Holiday Extravanganze Sale at SU!

OMG!!! I had to do a quick post before our thanksgiving feast at school today and marathon packing to be ready to head to grandmas house for the weekend afterwards.

Stampin Up! is offering an amazing holiday deal on some great bundles if you order between today and Dec. 1st. Each bundle is between 30 - 50% off which is something they have never done before!!! This is an amazing deal for first time scrapbookers, cardmakers or just anyone wanting to replenish their embellies or add some new stamps to your stash. Click here to see the flyer and if you don't have a catalog - go to http://www.stampinup.com/ or click on my link to the bottom left. I can't decide which is the best deal!

Email me sekorinek@gmail.com if you would like something and I can call you for your cc number and the order will ship directly to you! These are great gift ideas as well.....totally fabulous!

I promise pictures of the turkey centerpiece and thanksgiving feast later today!

don't jinx it!

a miracle has happened at our house, but i am tempted to not even talk about it - in fear of jinxing it! Austin has never been fond of sleeping by himself...so we have had to lay down with him, let him fall asleep and sneak out of the room....the bigger problem is usually doug or i fall asleep before he does and then before we know it it is the middle of the night or morning. Doug finally decided enough was enough and designed the 'magical box'. we took a large box, taped it up, cut a hole in the top and covered it with brown packing paper. We let austin draw on it with markers, glitter glue, etc. Then we filled it with goodies. The deal was: sleep in your own bed all night and in the morning the magical box will be filled with surprises, if you don't sleep in your bed it will be empty. Last night was night 3 of the magic box and it is working!!!! Nothing short of a miracle and good old bribe. But, it is so worth it!

Now i'm just trying to make sure no one gets sick before thanksgiving. we have a thanksgiving feast at school on wednesday - so tomorrow in class we will be baking muffins and making pies and turkey hats and finishing our turkey centerpiece for wed. It should be a fun day and the feast is always lots of fun with the kids before break.

Another small miracle happened yesterday when i finally discovered why my sewing machine was skipping stitches when I was sewing this stretchy jersey wicking fabric that was also rather thin. After finally breaking down and taking my machine and what little pride i had left to quilt quarters and spending another 40 minutes troubleshooting in the store with different needles....the amazing lady finally tried a single needle throat plate (who would guess that?!) and it was fixed. this has been driving me nuts for over 2 weeks and i was beginning to think that my barely used, very nice machine was a dud! back to loving my machine and hopefully done ripping out skipped stitches for a long time!

I did a holiday vendor open house yesterday for stampin up with 9 other vendors. It was fun meeting new people as always and i was able to get a new really great lasagna soup mix and this warm artichoke dip from the tastefully simple rep and learned about a new product or company called scentsy. This product was very cool and different....similar to the old candle (wax) melters where you put the tea light in the bottom to melt the wax?! this one though is heated by a light bulb and they have ones for the bathroom to plug in. the great thing was they were actually cool looking with a ton of selections on scents. I got this one for the bathroom in black weave.

I did make several page kits for the show and didn't sell out of all of them and had some discontinued stamp sets for sale. I'm planning to post the ones that didn't sell in my etsy shop today or tomorrow - so check it out!

what a week

if you have been wondering what happened to me this past week - i'm here to tell you! you know the domino effect when everything is either good or bad and all at the same time?! We first had colds at our house, then the stomach flu, then my dad was here for surgery (which i couldn't be at because of the stomach flu) and when i thought we were all better .... Tyler got a bad cough and started wheezing. I had to take him to the dr. last thursday and found out he was having bronchial spasms and had to be put on breathing treatments 4 times a day. Most of you may have experience with this or not think too much of it...but Austin has NEVER been on an antibiotic and only had 1 dr. visit outside of his wellness checks and that was fingernail related! We have been SO VERY lucky with him that Tyler's issue is something new for us! Then, to top it all off my computer crashed, probably for it's last time....and of course I hadn't backed up everything i needed for 08 taxes and had 2 folders of pictures i hadn't burned or uploaded to shutterfly yet.....of course!

but, good news is - dad is out of the hospital, on his way home today and doing fairly well considering the surgery. Tyler is slowly adjusting to his treatments and seems to be doing better. I'm in my 3rd week at school and things are going really well.

We had a class coffee last night so the parents and teacher could be on the same page and I feel really good about it. I wanted to make sure everyone knew how excited I am to be experiencing this chapter in my life...how I am meant to learn from these children and them from me. How being part of a co-op is hard work, but the best gift you can give your children and yourself. How you have the power to change things and make them the best they can be.

now lets talk about thanksgiving!!! can anyone believe it is just 9 days away and christmas is close behind? wow! but i'm so thrilled to be part of it this year with my family, not to be rushing to the post office 5 minutes before close every day. I am doing cookie exchanges, christmas parties, handmade gifts, loving every minute of christmas traffic, soaking up the twinkling lights and watching it happen through my kids eyes. I am going to love EVERY minute of it!

I would close with some pictures, but ... they are on my not so trusty laptop. Maybe tomorrow if i can get some taken! We are making the cutest centerpiece in class this week for our 3rd annual thanksgiving feast and I will most definately have pictures of it to share.

Does this mean it's winter?

Everyone, but Doug is sick at our house...we are all grumbling about the weather change and already discouraged about sick season. I'm making appointments for flu shots today and looking for a good multi-vitamin for everyone! I think the worse thing is when your kids are sick and so are you. No one wants to take care of anyone! Tyler has had this mild, random vomiting since sat. night and was still cranky and lethargic all day yesterday. I got a milder version all day yesterday and Austin is in and out of it too. I hate wasting 3 days to being sick, now i'm feeling behind on my school lessons and lacking energy at that. So, I am up extra early cutting out some sheriff / firechief badges for the kids to decorate today. Oh, and I still have the cold /cough i had all last week.

i'm off to get ready for school, my other computer is acting up as well...but i'm going to try to have some fun pictures soon!

Saturday Fun Day

I was a lucky mom today ... got invited to a scrapping birthday party complete with Taylor Bakery cake and all! What more could I ask for on a dreary, cold Saturday? I was able to get almost 12 Christmas cards done for my mom's stash and used the new x-mas paper I got from stampin up. I will take some pics tomorrow. I wasn't sure how the paper would be in person, but it was so amazing i may order an extra pack for my x-mas pictures this year.

I have been thinking about putting together some monthly scrap kits that would be extremely reasonably priced and have a mish-mash variety of fun embellies to play with as well as designer paper and matching cardstock. this is something that has been in my mind for a few years actually and i just now have the time to do it. I am doing a holiday open house with a pampered chef friend and wanted to have them available for that. please leave me a comment if you think this sounds like a good idea and i am hoping to have the first one together in a couple weeks! I will probably post them in the etsy store as well. I am anticipating doing just a few in the beginning to see how it takes off. I thought it would be a great way to 'taste test' a lot of product without having to buy the entire bag or set. i mean really - who needs 300 felt flowers in just 3 colors : ) I also love all the paper, but rarely use the entire pack...anyway - i will try it and see how it goes! Happy scrapping ...

Survival

Well, I survived my first week as a preschool teacher. I knew I would and it is funny how the things you are worried about aren't a problem and the things you thought would be a breeze create the chaos! I thought I wouldn't have enough to fill the time and it turns out I don't have enough time to get through everything i want! Transitions are a little more chaotic right now than I imagined, but all in all I love it and think it went really well. I am expecting even more adjustment after next week. The kids are great and it is exciting to get to know each of their personalities a little better.

We ended up having quite the busy week with the election excitement on Tuesday and then Thursday we had a field trip at school which is usually our day off. Amazon Jon came to school and brought his jungle animals. The kids of course loved it and he tried to add in some adult humor as well. The presentation really was good and very kid friendly. I'll attach some pictures of Austin and his wild animals. I had the kids journal about the experience today and it was neat to hear there recaps.

We are headed to a cookout tonight and I'm headed to a friends birthday party tomorrow (yippee!) have a good weekend!

History has been made!

how many of you stayed up watching until the very end last night? I finally had to go to bed at 11:30 - although I couldn't stand it! So excited that our state, Indiana, was one of the last to be called. Four years ago when i voted and stood in line for about 2.5 hours I came home and they had already called our state....I was so discouraged! I couldn't believe it when I woke up and checked this morning that it was so close here and Indiana itself had a little bit of change! wow.

I am going to post lots of halloween pics from the weekend! Class #2 today...i'm hoping for a little less drama : ) if there is such a thing with 14 four / five year olds!

Batman and his sidekick 'rumble bumble'

this one is blurry, but it really shows his excitement at hitting the next house!

welcome november

quick post - more pictures of halloween later!

*got some home projects continued / finished / started this weekend - yippee!!

* start teaching twigs today - yippee!! (they are voting for their favorite colors, foods and animals - in honor of tomorrow!)

*got TONS of candy from halloween - yippee!!