5 brand new element packs...plus a fab bonus!
and......... ..
35% off everything in my store....... ..yep, I said everything, that includes my commercial goodies ............ . (one tiny exception... my Scrapz Sack is not on sale)
shop HERE
grab all my deals (Scrapz Sack and sale) until Oct. 5th
bunches of other OAKS Scrapz Sacks are in the store now...an more will be coming this weekend
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and..........exciting news update about Hudson's speech therapy......
I had my meeting yesterday with Hudson's preschool teacher, speech pathologist and somebody else..the school psychologist maybe (all from our school district)?? Hudson ended up scoring a 77 on some evaluation and that is the cut-off for being accepted into the 3 day program. If he would've been scored at 3 years, instead of at 2 y 11 mo, he would've scored alot lower which would have definitely put him in the 3 day without any kind of issue. The speech pathologist suggested that the 3 day would be better for him so he can build his social and language skills. I'm so excited about this program! Half of the kids are very normal for their age and have been through testing themselves to be good models for the other half like Hudson that needs extra assistance in some areas. It's also pretty much 50/50 for boys and girls. There is a mixture of reasons that the kids need help for, but there is more of a variety in the morning class. Hudson's is for 2.5 hours each day. There is one girl that has a very bad cleff with her face and one other issue, but no wheel chairs, hearing or vision disabilities. The 4 day program with autistic kids is next door with 4 students. They are mainstreamed with Hudson's class for story and music time. When he improves his language skills, he will be able to move into the 2 day program which is only 30 min & it's sole focus is speech.
I have a huge binder to read and keep all of his info in and two welcome packages. We also have school supply shopping this weekend. There is a different theme and letter as the focus every week. Next week is picnic fun and the letter M.
He's going to start next Monday. yay!!!!!!!!
Tuesdays are going to be crazy because he has his private speech therapy in the morning and then school an hour later, 30 minutes away. Since we'll only have an extra 30 minutes to spare, we won't really have time to get out of the car anywhere for lunch and it won't be fair to go to the park just for a short bit, so we'll probably just opt for fast food in the car those days.
one week since I last blogged.....I'll learn someday.........instead of having this pretty lengthy like I have easily done before....I'm going to try to be as short as possible with each little bit.....
HA! is that even possible with me since I ramble so much???
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ANTS!!!!!!
I am soooo tired of our ants. I don't know if it's because we've had more rain than usual, so our summer hasn't been as dry as usual....we've actually had humidity here in Phoenix............whatever the reason....we've been invaded by ants in various places inside the house and all of our front and back yards.................and......we are not alone...apparently it's pretty common
after the boys found a few more ants in the house last Friday morning and Griffin's left foot getting totally covered by them later that afternoon in the backyard (oh yea, his foot looked black)........our bugman sprayed again on Saturday morning......he said he's gotten so many new customers lately for the same reason.........he found at least 5 ant colonies in the front and back ........ after all the time he spent and potent stuff he put on them, most are still alive......it's crazy! he said the only other thing he could do is basically bomb them, but a couple weeks later, they'll be back.........soooooo, we just need the cold weather to hit us
oh...and Griff's foot....I counted at least 32 bites on his little left foot alone...and 4 on his right one ........he was soooooo good too, all he did was say "ants, ants!" (I was sitting at our little kids picnic table with my back to him).......I immediately picked him up and hosed his feet down ... besides saying ants twice, he never cried or anything...........he's only 23 months old............. if it was me, I would've been miserable
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the only other exciting thing since then is that I have an appt. with Hudson's soon-to-be new preschool teacher and a speech pathologist this morning ........ we've been trying to get him into our school district's special ed preschool for speech & the time is finally here....his evaluation with the district was 3 weeks ago.....it was a very lengthy 11 page report that basically boiled down to the same thing we know....his articulation is horrible...he just turned 3 a couple weeks ago and he is in the 1 percentile range for sounds in words.... he does try to put 2-3 words together, but he can't pronounce anything very well ..............and he's been going to a private speech therapist since June....................
two huge diff with being accepted into our school district's program ---- it's FREE and it's more time with him ........................... today's meeting will determine whether he's in the 3 day program with 2 hours each day or the 2 day program that is only 30 min each day ......... wish us luck with the 3 day one
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ok.........now for pimping time ........
you can get this FREE for the rest of September with the purchase of the coordinating Not So Spooky collab kit by Faith True and Sara Ellis....
see more details and grab it HERE
and.....................
I've been having lots of fun making some commercial usage ok paper textures and templates (personal use great too) this week and they are in both of my stores at DSB and OAKS ...
I have a total of 6 sets available right now at only $3 each...
here's a small sampling of each ....
well...you hopefully have already heard that OAKS is going Collab crazy this month...and I don't think it will stop .........
I have 2 in the store now...with Faith True (Not So Spooky) and Danielle Engebretsen (Royal Chaos)....... ...........................
and.... Unbe-Leaf-Able Autumn with Jessica David should be in the store very soon .......
I am finishing up my portion to another one with a very cool designer that isn't at either of my stores .................... and then I have a couple more that I need to start working on
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ok.....time to go so I can hop on the train...the DST blog train ......... and get back to designing (before my appt that's in a couple hours)
sorry I've been slacking with my blog lately..........just busy with life, kids, designing (even more fun coming soon), and what-not.... I'll try to do better
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I have been the featured designer on Hummie's Blog for almost a week now...I was so thrilled when she asked me to be a part of her weekly featured designers a little more than a month ago.... I shared a tutorial for extracting pictures....... please feel free to check it out and share your LOs with extractions with me...please leave your links here :)
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Royal Chaos is available in the OAKS store again!!!! yay!!!!! (scroll down for previews) we had a few zip issues right after it was put in there and advertised it........and a few delays getting it fixed since Dani and I had to coordinate our schedules again.........this is one huge mega collab from us (over 30 papers, 2 alphas, and a plethora of elements)
but.....as of yesterday, all is fabulous again
oh...OAKS is going Scrapz Duo collab crazy this month....look at all of the goodies in the store now...you have to check it out
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and........last Friday was Hudson's 3rd birthday.......yay! I haven't even u/l the pics from my camera yet (sorry) ........ we just had a little family birthday party for him on Sunday....his fave presents were from his grandparents, a Thomas the Train suitcase, a Caterpillar dump truck that has the bells and whistles (press various buttons to make it automatically dump it's load, go forward and backwards, and the noises too), and a long wooden semi truck. My fave presents that he received was his little black Crocs and his Ikea Brum chair. I've wanted Crocs for both Hudson and Griffin for a while, but my dh thinks they are too girly (whatever!). I was able to get my MIL to get them. (smiles!) And..the chair...well, that was one of the things I got for him. It is just too fun! It was super cheap too! On their website, it's advertised for $59....well, at the store, it was only $19. It's bendy and comfy. I love it!
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oh.... I keep forgetting....... Fantacy tagged me a few days ago...if you aren't familiar with her, she is a super sweet girl and is a fairly new designer at OAKS....her design name is Scrappin' Hillbilly Sweet Pea Designs ......she reminds me of KB & Friends....very cool stuff!
soooo...she asked me to state 7 unique things about me......
here goes......
1) I'm the only me that could possibly be me :)
2) I really love fried chicken livers....but i can rarely ever make them since my dh doesn't like them or the smell.....and very tough to find them at restaurants ...Lee's Chicken in STL has scrumptious ones and so does Jack's Stack in Martin City (KC, MO)..I've never found any here in Phoenix
3) I'm 40 and still active with my sorority, Alpha Phi....as the SW Regional Alumnae Membership Coord
4) I'm so picky with food that I didn't even try corn until April this year and now I absolutely love it (you can find a LO about it somewhere on my blog and in my galleries...I did it for the ADSR).............and I was 35 when I tried mashed potatoes (yum!)
5) I used to look like Molly Ringwald back in the Molly days in the 80s.......believe it or not...it's soooooo true!
6) I used to play varsity doubles tennis at my first high school (my second one didn't have tennis teams then)
7) I've never broken a bone in my body.
ok...........now it's time for me to tag a few girls........
1) Rachel (angelextreme) .... super sweet & on my CT...she's also starting he luck at designing & has some super cute things so far..including a freebie QP with all goodies by her on her blog
2) Dani (Danielle Engebretsen)... another super favulous designer buddy of mine...at both OAKS and DSB
3) Jeannie Papai.... I've just recently gotten to know her...and she is goofy, sweet, and fun....and her super talented designs are at PDP and DSS
I have more fab digi-friends that I'd love to tag...I just don't have the time right now to look up their blogs sinc e my dh will be home soon
ok.......you three.........give me 7 unique things about yourselves........share shar share away :)
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ok...this was extremely long again..........
I really need to blog more than once a week again
ok....well, we got back in town on Saturday night
the weather was sooo beautiful in Ventura and Oxnard.... I thought it was going to be too chilly for the beach, but it definitely wasn't ...it was maybe 75 at the most and it was so fabulous! Jeff and the boys all got some good color & then started peeling a tad (well, Jeff has peeled a ton)... I already had a great base, so I didn't have to worry about that
the boys did soooo well during our roadtrip each way......it ended up being right at 8 hours with 4 little rest stop pit stops for all of us to stretch...they didn't even watch one DVD in the car.... Hudson did get a little antzy the last 40 min or so both times, but that's it.... and that's with only sleeping about 30 min each.....they just snacked and played and danced to their music (lots of dead air time in the desert, so They Might Be Giants and Laurie Berkner came in pretty handy......we LOVE TMBG's ABCs CD and DVD)
we ended up staying on the Ventura Harbor...and
tide was very busy....the high tide moved up pretty aggressively and soaked our little campmy FIL and step-MIL's place is just 5 minutes away in Oxnard Shores, right off the beach.....so we went back and forth a bunch ..........Sunday, the 2nd, was our first day at the beach and the with our towels and chairs within 5 minutes of first getting to the beach.....it actually got us three
times that morning (along with a bunch of other people there) ....... at least the camera was saved each time (it's brand new because I killed my last one in April with the tide in Mexico)......BUT....this scared the boys of the water.......they loved the beach, but not the water, they never got used to it....who knows if it was the noise of the surf, how large the body of water was, or just that we were all startled within the first few minutes of being there ..........soooooo, it was tough to get any pictures of them in the water....but Friday we were right next to this huge piece of driftwood....it took forever for them to get close to it, but once they did I just kept snapping away & I ended up with my very fave picture of the whole trip (and that's with almost 100 pics).........isn't this just toooooo wonderful???? I love it sooo much! I have tons to scrap with. Yay!
ok.......there's more pics to share with you...but I"ll add more next time so this time isn't tooooo lengthy...........because I need to share a couple other things here now too :) our patio was just a hundred feet away from the harbor with tons of huge sailboats.....this was our view......it was so spectacular to sit on the patio, eat a little a breakfast and watch the boats leave for the Pacific....you can't really tell right here, but there are 100s of sailboats and yachts deeper in the harbor here ....and just a smidge to the right is a little point where it opens up for the ocean****************
Have you checked out Scraps For Charity yet??? If not, you really should. There's so many talented designers that contribute there each month (Beth Kern, Bren T Boone, Danielle Engebretsen, Jessica David, Jessica Gorny, Jolie Molina, and me-Sara Ellis) and Dodo makes some fab freebie QPs (one is available right now & another will be available next week)
it's really a fabulous charity site........ a new charity is featured every month...this month is the Cystic Fibrosiss Society
customers have the opportunity to purchase any individual mini or the mega (all minis combined at a discounted price)
here's the mega...and it's ONLY $7.00 (valued at $17.50 if bought separately)
here's my mini contribution...it's only $2.50:
what are you waiting for?????? hurry hurry and skidaddle over there*************
it's been a while, sorry....but I did add one more goodie to my OAKS store late late last night...
Looking for something a little different to describe your masterpiece?
How about these 17" wordy borders???
border a page, layer over a solid ribbon, trim an edge of a paper, etc...there are so many ways to have fun with these words
There are soooooo many different ones to choose from and there are some girly ones, boy ones, and very neutral.
They include:
bath,
beauty,
bugs,
celebrate,
crazy,
dance,
dessert,
dirt,
dress-up,
eat,
furious,
handsome,
milk,
train, and
vehicle
Every strip is in black for easy coloring.
Grab them HERE
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a couple days ago I came across a couple of super fabulous blogs........... they are all juicy positive lovin' ones...............tooting outstanding LOs and designs...sometimes polls.......just loads of goodness from pretty silent fans (it surely doesn't seem like anyone is favored at all)
fall in love with Scrap Praise HERE
and Hot Digi Picks HERE
I swear you'll visit them daily
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and..........exciting news......
.....I have added a 2nd store and it's a super fab opportunity! this place is huge...........I'll share more later when I get goodies in the store :)
and Not So Spooky collab with Faith True...and the coordinating brag book
