Happy Birthday Andrew

My son Andrew is 10 today. I can't believe he is already 10. His sister teased him about being "double digits" now. We are not having a birthday party for him I only let my kids have a party every other year. This year, it is his sister's turn to have a party. Rachael and Andrew's birthdays are only 2 weeks apart. It is too much for me to throw them both a party every year. That is why there is the every other year rule. We were planning to take him to Gatti town and let one friend come. That has been put on hold though. I went back to the doctor yesterday and I have a new area of pneumonia and only minimal improvement in the old pneumonia. I am on a second round of antibiotics now. Once I am feeling human again, we will take him to Gatti Town (for those of you who don't live in the south, Gatti Town is a pizza place with a game room attached. You collect tickets to earn overly priced prizes). We are going to grandma's house this evening to eat pizza and cake and ice cream. He already opened his presents. His grandma and great grandma got him a Creative Zen 2G MP3 player. He is so excited about that. We got him a super pack of Pokemon cards, a carrier for his Zen and a Wario, Master of Disguise game for is Nintendo DS. He has been suspecting all week that he was getting an MP3 player. He thought he was going to get an iPod though. My mom sent him an iTunes card with his birthday card. It is going to be a pain in the behind to use though. The Zen won't play MP4a and that is the format that iTunes uses. We are going to have to burn the songs to an audio disc then rip it again in a format that the Zen uses. I have to do the same thing when I buy music off the Walmart website for my daughter. She has an iPod and it can't use WMAs. These music people can be such a pain in the behind. I wish they would allow you to pick the format you want to use so you can use music from online store on any device.

Scrappin' Pink

This weekend is Scrappin' Pink. Many of the scrapbooking shops around the country are holding crops. All the proceedes go to the Susan B Komen Foundation. You can find out more information here- http://www.scrappink.com/ . My MIL has breast cancer. She was first diagnosed 10 years ago. She had a mastectomy and did some chemo and was declared cancer free. Last March, the cancer returned as a mass in her chest wall and a few tumors in her lung. She has gone through radiation and chemo and was once again declared cancer free. That only lasted a short time. She is now on oral chemo. My MIL is the strongest woman I know. She is such an inspiration to me. She never complaines, even when she feels horrible. She has had a lot of complications from the cancer and the chemo. I won't be able to attend any of the crops this weekend. I don't own a laptop, plus I am still battling pneumonia. I wanted to make this mini kit in honor of my MIL. If you are able, please attend one of the crops, or make a donation to the Susan B Komen Foundation. I hope you enjoy the kit.

get it here

Just for the Fall of It

I am doing a design contest at Just for the Scrap of It. Those of us that are doing the contest decided we wanted to do a collaborative kit before the contest starts. We were suppose to do mini kits, but I think most of us went a little overboard. If you follow all the links below my kit, you will end up with a huge fall kit.

Get it here

Here are the other blogs were you can get the other parts of this super, mega kit.

AmandaG - http://www.myscrapblog-amanda.blogspot.com/

Andrea - http://boyervillescraps.wordpress.com/

Collie- http://www.coliescorner.blogspot.com/

Fayth - http://apieceofscrap.blogspot.com/

JaydensMama - http://mommyofjayden.blogspot.com/

MutChip - http://grandmasscrap2.blogspot.com/

RoseMcDigital - http://rosemcdigiscrap.blogspot.com/

If you download all the "mini" kits, you will have over 75 papers and over 100 elements. I also have 2 desktop QP in mine. There are others that put surprises in theirs too. Please leave some love if you download. If you use any of our kits for a LO, please leave a link so we can admire your work and leave you some love. Also, some of these sites may not have their kit up until tomorrow.

I'm still alive

I don't have a lot to say today, but I wanted to post to say that I am still alive. I am still sick though. This pneumonia is really kicking my behind.

I have been working a lot on my designing. I will have a freebie tomorrow for everyone, as well as links to other kits that will coordinate with mine. I am doing a design contest at Just For the Scrap of It that will start in October. A bunch of us are doing a collaborative fall kit as a way to practice for the contest. I need to finish mine up today. I always get a little carried away when I make kits. This was suppose to be a mini kit, but it isn't very mini. From the look of it, none of us made mini kits. So, if you need fall related scrapping kits, check back tomorrow.

I'm off to finish my kit and rest some. I have been so tired lately. It is gett ing very old..

It's about time

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted here. I have been working on my designing a lot over the past 2 weeks. I have put in 2 design applications and will be doing the design contest at Just for the Scrap of It. I am so nervous already. I am not a competative person at all. I still can't believe I signed up for this. It should be fun though. I am also having a lot of fun doing LO for my CT.

Speaking of CT, I have a lot of updating to do on my CTs. This is a new kit that Kim Cameron has available in her store at Make It Scrappy. This is called Dreaming of Tuscany. The papers in it are beautiful. It is definitely a grown up kit. I have so many kiddy kits that I am really going to have to ponder how to use this. I have some great old pictures that should go well with this kit. It is on sale right now also.

Gina has opened a store on her blog site while she waits for Purple Paper Flowers to open up. Gina has a lot of really cute kits. Right now, she has a girl and boy Monkey kit available. They are really cute. You can find a link to her blog on my side bar.

Landi has this new kit coming out in her store soon. I think she was going to have it available on Friday. It is sooooo pretty. I have so many new CT kits that I don't even know where to start.

Here is a little update on what is going on around the Hodge household. I finally recovered from my surgery. Unfortunately, I also came down with a cold. I finally went to the doctor after I had fever for 5 days. I have a right, lower lobe pneumonia. It is huge. I went back to the doctor today for a follow up since I am not doing any better. I had to get a shot of rocephin (an antibiotic). She considered putting me in the hospital today because my oxygen level was slightly on the low side. I begger her not to so she is giving me one more day. If I am no better tomorrow, I will probably be off to the hospital. I am praying that the antibiotics help . I have to go back in tomorrow for another shot of antibiotic tomorrow if I am doing better. We were suppose to have a surprise party for my neice here on Saturday. She is turning 13. She is officially a teenager. We are having to reroute the party somewhere else now. I was going to try to have it here and just stay in my room the whole time but my doctor said "absolutely not". She wants me to chill and do nothing. I am even having a hard time scrapping. I just can't seem to concentrate and I find myself nodding off all the time.

Rachael has better news that I do. First, a little history. Rachael was a competative dancer from the time she was 4 until she was 12. We changed studios and got out of the competitions. Before we changed, Rachael was on pointe. The new studio didn't allow students to be on pointe until they were 14. Rachael didn't do ballet last year because they moved her class to Saturday. Now for the good news. Rachael's teacher said she is ready to go back on pointe. She is so excited. She loved pointe. She loves ballet. The bad news for me is that I have to go buy some new pointe shoes. She outgrew her old ones and they had only been worn for a month. Her pointe shoes are expensive, even more so than other girls in her glass. Rachael has a very strong arch and so she started off pointe in a hard shank. That makes the shoes more expensive. Rachael walked on her tip toes for the first 6 years of her life which is why her arches are so strong. I am so excited for her. She has wanted this for a while.

Check out my Slide Show!