On Monday a little someone turned 3.
Yep, we have entered the next phase of the terrible two's called the terrifying three's. You know, where your child starts to think that they can do just about anything and have no fear?

This is the year where potty training will be completed, she will get better at getting on and off her clothes, she will walk beside me and not take off in stores ( I can hope right?).

We celebrated this momentous occasion on Sunday afternoon with some friends and family.

The birthday princess could hardly wait.

This was the year where she fully understands that this party is for her and that she will be getting cupcakes and presents.

She is the star of the show.

Getting Chelsea to pose at her party table and not eat and of the cupcakes was a challenge and we, meaning Rob and myself had to be on constant vigil to make sure the chocolate stayed on the cupcakes, along with the Hello Kitty candy toppers.

As presents began coming in Chelsea tried her darnedest to start opening, finally I put up a table to put the gifts on that made it slightly harder for her to start digging into.

Having everyone singing Happy Birthday just lit her

up and Chels got such a kick out of it.
Blowing out the candle this year was an easy feat and she did it so fast that I made her do it again because I missed taking the picture!
Chelsea sure didn't mind blowing out the candle again as I clicked away.

At the party we offered funfetti cupcakes with milk chocolate icing and an ice cream sundae bar with plenty of toppings.

Afterwards we played with and tried on some of our gifts. Seen here Chelsea is sporting a new princess pajama set complete with Ariel gloves and matching purse. The pink boa tiara sparkles atop Chelsea's freshly washed hair and adorning her cute feet are a pair of shimmer flower Dora sandals, that she tried to go to bed wearing, and no outfit is complete with out jewelry. Chelsea has chosen to wear a Hello Kitty necklace along with a strand of pink pearls to complete her ensemble, her princess wand was noticeably absent for this picture but rest assured it was close by.

Actually, Chelsea spent most of the day waving around one of two wands and instead of saying abracadabra she would say, magic, magic, magic!

Earlier yesterday I was somewhat kicking myself think how I have short changed my kids yet again this summer.
When the TV is on there is a constant barrage of ads for Disney which always gets all the kids going, but there are also ads for San Diego and Sea World. All places I would love to take my kids and I'm sure one day we will but, this got me to thinking about the things we have done so far this summer.  
Our not so bummer summer.

We've had Kelly's year end ceremony from girl scouts,

Baseball games with Wyatt

 soccer games with Kelly,

watching Baby Bryson a couple of days a week,

going with the boy scouts to see the Tucson Padres play, also where I got hit in the forearm trying to catch a pop fly foul ball one handed while my camera was in the right hand.

Let's see we have gone fishing with Dad and Mr. Marty,

 we went to the cheap movies and saw RIO, really cute movie, playing so hard that Chelsea fell asleep at dinner.

 We have done some crafts, gone to Grandmas to play in the kiddy pool.

This is just the first few weeks! I haven't posted about Fathers Day or the things we have planned for the rest of the summer.

I really don't need to be hard on myself, I think my kids are having a great summer so far, would I like to take a road trip, heck yeah. I'm going to by the Arizona Highways book on the back roads and I think we are going to explore this wonderful state we live in.

*Carrie*

I had nothing but good intentions for yesterday, indeed I did, but my body betrayed me and I ended up being in the hospital most of yesterday morning.
The story goes like this:
I woke up at 4:30 with a pain in my right lower back. I used the bathroom and tried to lay back down. No matter how I lay nothing was comfortable so I got up and walked laps around my house as the pain continued to increase. I came back to the bedroom and Rob is asking me where it hurts and do I want him to skip his morning bike ride.
I feel terrible but I said yes. After another ten minutes the pain is still getting stronger. I finally cave because I've never had this much pain before and I was scared. I asked Rob to call his mom and for him to take me to the hospital. By now it's just past 5am. I'm sitting on the couch waiting for Rob to finish getting dressed and for his mom to come over and I'm not sure if I'm gonna pass out or throw up from the pain.
Just that feeling was freaking me out. I've never been in the much pain to feel like fainting or passing out.
Just as his mom pulled into the driveway I went running to throw up. Nothing in my stomach, but up it came anyway.
We drove to the emergency where I was immediately ushered into triage and asked the normal barrage of questions. The pain is intense and I'm hunched over and crying. I'm taken by wheel chair to a bed where I continue to writhe and cry. 15 minutes later a doctor comes in and asks some questions and pokes me and announces that he is pretty sure it is kidney stones.
That's it?
Seriously, that much pain for kidney stones?
A nurse comes in to start an IV and administer some medication before I'm taken in for a CT scan.
I'm hard to poke anyway but my left arm has a couple of bruises from her digging around trying to find a vein. Third time was the charm when she hit a vein in my right arm.
I was asked again about any allergies or issues with medications. I stated that I don't like morphine and wouldn't you know that is what the doctor ordered. Thankfully she administered it very slowly so I didn't have most of the effects that I've had before.
We later tried to count how many times I was asked if I was pregnant. This is very important knowledge if your about to be scanned. Considering that my tubes are tied and aunt Flo was visiting I would say my pregnancy chances were nil.
Later I was taken in for a CT scan and then wheeled back to Rob who was being so patient and sat beside me playing Angry birds while I tried to doze.
A different doctor came in to read me the results of the CT scan.
Not only do I have a kidney stone, which thankfully was about to enter my bladder but that I have several more to come, and not only in my right side but my left side too.
Do you want to hear what else?
I also have gall stones! They are not inflamed yet and not bothering me but they are there and ready to go.
Just great.
I ended up finally leaving the hospital after 10:30am, we stopped by the drug store to drop off my prescriptions and I came home to rest.
I felt like such a sissy when I found out it was just kidney stones, but I have never, I mean NEVER experienced that kind of pain before.
My sympathies to everyone out there who has ever experienced that pain before. I totally get it now.
I must say I don't do well when I have taken pain medicine. After the morphine faded I had the worst headache yesterday afternoon and evening and when the pain started last night I took a percoset and this morning I still feel out of it and tired. I will only use these when I absolutely need to.
So today we start again, I have things to do and little people to take care of. Thankfully I'm in no pain and hope not to be in any pain for a while.

*Carrie*

My Cricut Addiction

 I think I'm seriously addicted to owning Cricut cartridges.
Please don't tell my mom, okay? I don't want her to try and stop me.
Granted she can be as bad as I am but still if it wasn't for me she would probably only have about 20 carts.
Factor in me having a gypsy and my addiction goes through the roof. The carts are uploaded to gypsy and then stored at mom's house, a win-win situation.
This month Cricut, aka Provo Craft, has so many new carts to announce that they are having 3 Hello Thursday's this month.
Last Thursday they announced four new lite carts and a cart exclusive to HSN.
Out of the 4 lite carts I really like 3 and out of those 3, mom and I purchased 2.
Now what does this have to do with my supposed addiction?
Let me explain, yesterday I had to make a new list of all our cricut carts because the last list got left behind when we switched computers.
So I started up my gypsy and went into the all carts list, knowing that I may have forgotten to upload a cart or two and I started typing, and typing.
To be smart I put everything in numerical order and alphabetized and in colums. The end result had me questioning, however briefly, my sanity and need for cricut carts.
Now the total is no where near what other peoples are, but still it's enough to make some people look twice at me.
My other guilty thought is that I have more than a few carts that I have never even used, the intentions and ideas are there but I haven't cut a single thing out with them yet.
After contemplating this for a few minutes and remembering that other cricut lovers have this same issue, I have decided, like others before me, to challenge myself to use every cartridge at least once.
This is going to take a while.
This might also help me with my overall scrapbooking anyway because I bought some of these carts with certain images in mind and have yet to neither print out the pictures and thus not completing the page.

Now why did I post these pictures of these two cricut carts.
Well the first cart, 9 months, was released last Thursday and one that I ordered today.
Now I can get my pregnancy photos scrapped.
This image is from my absolute favorite cartridge Create a Critter.
I have thoughts of cards, layouts and mini albums dancing through my head whenever I look at all my carts but I haven't cut much lately.
I read a quote today from Walt Disney that really smacked me upside the head, and words we should all live by.
Walt said, "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
I guess I better get busy.
I have 144 carts as of today to go through.
*Carrie*

 This week we had our final girl scout meeting and gave the girls their awards.
Kelly was one of the outgoing brownies that got to do the flag ceremony.
Kelly was a bit nervous about doing this in front of all the parents because the girls hadn't practiced in a couple of weeks but they all did well.

I was running around a bit ragged on Monday getting things ready and thankfully I did.
I talked to the leader about picking up some more patches and once she said yes I headed to the girl scout store.
Sadly the girls have only earned 3 try it patches and their 4 journey key patches, but I found 3 more fun patches they could add to their vests. One is for the flag ceremony, one is either for re dedication or investiture and the final is for our zoo visit.
Hopefully this will make some of the parents and girls happier.
This has been a rough year for our Brownie troop. The leader was very disorganized and she told me about a month ago that since I didn't complain enough she thought everything was okay. Seriously, really?
She also said that she had failed the girls, she didn't mentor me like she wanted, and it was all coming to bite her in the butt. Yep, it was. Sadly, I really don't think it will make a difference for the girls next year.
Also...this is classic, a young woman and her mother stopped by our troop the last couple of meetings and were there for our ceremony/party this past Monday. I find out during the ceremony toward the end that the young woman is coming into brownies and the mom is going to be the new junior leader.
Why is this classic? I had talked repeated with our leader that I didn't want to be the junior leader but would love to continue on with being the co leader.
Our leader never told me or introduced me to the new junior leader!
Communication works wonders lady!
So after the announcement I went up to her and introduced myself and talked to her about being her co leader and mentioned the other moms, whom I had already been in talks with, about helping out with the troop.
I was so flipping frustrated, especially since this new junior leader heard me talking with the other moms about starting our own junior troop and how we wanted to run things with the girls.
But it's over now and hopefully we can move forward and have a great junior troop.
I have quite a bit to scrapbook before we start juniors.
*Carrie*

Summer vacation has started around here and while some moments have been tough our daily time table has been going nicely.
Daily timetable, what's that?
just before school let out I made a list of things to do daily and weekly with the kids to help stave off some of the boredom that we experienced last year.
The kids have cartoon time during the morning just for a hour or less, then they have to play outside or we go to a park. This can also include running errands. then we try to do something crafty or school like.
next up is lunch and I even have that planned out for the week and it is open to new things or substitutions. We then can have some quiet reading time for at least an hour. This is the time that I try, with no success so far, to get Chelsea to take a nap. After the hour is up the kids can have a 1/2 hour each of time on the computer. They are also allowed one movie a day.
Except with the attitude I've been getting from the kids about cleaning up after themselves it has been working out rather well. Of course this is the first full week off school so of course it should be going well.

Oh and because I'm sure you are wondering what this picture has to do with this post, it doesn't, I took this picture on Saturday when I was taking the pictures for the 90th birthday party.

the party was held at the Tea Room at Tohono Chul park in the northwest side of town. What a beautiful place. Architecturally it has some quirks that makes it special with tiled alcoves, theses tiled stairs, the ivy covered arches that lead into the front patio area. Then you enter into a quaint little restaurant with picture windows and a fireplace. Out back is more patio seating with a nature trail filled with bright flowers and shrubs. Expect to see quail, hummingbirds and butterflies galore. The tea room is a jewel set inside of a park. the only such type of place that I know of here in Tucson.
*Carrie*