Winter Storms and Getting Ready for TN!!!

We've been pretty busy around here the past couple of weeks and I just realized how long it's been since I posted..wow! Last week I spent quite a bit of time filling hair bow orders the website and just living life! We got dumped on with snow so we didn't do much outside of the house. The kids had lots of fun playing in the snow with Daddy for the first time this Winter. Maddelyn was definitely not quiet about how she had not been in the snow yet. Caroline was absolutely hilarious trying to walk through snow that was calf high to her...but the little trooper still had lost of fun. I was also able to get a few shots of the house through the knee high snow.

I was able to slip away one day with a friend from Church. Pam and I spen tthe day at the Lodi Outlets...well more like just at Children's Place! :D Gotta love when they have most of the store on clearance for $1.99 - $2.99...and you have a coupon! With 4 kids it's a great time to stock up! Besides all the shopping it was a great time to just hang out with another mom and just have fun. Both of our husbands were oh so sweet to keep all 7 kids at our house for the day. Talk about an act of service for their wives!

The kids had a nice time away with my parents the other night at the Mohican Lodge. While they had a grandparent night we took advantage of just one child and headed to Columbus to celebrate Nathan's 29th birthday. Nathan said he wanted to go to Gameworks (like Dave and Busters) and then a movie, so that's what we did. He was so sweet to let me run into Trader Joes to re-stock on some of their gluten free items like noodles and crackers and then to let me run into Archivers. When you've been out of the scrapbook world for several months...it can be overwhelming for you! I have always been amazed at how quickley the scrapbooking market revolves. With 2 major shows a year when scrapbooking companies are doing new relases...the market is just flooded with new product all the time. Great for scrappers who always want new products..bad for someone who steps back for a bit and then wants to start back again! Where does one start??? I am realizing though that this year's trends are very homespun, as in things you'd find in a vintage sewing box. Hmmm, some I like and some are too altered/distresses for me. I am loving though all the cotton lace, straight pins, polka dots, and vintage ladies in aprons. Kinda hard to scrap anything for Elijah with that though. I am sooo not used to a boy, even after a year!

I've also been busy scrapbooking believe it or not! I am starting to realize just how much I miss this hobby of mine. I have done a bit of scrap'n for myself but most of it has been for my classes at the twelvefridays weekend celebration! I'm pretty excited that I've even tried out a few of those vintage trends myself on these layouts! Hopefully I'll soon have some sneak peeks to share. Less than 2 weeks to go until a relaxing weekend away! :) This is my second time going to Tennessee with the girls and this year I'll be teaching 3 layout classes. We had such a good time last year and even though I really got nothing done scrapbooking wise (besides the layouts the other teachers were teaching) I still had a lot of fun. The gals I'm going with are such sweethearts and always loads of fun. Not only are we scrapbooking all weekend but staying in an amazing cabin and hopefully shopping! If you're interested in going I know the girls are running some pretty good deals for last minute sign-ups!! You can email me for more information. You can also take a peak at what we did last year here.

I was just realizing that last year when I went to TN we had been dealing with a house full of sick kids for quite some time and we had .... the first B-A-T in the house!! Well we are currently dealing with sick kids who have had some sort of cold virus for the past 2 months!!! Caroline has bronchitis and Elijah has an ear infection. I'm praying that the little furry flying mice stay faaaaaaar away, but with or without a bat run in I'm again ready for some time away!

So with just a few days left until I leave for Tennessee, Nathan heads out to Texas for work, and the kids head to their grandparents in Pennsylvaina it's a busy flurry of packing and such. It will be nice when Nathan gets home form a work trip tomorrow since we've had sick kids all week as well as me trying to get everything ready for next week. As I tell Nathan all the time it feels like I need a week's vacation to get ready for a week away and then about 3-4 days afterwards to get caught back up again! I guess that's just life as a mom!

And Just becuase he's so stinkin cute!