unless they had a very severe form of CF would have been tested at birth. They also do prenatal screenings, which I had. The test came back and showed that I was a carrier so we had Cris screened as well, his test came back negative. They told us there was virtually nothing to worry about since it takes two genes (one from each parent) for a child to have CF. What they didn't tell us is the prenatal screening only screens for 34 CF mutations out of over 1300 known cf mutations! I was devistated when the first results came back from Lindsey's newborn screenings saying she had CF. When I told the pediatrician that's impossible because I was just a carrier and my husband tested negative he reassured me then that the second test would most likely come back that she was just a carrier too - in fact less than 1% chance that she had the disease! The second results did come back positive again and so we went to a childrens hospital for a sweat chloride test. That test came back normal - a sense of relief for a couple days! They told us that test wasn't completely reliable in infants unless it was a positive result so we would have to return every 3 months for 1 year. Our other option was to do the gene analysis which we chose to do. I just couldn't imagine going an entire year and making my self the weeks before those appointments every three months. Turns out we did get an answer sooner from the gene analysis, I was really hoping it would prove that she was just a carrier but unfortunately it didn't. They said no further testing is neccesary and made another appointment for us to return to the childrens hospital to "get established" and start working on a plan for Lindsey.

We learned at our first visit to the childrens hospital that they have learned a lot over the past year of screening newborns. One thing that really made me hold out hope that Lindsey was just a carrier is that they said most of the screenings that have been referred to them have been false positives. They have also learned that it is possible for a person to have two cf genes and not have CF. Lindsey has two different genes, but one came from me and one from Cris so that isn't good. My hopes is that she will become an example to them as a person who does have two gene mutations and that is it - no symptoms. I know that is just me being in denial but I wont give up hope until I see the first symptoms!

If you would like to learn more about CF you can look on-line at numerous websites. But, just know that they have made a lot of advancements over the last few years and so I don't believe all the information on-line is up to date and reliable. When i looked I was more devastated afterwards. Since then I have heard about people living with the disease and even getting married and having children! There are many degrees of this disease, I'm praying my baby has the mildest of them... You can learn more at http://www.cff.org/LivingWithCF/CareCenterNetwork/?gclid=CJ-r0vyH6ZYCFQv7agodkheIPg

Thanks again for all your prayers & good through all this.

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Charlie!

This video makes me giggle everytime, how 'bout you...

"Merry Christmas" in many languages...

Christmas in right around the corner, I know we need to get through Thanksgiving first BUT as crafters most of us are already working on or planning our Christmas projects. You can say Happy Christmas in many languages and this website will help you!
http://whychristmas.com/customs/languages.shtml