I'm SO Sorry!

I am REALLY sorry I haven't been around consistently this week! My youngest has been in the process of coming down with something so I have had to focus on him a lot. Last night was the worst so far. I was up most of the night with the little guy (he's 19 months old) trying ease his breathing. About 3am this morning his breathing became really labored for him (his poor little chest just got sucked in with each breath, but his coloring stayed fine), so from then until about 4:15am I was in the bathroom runny a steamy shower and then outside in the cool night air...back and forth. This seemed to be just a little helpful, so I finally gave him some Albuterol (we have some on hand since my oldest ends up with wheezy coughs a lot), and that relieved him enough to get a little sleep...well some sleep after he finally settled down. The Albuterol really hyped him up :) Today his breathing has been ok (not perfect, but not struggling like he was last night), but the poor kid is coughing constantly! The latest thing I have tried (from suggestion of the nurse at his doctor's office) is warm decaf tea with some honey in it. He LOVED it, but I didn't really notice a difference. I also just tried some straight honey. Again he enjoyed it, but still coughing. So any suggestions you might have that I could try would be appreciated! Both my boys seem to have a weakness in this area and often colds settle in their respiratory system, so this is nothing new to me. I am just praying it doesn't turn into pneumonia like it did in February!

ANYWAY, I say all that to give a little explanation as to why I haven't been around here much :) I know, excuses, excuses ;) I have also been around here so much, that I seem to have run out of things to talk about. You all pretty well know all about my family and I at this point ;) I wish I had an exciting area of the country to talk about like Tina was able to share with us, but with living pretty much in the middle of the United States, there isn't that much exciting happening...unless you count the tornadoes we seem to get often around here. In fact, we are suppose to have chances of those around here tomorrow afternoon. I LOVE spring, but I do NOT like the tornado season that comes with spring :) But there are MANY things to love about spring too. Like the blooming bradford pear trees...

This Week at TSG

Well, looks like you all are stuck with me again this week :)

I would like to take today to remind you of all the great crops happening this week at TSG!

Tuesday, April 8th:

Easy as 1,2,3 Crop ~ 2pm EST
Join Pammy for this fun crop that she is taking over for Cheryl.
Here's how it works:
1. You purchase Pammy's featured kit to use to make your layout.
2. She will give you a coordinating freebie(s) during the crop.
3. Post your layout by the deadline of April 15th and you'll get the posting bonus shown below - 8 4x6 bragbook stickits from the featured kit!
The featured kit is "A Spring Thing" is available HERE in the TSG Store.
It will be on sale for $2.00 until midnight, April 15th.

For those of you who can't attend the crop, but would like to participate in the challenge, you can still get everything available. All you have to do is purchase the featured kit, create your layout, post it in the Easy as 1, 2, 3 gallery, post the link to your layout here and I'll send you the posting bonus shown below PLUS the coordinating crop freebie(s).

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Grow Your Elements ~ 7pm EST
Join AScrapbookDiva (April Sevigny) and Froggypond (Marsha Connell-Torre) and see the HUGE, ELEMENT PACKED, MEGA KIT they have created for this months challenge.
In fact, they got SO carried away creating "A Country Easter", that they had to move their crop to the SECOND Tuesday for this month. It just took them too long to zip everything up and get the previews and files into the TSG store!

You can purchase our kit ... NOW AT 57%OFF ...yup, only $3.00... till May 7!!!!!!!!
This is a deal you will NOT want to miss. Remember, AFTER THE CHAT, there will be additional elements which you will receive if you have purchased our kit.

Although the main theme is Easter, there are so many soft pastels that this kit would be perfect for any Springtime layouts.

What is the Challenge?
Use as many of the featured element as possible in your layout without making it crowded, or take the focus off of the picture. You may use all of the element freebies in your layout or pick one or two an use many of them. It is up to you.
Every month there will be a featured kit and "featured" element freebie you will get at the chat.
There will be a posting bonus if you use a different kit. If you use the featured kit you will receive the posting bonus plus another gift for using the featured kit.

Come to the Chat on April 8 at 7pm to find out what the Element of the Month is.

You have until May 7 to complete the Challenge.

Post your layouts HERE

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Wednesday, April 9th:

Getting Swirly With It! ~ 9pm EST
Join MickeyB for this exciting sounding new crop!! The crop title is just a hint of what the challenge is!
Do you love using swirls in your layouts? This is the challenge for you!
Meet Michelle in the chat room at 9:00pm (EST) on April 9th for my Getting swirly with it crop!

At the chat she will be giving out some swirls/doodles for you to use in a layout. Make a layout using the crop gifts and as a posting gift you will receive Michelle's Basic swirl/doodles set! It isn't even in the store yet!

Here is a preview of the posting gift:

Make sure to post your layouts in the gallery (challenges) HERE and post a link for your layout in this post.

This challenge will be open till April 30th!

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Don't miss out on these fun crops and make sure to check out all the great challenge in the TSG Forum -- HERE!!

Well...It's Still Friday Where I Live :)

Can I count it if it is still Friday CST (11:42pm actually)? lol The day sort of slipped away from me without me realizing it. I'm not even too sure where the time went to. Don't you just hate those days that sort of slip away from you without you really knowing where your time went? Besides doing some school work with Drew, the only thing I can remember accomplishing was moving some of the office things downstairs to what will now be the office. Oh, and I did watch a really cute movie with my boys. My parents took Drew to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" around Christmas and they all came back saying it was cute. So when it became available from Blockbuster on-line I immediately requested it. And I must say it is really cute! I grew up listening to the Chipmunks' Christmas every year on the record player (ah yes, the old vinyl records) at my grandparents house so they bring back very fond memories. I really enjoyed hearing some of those old songs on the new movie. In Drew's words, it was a "2 thumbs up" :)

As an apology for missing Friday, I thought I would share a little SticKit (grab it HERE -- sorry this link has expired) I just made using the TSG April Mega Kit, Spring Sorbet which you can pick up in the TSG Store HERE for just $3.49!


In case I don't make it back later today (yep - it is officially midnight my time now), I hope you all have a nice Saturday!

Not Much to Tell

There really isn't much happening around here to tell about today.

I do want to remind you about the "Box of Dreams" crop with Georgia tonight at 9pm EST!! You don't want to miss out on that one!

Today was fairly uneventful for me. Drew had swimming lessons this morning (He has come SO far since last Septemeber when he didn't even like to get his face wet!). Then the boys and I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home for a few things (made myself hungry for the chicken & wild rice soup again - lol). The allergist did just call with Drew's results. Looks like he might have a very slight allergy to milk, eggs and oak trees. So he suggested that we take him off main milk products (milk, cheese, yogurt & ice cream) and eatting eggs (not to worry about items with some milk and eggs in them) for about 3 weeks and just see what happens. When I mentioned this to Drew the poor kid wasn't very happy. He LOVES milk products and every one I mentioned he would be having to cut out for awhile, he almost started crying. :( Looks like I will need to be running back to the grocery store to get some soy or rice cream milk substitutes for him.

Well, since it is 5:30pm my time, I guess I better go whip up that soup for dinner tonight. Need to make it tonight before we start the new diet with Drew tomorrow.

I Know I Promised...

I know I promised a real blog entry today, but can you believe it, I'm not sure what to even write about! lol

There has been a lot happening in my world since the last time I hosted the TSG Blog. We took my oldest son to see a pediatric opthamologist because we was seeing double sometimes. He checked out with 20/20 vision and the doctor believes it might have been from being tired or maybe even stress. We also pulled him out of preschool since he was having so many behavior problems and I am working with him at home on school work. This has really seemed to help him and the fits are fewer and most are less explosive. We also took him to see an allergist and are waiting to get the results back from the tests (poor kid's nose just starts bleeding out of no where pretty often). My youngest is in the midst of cutting his eye teeth - UGH! It has been a long, and evidently painful process for him. :( I had a tonsillectomy on March 15th - thankfully a pretty uneventful one. A few days after my tonsillectomy we had a TON of rain in our area and our basement had some water problems...which ment moving lots of stuff out of the way of the water, pulling up the carpet, sucking up the water, letting it all dry completely out and then relaying the carpet. We are still in the middle of trying to get everything moved back where it belongs. And of course I couldn't make it just a simple "move everything back where it came from". No, I decide this would be the perfect time to move our office to the spare room downstairs and then move Drew (our oldest son) into what was the office and Zach (our youngest son) into what was Drew's room. lol And the fun doesn't end there! :) We need to finish redoing one more closet with the ClosetMaid stuff we bought back in January, as well as fix the drainage problem in our backyard and do some landscaping.

Enough about my life, have you all seen the great challenges happening around TSG?

First, don't forget tomorrow evening (Thursday, April 3rd) at 9pm EST is "Box of Dreams Crop with Georgia Oliver"!

Also don't forget all the on going challanges around the garden:
ABC Challenge
Blueprint of My Garden (you have until the 21st to finish the current challenge)
Can You Face The Type?
Color Challenge
Daily Download Challenge
Grow Your Elements
Petals of Wisdom
Scraplift with Karen
Scrap a Masterpiece with Karen
And of course you can't forget the "Keeping it Straight" Challenge!! What a perfect way to keep all the information straight on all the challenges you are working on around TSG.
Whew! That almost makes my head spin :)

Ok, I think I will leave you today with something that isn't scrapbook related, but still something I hope you might enjoy. I am currently addicted to the following "Chicken & Wild Rice Soup" recipe. It is SUPER simple and I think it is delicious so I wanted to share it with you. The original recipe I got from Mr. Food on a noon news show about a month ago, but I have made a few changes. ;) Hope you enjoy!


Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

6 servings
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2 tablespoons oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup shredded carrots
5 cups water
1 (6.2-ounce) package Uncle Ben’s fast-cooking long-grain and wild rice mix
10-ounce (1 1/4 cups) chopped broccoli
2 cups chopped cooked rotisserie chicken (the already cooked kind from the store)
4-ounces Velveta cheese, cubed
1/2 cup (4-ounces) Cheddar Cheese
1 (10-3/4-ounce) can cream of chicken & mushroom soup
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1. Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and carrots, and sauté 5 minutes.
2. Add water, seasoning packet from rice, broccoli, and chicken. Bring to a boil, and stir in rice; reduce heat, cover, and cook 5 minutes.**
3. Add cheese and soup; cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Serve immediately.

**If you use the regular rice instead of fast-cooking, step 2 will take 25 minutes instead of 5 minutes.

Personally, I like to add more chicken, broccoli, carrots & cheddar cheese than it calls for in the recipe. :)

April Garden Gateway

The April issue of the Garden Gateway is now available You can read it HERE Go find out a little more about Dawn Mills of Snowsmoon's Design and the TSG Gallery Administrator Lilly Reinier!

And I JUST noticed I forgot to include a goodie from Pammyj in the newsletter! Oh my word!! She has a wonderful new kit that just came out today called "Swirled" - available HERE . For those of you who have already read the April Garden Gateway, I don't want you to miss out on the gorgeous goodie Pammyj gave me to include so make sure to re-read the newsletter (I have it included on PAGE 8 now)! Here is what you would miss if you don't go back I am SO sorry about that, Pammy!!

Completed...But Not Posted Yet

Ok, I just finished the April Newsletter and went to upload it only to find out that my hubby is using all my DSL bandwidth up and it was loading SUPER slow. (That's what happens when he runs 4 poker tables, a Skype chat as well as numerous AIM sessions.) SO since he he isn't sharing well, and instead of staying up until 2am waiting for everything to load, I will just post it later in the morning when he isn't being a bandwidth hog :) Sorry it won't be posted at the usual midnight time...but it is coming! Ok, off to get some sleep. If my youngest has trouble sleep and is up and down all night (like he did yesterday) I will try uploading it while I am up with him :) I will be back later. Night for now.