precious alone time

Today I got about 4 hours of alone time and about 3 hours of scrapbooking up at my Archivers! It was much needed and I got a lot done. I got a few pages in each kids book done.

New Kids on the Block

In October Erica Koop and I will be going to see NKOTB at the Excel. This has been my childhood dream, one that never went away. There will always be a place in my heart for Joey McIntyre.



































I have another love in my life, it is my TIVO. they are so nice at tivo and always giving us new little free things we can do with our tivo box. The latest thing is that we can download music videos. Yesterday I downloaded all the NKOTB video, all of them old, except the new track called summertime. The old ones were, of course, classic and dorky and I loved them. The newest one had the same sound as the old ones, kinda poppy, BUT the guys just look old, almost perverse. I mean its hard to see a close up of a "pushing 40" Jordan Knight with laugh lines singing about being a boy from the city calling your house after 10pm.
whatever though, I'm just going to suppress these feelings and enjoy myself in October.

Tamales!!!

This week/weekend I made tamales and I thought I would make a little picture set since it was SO MUCH WORK! We now have about a years worth of tamales in the deep freeze, lol. I made beef, chicken, and pork.

Anticipating Aweful

For some reason, I feel like this week is going to SUCK. I also feel like by saying and thinking that, it probably will be even if it wasnt going to be. I just have so much stuff to do that I know it will pile up emotions until I loose it all. The boys and I are up early today. I cut my thumb yesterday slicing strawberries for the dehydrator. Blah blah blah...

11 Years Ago Today

11 Years ago today the first of my "little" boys was welcomed into the world. 7lbs and 6oz, he came out in the company of his dad Neil and his favorite Aunt Jenny early in the morning at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. It was and easy, quick, unbelievable experience and is part of the foundation of my lifestyle today. There are a lot of things that I could have done better, and I am so blessed to have such an awesome son. Here are 2 baseball pictures.




I am going to get him on July 3rd and he will be at our house until the end of August. We are very excited to see him and have him meet Link. He was a little disappointed that he didn't get a sister, but hopefully that will blow over.

The Boys' First Camping Trip

This weekend we went on a camping trip with the Twin Cities API group. We had a group camping site at the Baker Park Reserve in Maple Plain. It was about a half our drive for us and it was a really nice set up and park. I really only knew one of the other families and it was cool to get to know some of the other ones on the list. Leif had a BLAST! He played with kids, ate smores, saw a frog, ran full speed through the grass, ate watermelon, stayed up late, slept in a big tent in the forest, saw a turtle, went on adventures, got dirty, and the list goes on and on and on. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Crafts for Dionicia

Jenny was up here last week to visit with dad. She is throwing a baby shower for her boyfriends sister. We made some invitations(in both english and spanish) and a baby book for her.

Another bo bunny Baby Book

Here is the first baby book I did, but I had to wait to post it until after it was gifted. I used the k&co berry sweet paper because that is what the mom had used for her baby announcements and I knew she wasn't into overly baby stuff. I would have like to put more embellishments on it, but its hard with no pictures and really busy paper.

Oh Sweet Crafty Time

While Ryan was home on maternity leave, and I was instructed to not do anything strenuous, I got a lot of crafting done.
First on the agenda was the 2nd version of our birth announcements (this first batch I made were for a girl). These are made with some of the new-ish basic grey archaic line. They are all mailed out now to family and friends that aren't computer savvy.


Next, I made a set of simple note cards to send out some thank yous on some baby gifts and meals that we got. I am still working on writing them though, so if you haven't gotten yours, its on its way...

Lastly I made 2 of these baby books, this one is the one I gave to Ryan's mom. She is always the best person to give crafts too, because she shows them off and it makes me feel good about the wrk I have put into things. I used the making memories Animal crackers line. I used the Jack paper and some of the epoxy stickers.

Birth of Link Ryley May 10th 2008

On friday May 9th I woke up starving and having some contractions. I had some other symptoms that I will keep to myself but if you've ever had a baby, I am sure you can imagine. I called Jeanne and let her know all of the juicy details and then continued eating. I felt like this was "it" and for some reason I was feeling so sad and emotional about it. Every time I would look at Leif I would think about the changes in his life that were about to take place and how it was sort of unfair to him. I also thought about all of our sweet moments that were coming to an end. All of our rocking to sleep or snuggling to sleep or waking up together in the morning...they would all have a new added element, or would be near impossible with an needy infant. I cried all day. I called Jeanne at around noon and let her know what I was feeling and I called into work and asked them to find someone to work for me that night. I felt like the contractions were happening kinda high in my back, so I thought I had a long ways to go, and that when it started feeling "lower" then I would know they were serious.
Throughout the day I tried to hold it together and prepare myself for possibly having to go into work. I wrote in Leif's little journal that I keep for him all of what I was feeling, all of the things that were making me sad, and all of the things I was looking forward to with him being a brother. He was excellent all day and very sweet to me. I then called back into work at 3, only to find out that no one was able to come in and cover for me, that they all had plans. Ryan came home and I went into work. I called Jeanne on the way and let her know what was going on.

I will not go into how bad work was, but I was scheduled to be there til 10, and I left at 8. I called Jeanne on the way and she asked if I wanted her to come now and I said to wait until I got home. I wanted to make sure things didn't fade away once I got relaxed at home. I came home and rocked Leif to sleep, and then waited for Ryan to come and put him in his bed since I as having a little trouble getting him up and into bed.

Things didn't settle down, and a little after 10 we called Jeanne over. This was the happiest moment of Ryan's life I think. He was finally almost in the clear for delivering a baby himself. haha. I went and laid in bed and listened to my playlist. At around 11:30 Jeanne got there and checked on me and then went about getting things ready. Pam got there at about 12 and then there was always someone in the room with me. I turned off the tunes and started talking about what was going on, little updates about how I was feeling. I must have peed 57 times before the baby came out. I was spending most of the time sitting on my knees and kinda rocking when I had a contraction, but then my feet started going to sleep so I decided I wanted to lay on my side for a while. Ryan came and sat up on the bed by my head and when I laid down I started to hear my heart beat in my head really loud and started to feel pushy. My body pushed for about 2 minutes straight. I think it was 2 contractions, but it felt like one long one. My water broke right as his head was coming out, and then he settled for a few seconds and then came out. His head and part of the cord came out together and then the rest of him came out. They laid him up on my tummy and threw a towel over him. I just looked at him and checked him all out. A little bit after that we lifted him and saw that he was a boy. Pam asked if we had a name picked out and I said Link. A little while later I delivered the placenta and Ryan cut the cord and the whole time I just held Link. After about an hour I took a shower and then settled into bed, Leif woke up and came and snuggled with me while Pam did a little check up on Link. Measuring weighing, all that good stuff. He was 7lbs and 5 oz and 20 inches long. He was born at 1:58am. Things are going very well.