Snow, ice, flu & no roof!

After weeks of meeting with waaaaaaayy too many contractors, finally deciding on one, negotiating the minefield that is dealing with your insurance company AND the mortgage company over reimbursements, the weather turns to doo-doo.  This is GEORGIA people!!  We play golf in short sleeves over Christmas break!  We do NOT have snow, sleet, and ice for days and days!  I'd love to get my new roof put on.....but the temp has to be above 40F and there can't be any frozen slick stuff up there.....sigh.....

With my luck, the temp will come up roughly the same time my in-laws pull into the driveway for their 5-day visit over Christmas.  That will just rock.  Hammering from 7am to 5pm for 2-3 days while I try and entertain and cook 3 meals a day for Nana & Papa.....pray for me!

To add to all things merry and bright, 2 of my kidlets have the flu.  Again.  Didn't we JUST do this back in October?  Weren't we told that we were NOT in the high risk group so we couldn't get the flu shot until November?  So when all FIVE of us go the flu in October, the doc said "No need to get the shot  now."  Um...yeah...about that....seems that there are at least TWO forms of flu running around.  So, we've missed Taekwondo, Scouts, piano lessons, and haven't done a whole lot of school...it's just a banner week.

OK....enough whining.  There is good news to share - Bennett comes home tonight and he actually gets to STAY home until Jan 3rd - woo hoo!  Maybe he can manage the contractors, in-laws, AND the kidlets.....and I can run far, far away to a quiet place?  A girl can dream, right?

Other goodness is from the amazing Linda Roos of In The Making Design.  This chick rocks!  She has a fabulous new kit coming out on Monday at JessicaSprague.com - you should go check it out!  Here's my take on her new kit:

We all wore our favorite colors for the photo shoot.  Yes, I look like a deer caught in headlights....see post below.  Hope you find some peace & joy during this Christmas season.....check back soon for more fun!

Cool new stuff, pictures, & snow?

Ok - I live in Georgia....where it is supposedly kinda warm, right?  So, the fam and I head over to get our pictures taken (more on that in a minute), as we leave the house, it starts to SNOW.....seriously?  I have friends in the northern part of the US...and they had temps 20+ degrees higher than we did today.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to get down to 10 degrees.  Ten.  Ten is NOT a temperature.  It's half a football score or how many days I'd like to cruise the Greek Isles....it is not an acceptable reading for a thermometer in Georgia.

New stuff - one of my uber-fave designers, Linda Roos, is realeasing some fabulous new stuff tomorrow at JessicaSprague.com.  I adore Linda's stuff - I've been following her and downloading her freebies from her blog for almost 2 years!  Now she designs for the divine Ms. J....awesome!

Anyway - Linda is coming out with new elements packs tomorrow - cool wax splatters and wax seals - fun stuff!  Here's my take on the wax seals:

Linda Roos - In The Making Design Wax Seals
Papers also by Linda - blog freebies!

Aren't they adorable??  They come in four colors - blue & black in addition to the red & green you see here.  Definitely check out Linda's stuff tomorrow!

So - pictures - have you ever tried to stuff several octopus (octopi?) into a sack?  That seems like a good analogy to sum up how my day went today.  The kids were cranky, hubby was stressed about making his flight (snow+Atlanta airport = disaster!), and I was so frazzled by the time we got there, waited almost an hour AFTER our appointment time, that it was just a disaster.  Yes, that wild-eyed, frantic look on my face is a pretty good indicator that I really should have listened to my sister-in-law and let her take our pictures....sometimes you just never learn.  Oh...and Harper spiked a fever during all the fun so she looks like she'd rather be curled up in bed than on display.....yay.

But - here are some of the results:

We all wore our favorite color t-shirt - at least the colors are fun!

Back to life.....back to reality....

I had an awesome weekend.  I left the 3 minions at home with Daddy and I escaped to scrap with friends for 2 days.  It was wonderfully fabulous - nobody called me "Mommy," nobody woke me up at the crack of dawn asking for Cheerios, I got to shower without having to scream a conversation over the sound of the water about why you HAVE to finish your math problems.  I even managed to get some good scrapbooking done....more on that in a minute.

So - despite his having a yucky cold, my wonderful hubby stepped up the challenge that is wrangling our 3 kidlets solo for a couple of days.  I think he realized that if he didn't give me the break that there might be fewer kidlets next week.

After my two days of bliss, reality crashed down hard.  Reality is a bitch.

I came home to a kitchen table that looked like the Keebler elves had exploded on it.  There had to be 4 boxes worth of graham cracker crumbs on the table, the chairs, the floor.  I hate crunchy floors.

Then - the kicker.  As I'm shoveling the crumbs off the floor, I see hunks of hair.....pretty long hunks of hair.  In a slight panic, thinking that the middle minion had cut her gorgeous wavy, mink brown, waist length hair, I yelled for her get downstairs NOW.  Her hair is fine.  Who's hair is this??

Turns out, the youngest minion - the 5yo - had cut huge hunks out of his bangs.  There's big piece that sticks straight up right in front.  He looks like he's wearing an Alfalfa toupee.....backwards.  We haven't taken our family Christmas picture yet.  Just awesome.

Ok - about that scrapbooking.....I did the first draft of our Christmas letter....to go with the as yet untaken Christmas picture....at least the 5yo has hair in the letter's pictures.  And, I got this great Top 10 layout done.  I love it because looking at it makes me smile - it's photos of some of the highlights of 2010.  We are truly blessed.....despite the crumbs and bad haircuts.

Awesome new template from In The Making Design....

Template - ITM Top 10
Postage Stamps - ITM Postage Alpha
Numbers - iKari Designs Dates
Yellow and teal paper:  Crystal Wilkerson Playground papers
Stripe paper - Moody Grunge by MHains

Linda Roos (In The Making Design) created the awesome template that's available tomorrow at JessicaSprague.com.

Hope it makes you smile, too.

Photoshop Friday fun!

Yep....tomorrow's Friday - can I get an AMEN?  After this week, I'm so very ready...plus, I'm escaping to scrap with friends.  That's right - 48+ hours with NO KIDS.  See post below for why this sends me into giddy world!

But - here's a peek at the goodness coming tomorrow at JessicaSprague.com for Photoshop Friday:

The amazing Linda Roos (of In The Making Design) created this fun little mini album that can be done hybrid or pure digi - it rocks.  Here's my take on it:

12 Days Photoshop Friday template by ITM Design
Frostbite papers

I used Linda's template, her amazing Frostbite papers, and my own photos to create this little album of fun pictures from previous Christmases - my kids LOVE seeing pictures of themselves from when they were "little."  Hello - they're 9, 6, and 5....they're practically still babies.

So - stop by Jessica's site tomorrow, pick up this little gem for only $1.  See you on the other side of the weekend!

Oh how the mighty have fallen.....

Those of you who are now stay-at-home parents that USED to be in the "working world" (I giggled a little bit too, when I typed that) will totally get what I'm about to lay on you....

As much as I adore my children and love how we home school and the opportunities that allows me to have - like being right there when each kid connected the dots and READ for the first time - way cool....some days I just wish I could wriggle on that torture device known as pantyhose and rejoin the magical land that is the "workplace."  You remember it - the place where you got to finish sentences...the one where the phone ringing was not the Bat Signal calling all whiny 3 year-olds to your immediate vicinity...the one where you got to pee all by yourself.  I miss working some days.  A lot.

I had one of THOSE days today.  I used to have a "real" job...where I went to an office, actually got to talk to grownups, and even managed to drink my coffee without reheating it in the microwave 17 times before I finished the cup...or just forgot it was in there.  For the last 10 years of my working career, I handled the contracts for a web-design firm....drafting them (without the use of crayons or construction paper), negotiating them (did you know that it is easier to negotiate a $4 million web strategy contract with a large home building supply company than it is to get a reluctant 4yo boy to poop in the potty?  For real.), and managing the delicate balance between what sales promised and what delivery could actually make happen.  Not unlike the balancing act that occurs when your 6yo daughter tells you that Santa in bringing her a real princess crown and a real throne.......um, yeah...about that...

So today...in addition to talking with contractors (we're having MAJOR work done on our house - more on that later, I'm sure), we had lessons for 3 kids, errands, piano lessons, cleaning the house, dinner, etc.  Basically, more accomplished by Noon than most corporate employees get done all week.  By the end of the day...by bedtime...I'm tired.  Knowing that we have to get up a tad early to make it to older son's allergist appointment, I try to get  all 3 kids to bed at the same time.  This is not unlike trying to herd kittens.

Like every night, I issue the same command:  "Go upstairs - to your OWN room.  Go potty, wash your hands and get ready to brush your teeth."  Silly me....I actually think that may work one day.  I go up to the office (just down the hall from their 3 bedrooms) and look for a document I need for tomorrow.  The next thing I know, I hear a crash.   Looking down the hallway, I see that older son has flipped middle daughter over his head, bent her pinky finger back, and younger son is running in circles in the hallway, flapping his hands like a deranged chicken and yelling "Pootie-Bottom!" at the top of his lungs.

Boarding school is sounding better by the minute....in China, perhaps.  I'm going to take a in-house position at a fancy corporation....in Maui.