Reporting for duty

Today is the day. I'm photographing a wedding today...for a non-family member. It's a fairly laid back job. The client just wants pics on a disk for her to print. I don't feel pressure to have to do post processing. Just take a bunch of good pics and give her the disk. It's a paycheck. Of course it's the worst day for a wedding...it's raining! Hopefully it'll stop by tonight.

Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!!!

First off...Happy Birthday to Jesus! For he is the reason for the season.

I just wanted to share a few pictures of our Christmas morning. LJ was extremely excited to see the GeoTrax train set that Santa left for him. He's been playing with it now for almost 2 hours!
















I can't wait until the girls get home tomorrow night so they can see what Santa brought for them. They're spending Christmas with their dad this year. I'm very sad that they aren't home. It's the first year they've been away from home on Christmas morning.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday's visit with Marie and baby Caroline.

















And we can't forget Annie and Marie!

Elf at work

This year I took the handmade pledge for Christmas!



With the combination of an overwhelming supply of craft items and the lack of work for 2 1/2 weeks because of surgery/holiday break I was forced to compromise on my Christmas gift splurging. I brainstormed for ideas for all 3 kids as well as for the nieces and nephews. I'm happy to announce that spent less than $300 for all christmas gifts that were purchased this year. And the amount is that high only because the girls are getting new bikes. So that was $160 of the total right there. Everything else is being made with love by me!

It's been exciting to come up with ideas and turn them into reality. I've worked with supplies I had around the house with the exception of lining material for the girls' tote bags that I'm picking up tomorrow. Only 13" of fabric needed for each bag so the cost will be minimal. Oh and the tshirts for their Christmas jammies.

Here are the pics that I got of their gifts. Not everything is finished yet...but I plan to finish everything up tomorrow after my doctor's appointment.

LJ's jammies


Trini's jammies


Loo-Loo's jammies


I embroidered shirts I bought at Walmart and sewed the flannel bottoms.

A Christmas iPod cozy for my new iPod Touch. Merry Christmas to me!




I added a clip to the back so I could clip it to my purse. With my new larger purse I keep losing things!

And my wrapping paper this year is being replaced with these cute drawstring bags. Why didn't I think of this earlier? I refused to wrap and have LJ unwrap all the gifts, so I didn't put them under the tree. I found a tutorial for a simple drawstring bag and I whipped up several today to wrap the kids' gifts in.



Don't they look cute under the tree. And I used up those extra pieces of Christmas fabric from prior projects.



The nieces all got bottlecap necklaces as their gifts. And the nephews got bottlecap keychains. Taylor loved his Go Dawgs keychain.





Not a great pic but here are the keychains


I think those are all of the pictures I have of the items I've made. There are more, but I didn't take pics of everything. More pics to come Christmas morning.

It's been very rewarding and exhausting at the same time. I plan to do this more often...just need to get an earlier start!

Surgery update

Can we go back to Tuesday? I'm hurting! Surgery went well. I arrived at the hospital at 6:00am. They called me back to prep around 6:15 and then allowed Joe to join me. The sweet nurse was great at IV sticks..I didn't feel a thing. Of course you would think it had killed me by the bruise it left! I asked the nurse that would accompany the Dr. during surgery if I would have stitches or tape and she said that dreaded word. STAPLES. Hello?! Staples do NOT belong in my stomach. So I turned red as a fire engine and about started to cry. All while whining saying "NO". Then it was time to go and they wheeled me to the OR. It was a very cramped room. I remember thinking it looked like a storage room with a huge light. LOL I guess they have every available piece of equipment and med in case things go wrong in the sterile environment. The surgeon arrived in the OR and said hello. This is the point where I proceeded to beg for stitches. He said he could do stitches and I relaxed after that. They laid both of my arms out beside me (like during my c-section) and that's all I remember. I was out after that.

When I woke up it was around 9:15 and I woke up cranky! I was in a lot of pain. The nurse told me to relax so the meds would work better so I tried my best. They finally let Joe come back. I made sure he'd called everyone to let them know I was okay and he had. He said the surgeon had finished at 8:00am and came out to talk with him. So I had slept another hour before waking up. I was in recovery for about an hour and then decided to try and get dressed. I felt like a princess as my sweet hubby gowned me. Ok..he just put my undies and pants on because I couldn't get them, but it was still sweet. I managed to get out of bed and into the wheelchair to go home. We stopped at Kmart to pick up my pain Rx and it ended up taking 30 minutes. I stayed in the car though and went back to sleep while Joe got the meds.

I'm recovering as well as to be expected. I'm having a lot of pain in my right side. It feels like it would if I'd run and my side started aching. The nurse at the hospital said it's a combination of gas pains and the manipulation of my stomach insides during surgery. The incisions are tender to the touch, but no constant pain coming from them.

I'm off to try to finish up some christmas gifts.

I was so wrong!

The entire 9 months I was thinking boy. Well I was wrong. Introducing Caroline Elise. Isn't she the most adorable thing ever?