Last night was the Girl Scout awards assembly for Kelly's troop.
The senior brownies performed a little skit and then all the younger brownies were invested with a new pin.
Kelly was very nervous about being in front of everyone but she did wonderfully.
On our way home last night she told us how proud of herself she was. Oh how that warmed my heart.

Here she is getting pinned by her troop leader, dragonfly.
Kelly was spun around and they said this rhyme and then she had to look into this mirror and what did she see...ME!! (well herself actually) Then she walked over to Ms. Lynn and received her new pin and made a new promise.

After all younger brownies were pinned then the patches, certificates and cookie prizes were handed out. Kelly sold way over 300 boxes and probably did sell over 400 but she did it after they had sent all the info into headquarters. There is always next year!

I grabbed a couple of pictures with my heathens!

I have my current girl scout, my future girl scout and boy scout.

We will be looking into Wyatt joining boy scouts this fall. He is so pumped up and ready he is driving us crazy. My mother in law is trying to get Rob to sign up and be his den leader. hmmm....would be kind of cool.

Now I am all caught up with what's been going on around here!

Tonight I'm super excited because tonight's the night Rob and I are going to see STAR WARS in concert!! It's a symphonic laser light show that I'm hoping to get some cool picture to show. EEEEEE, super excited.

*Carrie*

Our bed is officially done!!

We began assembly in our room Monday night and boy is that thing a solid monster.                                                                     

I really love how it turned out. The bed frame is taller than our old one and my feet don't even touch the floor when I sit on the bed.

I have always wanted a tall bed, and I finally do! I'm so happy about that.

Assembly was a bit crazy because of trying to maneuver this middle support into the room. We ended up taking off the side rails so that it could make the trek down the hall without hitting the light fixtures.

Rob put it all back together in no time flat and then it was about putting our Select Comfort frame and mattress back on and adjusting. Because of the way the supports run on the SC frame we might have to put a board underneath but so far there doesn't seem to be an issue.

While we were making the bed Chelsea kept climbing from my nightstand up to the bed to play. Chels has given it her seal of approval. And here is the carpenter himself! He did such an amazing job!

Now we really need to go buy a new comforter set. this one is about 8 years old and NEEDS to be updated. Rob had to rework the wall above our bed so that we could put the pictures and sconces back up. Now I just need to finish cleaning, and talk Rob into building me a dresser.

Last day of school 2010

Oh how proud I am of my two hellions. Both kids received perfect attendance for the last quarter and both received High Honor Roll!!

Wyatt's class ceremonies came first. Each student was to wear a crown with his or her initial on it. I pulled out my storybook cartridge and some mega huge jewels and designed this doozy.

I remembered to get photos with the kids and their teachers for their scrapbooks.

This photo is with Wyatt's teacher Ms. Svetlana. I was so worried at the beginning of the year but she turned out to be the perfect fit for Wyatt and he has excelled in her crazy classroom.
During his awards assembly Wyatt got a little choked up. Besides being hot and tired he was sad that school was over.

Here is Wyatt getting one of his awards. Mr.Meehan is our VP and he is just great with all the kids.

Even us moms and dads received awards for all the help we did in the classroom. We even get mentioned in the school yearbook. Yep, we be special.

After the awards assembly we finished cleaning out Wyatt's stuff from his classroom and then sat back and waited for Kelly's to begin.

This year Kelly has really excelled in most areas but we have noticed how she wants to keep everything easy and not work on reading harder books or math. Next year is going to be very interesting for this young lady. She has so much potential but doesn't want to work for it.

Kelly's teacher Ms. Murray has really worked with the kids so that they have a better head start for next year. The class has already begun with multiplication and fractions. They have also begun working on writing descriptive stories.

This was Kelly's first year with a different teacher and she did beautifully. By the end of the year Kelly could stand up in front of her class and give a report or do a type of show and tell. Her teacher wrote in her final report card how much she has grown over the year and that even when there was a new skill to learn and she stumbled with it, that Kelly kept plugging away until she understood. That's my kiddo.

Now that summer is underway we wait and see whom we will have for teachers next year. Some of the teachers are leaving and some are swapping grade levels so it's going to be a fresh and exciting.

*Carrie*

Well summer vacation has officially begun..Yeah...for right now.

I'm playing catch up and realized that I never posted pictures from the roller skating fundraiser. Yeah I suck, I know :) Let me sum up the night quickly for you.

Me and the kids rented skates, me knowing full well that neither of my kids had EVER been on skates before. I lace up the kids and then get my skates on. Wyatt is all for it. trying to roll but ends up on his bottom. Kelly, we get her up and almost immediately goes right back down. Wyatt is my crazy man, he is game for almost anything, except he is a picky eater.
Rob is trying to help and I'm trying to give some advice on how to stay upright. the one thing I kept saying was try to walk in the skates not roll, at least until they can get more comfortable. Wyatt was cool and kept yelling,"I'm doing it, I'm doing it"! Kelly on the other hand didn't want any help and said in no uncertain terms that she could do it on her own. After 15 minutes she was all upset and wanted out of the skates. Wyatt ended up taking on full turn on the rink and could not focus his attention long enough to stay upright for very long. Wyatt was way to busy watching everyone else skating around him so I ended pushing him while he leaned back toward me.

After about half and hour Rob decided that he was going to get some skates on.

Now Rob hasn't been on roller skates for 20+years. I think he did a great job.
Unfortunately I didn't get a single photo of him on the rink but I got one of him lacing up the skates and on the side of the rink talking to Kelly.

Wow, what a blast. It brought back so many happy memories. Toward the end of the night, besides my legs starting to turn to jello, I actually participated in a skating race. There were 6 adults, 4 women and 2 men. I took second. Rob wiped out in the second turn. I wish i had a photo of that! 

We declared that we would try to come skating over this summer since we enjoyed it so much. Even ms. Kelly after all her attitude and grumbling said she had a good time.

*Carrie*

So it's that time of year again. The last day of school is tomorrow and what better way to combine work with kids' school activities than to make decorations! I took the poster and the congrats banner that I used at my demo at Michael's on Sunday, into Wyatt's class this morning because his class is having a graduation party. Tomorrow the kids will be having an awards ceremony and Wyatt will be wearing a crown that I made from the Storybook cartridge. Now to clarify, his whole class is to wear crowns on Thursday, I'm not doing it to be "special". :)

Last night for the first time both of my oldest kids went rollerskating! The school was having a fundraiser at the local skating rink, Skate Country. Kelly's scout troop banquet was postponed AND Wyatt had been begging us to go so we went.
Oh, we had so much fun. I'll post the pictures later. Once I got on the rink I felt like I was a kid again, so much fun.

Summer vacation is upon us and I have high hopes that we will have a good time. I have some craft projects planned out for the kids to do, Chelsea's room to clean out and get ready, movies, the park, just relaxing at home. Maybe build some back yard furniture, plant flowers with the kids.
I've got two birthday parties to get ready for and a BBQ/ low country boil to plan.
PLUS... monsoon season is on it's way!!! Lightning pictures!
Now if only I had air conditioning, monsoon season wouldn't also be the time of year I dread because of the heat and humidity. Yuck!

This demonstration gig is really becoming more work than I had originally thought. Not that I don't enjoy it because I do, it's making me stretch creatively and it's making me work very hard at juggling the "creative" life and the "real" world.
Example; I have a 3 children, my youngest is 23 months old. I'm not sure if you remember what having a 23 month old was like?
While I adore her immensly, she is a terror! Crafting is like trying to be an octopus, constantly taking things out of her hands and out of her reach, trying to distract her or give her scraps to play with.
Chelsea always goes for my Gypsy! If she is near by when I'm working on it she always tries to tap on the screen. This is not good when your trying to get placement on your mat or trying to create a shadow and *blip* something is missing or moved.
A clean house? What is that? My little tasmanian devil can make a cleaned up living room look like a cyclone hit it. Dinner? Dishes? Crock pots or Daddy do the dinner and dishes get done by Mr. G.E. I just then need to remember to put them away.
I'm finally putting my creative thoughts on paper so to speak and I'm enjoying that, the people who have seen my simple creations enjoy them at the demos.
This weeks theme is "graduation", I have made a graduation hat card and made a small sign that congrats the graduates of 2010. Now I'm off to make a cute scaled down congrats banner to go with it.
Tomorrow and Saturday I will work with my Cricut Cake to make some grad hats and decorations for Sunday's cake demo.
I'll post pictures when I'm done.
This morning I received a call from my MIL and she came and picked up Chelsea for the morning! So I've done a quick straighten up and I'm about to go run the vacuum so that I can go back to making my banner and be done crafting for today!

I mean really, how can someone so cute be such a terror?!
*Carrie*

Lots of projects

Saturday Rob started a new project that he has been wanting to do for over a month.
After reading the plans from Knock off Wood he wanted to make us a farmhouse headboard and foot board. One of the main reasons is because our top mattress keeps sliding off the bed. We even went so far as putting no slip rug liner in between and that didn't help. I have been wanting a pretty headboard for the past 7 years since we bought our select comfort bed. Now I just need to get the rest of the room cleaned back up to showcase our beautiful bed. Granted it still needs to be stained but just bare wood looks good.

Oh and so far this has taken Rob maybe two days to get this far.
Everything was cut on Saturday and all the assembly was done of Monday night. Now either tonight or Sunday Rob will pre-condition the wood for staining and staining will commence sometime next week.
After all the projects we have been working on this week we both agree and dream about having our own workshops. One for his tools and wood crafting and a room for all my crafting stuff.

I decided to make some more projects to display when I demo on Sunday.

Oh, I forgot to blog about last Sunday! I had a great experience and enjoyed myself immensely. Granted I didn't sell any cake machines I really worked on getting comfy with my customers and getting used to working upside down.

The staff at my Michael's was fantastic and made me feel so welcome. I am hoping this weekend will be just as great.

The manager I was working with took plenty of photos which I hope to get copies soon and one was a great shot of me with the cake machine.

Since so many people were asking about the Cricut Expression I decided to make some cards to highlight some of my favorite carts and images. The first card was made from the Elegant cake cartridge. I used glitter paper for the first time and I also used the multi-cut key to cut through the glitter paper.

In honor of mother's day I made this cute little banner. I used storybook for everything but the pennant, that came from the mother's day cartridge.

I finally got to use Create a Critter and I just loooove these cute animals. Inside the deer card is the so dear word cut and I used a white pen to give the dear part some spots.

I thought the lion card would work well for a baby card.

My plan for today and Saturday is to pull out my cake machine and make at least 3-5 different types of cake decorations to demonstrate on Sunday. I want to sell a couple of cake machines!

I did have two minor disasters in my creative fun this week. First off Chelsea loves my scrappin stuff and when I was working with my Cricut she got a hold of my paper trimmer. Next thing I hear is a "snap" and a piece of plastic hitting my ankle. Chelsea snapped off the swing out ruler.

Dang it I just finally realized how to use it too!

The next day trying to ease up on my controlling behavior I let her play with my locking container that holds all my rhinestones.

Yup, she dropped them on the side where the lock is and they all spilled over the floor. Thankfully she helped me pick them back up but boy was that a pain.

Last evening Rob and I were talking and we both have come to the same conclusion that no matter how much we don't want to give up our "space" (craft room/ drums)we are being selfish about not giving Chelsea her own room. Soooo, I'm going to start packing up my scrappy stuff and only keep the essentials. Not sure where I will store this stuff but I'll make room. Rob is also going to pack up his drums.

I keep praying for a miracle cash flow so that we can buy a bigger house but it really isn't realistic. I need to make due with what I have, and one day I can have a room again. 

Sorry didn't mean to end on a sad note.

Carrie           

It's show time!

The Cricut Demo Army
200 women gathered together in the Hilton Hotel at O'Hare airport last weekend for some Cricut training,

socializing and good food. All this is courtesy of Provo Craft and their faith in us, the demo army, to sell the products we use and enjoy the most.

I arrived late Friday night, several hours later than scheduled due to mechanical problems with the plane in Tucson. I missed all of the meet and greet Friday night so I went up to my room and relaxed so I would be fresh in the morning,

I am showing only two pictures of Chicago because except for Monday morning it was cloudy and raining the whole weekend. Not that I could really complain because I only went outside once and that was to go to Gino's east Sunday night for some original deep dish Chicago pizza.

Saturday morning was a rally of the troops in the Grand ballroom with a motivational speech from the the VP Ryan.

I don't think he was ready for us.

We cheered, we clapped, we yelled. We raised the bar with our enthusiasum.

Walking into the ballroom there were several tables filled with crafty samples using cricut products.

Our job and the demo army is to go into Costco, Michaels and JoAnns and demonstrate the newest products by Provo Craft.

This month and just in time for Mothers Day is the Cricut Cake!

That's her in red (which matches my mixer and blender) somewhere in this post! I'll do my first demonstration tomorrow afternoon. I'm both excited and nervous.

Back to Chicago and the girls. I spent my weekend meeting lots of new people and the ones I hung out the most with are featured in this photo; First up is Holly and she is from New York, next up is Robin and I can't remember where she is from, then there is me and then last but not least is Becky whom is also from New York. We ate dinner together, and had some training together. Great ladies and I do hope we stay in touch. I also met several other great women and  I don't have a photo but I would be remiss if I didn't mention Patricia and her daughter Jennifer from Wichita.

It was a crazy jammed packed weekend. Which bled over to this past week were I ended up with jet lag, what's up with that?! Combined with laundry and kids, oh wait, combined with normal every day life I really fell behind.

Then my demo kit showed up and I've been playing ever since.

Am I ready for tomorrow? I would like to think so. Most of it will be my excitement for showing people new product and what this new machine can do.