Fall is Here!

Okay. . . so fall isn't officially here according to my calendar but summer vacation is definitely over for us. Cole started Kindergarten last Monday which made things go back into a regular schedule around the house (yes!). I'm not used to having him gone for so long so that's kind of weird but the time we spend together when he gets home is great.

Here's Cole with his new teacher Mrs. Elsea.

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I had more problems this week with pregnancy and caught a stomach bug. I was having a lot of sharp stomach pains too that the dr. said was probably false contractions from being so dehydrated. Ugghhhh . . . is this sick part ever going to end???

I do have some good news though . . . Cy is officially completely potty trained now!!! That means 6 full months of no diaper changing! W00-hoo!

I'll leave you with a couple pictures of some gifts I made for a baby shower I went to last weekend for our friends Brian and Whitney. This is their first baby and they're expecting a girl that they're naming Ainsley.

I got the flower idea from watching a demo on Chatterblog on making paper cupcakes. When they were making the cupcake holder it reminded me of a flower that I thought would look cute with buttons in the middle and wha-la this was the end result.

Brian and Whitney - I know you two are going to be great parents and I can't wait to see sweet little Ainsley! Only one more month!!! And Whitney you looked gorgeous at the shower. You're one of those people who just glow when they're expecting!

Happy Birthday Mom!

When I was young, one of the things my family loved to do during family get-togethers was watch slide shows of what we all had been up to. We'd either make the pictures really big on the wall or on a big screen (I think that's part of why we're all picture freaks - that's not always a bad thing).

At one point I went in my mom's closet to find a slide show of me and my sisters baby pictures and found some pictures from when my mom and dad were dating/just married. I took a couple of my favorites and had them made into photos and have had them for a long time now just tucked away. So for her birthday this year I made a little photo book with some of those pictures that I don't even think she knew I had. Hopefully it will be a nice surprise for her - here are a couple of those pages. Happy Birthday week Mom!!! Love you!

Laila

April made these beautiful letters. I couldn't resist posting them!!!

Lot's of Letters!

Okay - I'm long overdue for a Needle in a Scrap Stack update. We've been steadily busy with a lot of custom orders for the past month or two. One of the things I've taken on are a lot of the custom letter orders. Here's a peek at a few of the letters and a couple of other things (I need some prettier backgrounds for my pictures!!!).

This little tote was actually a gift I made for sweet little Maelyn's 2nd birthday. It was the first time I made a purse and I love how it turned out.

One of the things April has been super busy with is an order from a lady who wanted us to help her redo her little girls whole room. April's not quite done with the quilt yet (I can't wait to see it!) but here's a couple pictures of some of the other things she's been working on:

Here's a quick pic of an apron April made for our cousins little girl Kate. It's so adorable, I love it!

Now for a little family picture update

Here are the boys at Maelyn's fairy party. They had a ton of fun at the park especially since we haven't been able to go very much unless it's early in the morning.

I was sneaky and got this picture of Cy. We always say prayers before bedtime but at naptime when I went to check on him he decided to say his own prayers. I got my camera a quick as I could!!

Cy loves to play this game with Daddy where they pretend they're asleep and wake each other up.

Something we just did this week was get a membership for the rest of the month of August to the new Flower Mound Community Center. They have a outdoor water park and an indoor pool with lot's of fun stuff so the boys have become little fish this past week. Our goal is to get Cole swimming across the pool without stopping so he can join the LAC swim team this fall. He's almost there (he's side-breathing too)!!! I'll try to post some pictures in the next couple days.

Right now we're just kind of waiting for summer to be over (along with the miserable heat!). It's nice to see signs of fall with school about to start back up. Cole meets his teacher next week and then starts kindergarten the week after that. He's very excited!!!

Hope you all have a great week!

10 Weeks Today

I am officially a fourth of the way done with my pregnancy! Still got a long way to go but I've got to say the last 4 weeks have been completely miserable. I would rather feel the way you do at the end of pregnancy when you're so uncomfortable than feel the way I have. So hopefully things can only get better from here :)

Here's my sonogram from 8 weeks:

My next appointment is August 18 and then we should be able to find out the sex at the following appointment!!!


The Name List
so far . . .


Girls
Reece Avary Dion (notice her initials:)
Carsyn Kennedy

Cole and Chase's Pick: Brooke (except when I first asked Chase he said "Kissey" and I don't know where they came up with Brooke)

For boys we feel like we have to stick with a C name which doesn't look like it's going to happen - the only C name I like is Chance but it's so close to Chase. Any ideas???

A Few Details From That Day . . .

July 12, Brandon and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been 6 YEARS! It's gone by fast but that's probably because we've been on a whirlwind of having kids. We started young and wanted to finish young so that we will still be young when our kids are teenagers (that way we can still do everything with them from wakeboarding to sports, ect.). One of the things we never did was plan when we were going to have our kids; all 4 have been a surprise and a gift from God. Brandon was set on being "done" after we had Chase (he wasn't exactly the best of babies); then he got the vasectomy after we had Cylas - and now we have our fourth on it's way. I've always had the mindset that though it takes a lot of hard work, the more kids God gives us, the more blessings it will bring. There may be a lot of trials but God is refining us through every one.

This picture from our wedding day is my favorite. It was our first kiss as Mr. & Mrs. Dion, right after we said our vows. I loved that moment.

Some other moments I remember from that day are getting to the church with my sister and running to the dressing room (we got there a little bit later than we wanted to) and having beautiful diamond earings delivered to me while I was getting ready. Those earings became a symbol of sacrifice as they meant a lot to me since Brandon gave them to me on such a special day. They were a carat each and I wore them almost every day but about two years after being married a lot of things came up and we ran into financial trouble. We ended up having to sell those earings that meant so much to me but it was okay. You sacrifice the most for what matters the most. Through all that we've been through sacrifice could look more like failure. But it is not failure; it is that which makes us stronger. And in the end it will hopefully be a beautiful story of love prevailing. I LOVE you Brandon and I always will!

Since I haven't been feeling that good, we watched P.S. I Love You (I actually got him to give in!!!) while the boys napped and then we went out to eat at Blue Goose for dinner. We plan on doing something else later when I feel a little better.

July 4th

Originally we were supposed to be in California for the 4th where every year the whole family gets together and cooks breakfast on the beach. Since plans had changed we wanted to try to do something fun this year in Texas. So we decided to have a pool party. Yeah. . . you might be thinking "But you don't have a pool". That's where getting 12 kiddy pools come into good use. :)

As you can see we are officially into our hot Texas summer - the grass is fried and I can't take the kids outside for any long period of time unless we're in a pool and have a bottle of sunscreen on.

I'll make this my "1 month Pregnancy Picture" since I still look normal and can wear a bathing suit.

No such luck at getting a good picture of the boys together that day.

So, I never finished telling how I told Brandon about the pregnancy test. Since I was asleep by the time he got home and I wanted to involve the boys in telling him, I had the boys make up a scavenger hunt for Brandon to go on in the morning. They each made up a clue that led him on a hunt around the house for three papers. Once he found all the papers we laid them out on the floor and watched him open each one. It read,"Ready for 4?"

Let's just say after having a vasectomy he was not very excited but by the end of the day things were looking up. One of the things I wanted to do different this time around was to surprise everyone we told. Brandon has always just called his mom to tell her the news but this time I made him wait. We went over to his parents house that night and gave them a card that said, "We're adding two feet onto our house." It had two baby footprints on the front and inside it had the finish (due) date. They were both surprised and excited (Chase has had a different expession in every picture I take of him lately - he looks surprised too).

For my parents I made them a card that listed the top 10 reasons they should move to Texas:

1.You can live in a new house for less than half the price of your house (and make tons of $ from selling your house).
2.Although it’s a little hot for a month or two, we actually have seasons!
3.The price of gas is lower. (By a whole dollar per gallon right now!)
4.The air is better to breathe.
5.With all the money you make off your house you could buy a boat and have fun on the lake every time you miss the beach
6.People are nicer/friendlier and community is 10 times better. With all the churches Oma could find a job with no problem and Papa there’s a “Soaring League of North Texas”
7.Cole
8.Chase
9.Cy
10.Your NEW grandson/granddaughter that will be here March 3, 2009!!!

(I ended up reading the reasons to them over the phone before they got the card in the mail because I wanted to hear their reaction)

Another thing I want to do different this time is continue to work out through the whole pregnancy. Now when I first found out I was pregnant I was thinking I'll keep running 6-7 miles at a time and I'll continue cycling until I just can't do it anymore. The day after I said that I started reading a new pregnancy book I picked up and read about all the dangers of raising your body temp. and directing all the blood away from your uterus . . . that freaked me out so I didn't work out the rest of the week. Now I already feel like a big, bloated, baluga whale. I typically weigh in around 121 lbs. and now I'm already 126!! Don't get me wrong, I don't mind putting on weight; it's just a little early to put on 5 pounds in a week and a half when you know that's not baby. I'm already so nauseous and eating helps me feel better for a little while - but I am eating healthy :) Looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of walking and light weight lifting for the next 9 months!

By the way, many of you have asked how far along I am -I'm 6 weeks and my first Dr.'s appointment is July 21st (if we don't go to California before that).

Ringing in July

I am VERY excited for the month of July. I've been blogging for the last couple days but I havn't posted any of them because most of you know by now I have some big news - but I couldn't post that big news until I surprised my parents with the big news (which happened tonight).


July 1st started out normal. I took the boys down by the creek to let them explore and to take some pictures.

Brandon was busy working and would be gone all day (he had his defensive driving class later that day that lasted till 10pm). That afternoon I ran some errands with the boys, one of them being to pick up a couple things at the store. I decided earlier that day to pick up a pregnancy test to confirm my "I couldn't possibly be pregnant" thoughts. And why is it that every time I've picked up a test no matter how hard I try to hide it, EVERYONE in the store ends up seeing it? This time the lady ringing everything up got my stuff mixed in with the lady's stuff in front of me . . . you can imagine the rest!!! :)


Blog from:
July 1st

Before I write anything I have to say I’ve enjoyed blogging. I’ve been so busy with Needle in a Scrap-Stack stuff that I have not scrapbooked in awhile and I would truly feel like I’m missing out if I weren't blogging.

Scrapbooking to me isn’t all about the page design – although that part is so much fun – it’s about the moments that make our stories (and telling those stories). I recently applied to be apart of the Chatterbox design team and the only question they asked (along with sending in some photos of your work) was, “Why do you scrapbook?”

I first started scrapbooking after Cole was born. I was exploding with emotions and scrapbooking was the perfect outlet to express my feelings. If we don't write down our stories then eventually they're lost. But I want to remember, treasure, and pass those stories down to my children and to their children. One of the biggest things I love about scrapbooking is that it forces me to take a time out - to step back and look at the beauty in life when it seems not so beautiful; to look at the big picture.


In having this blog it has made me sit down and write out more of what's going on. Sometimes I feel awkward getting personal on the blog since it is connected to the business side and I never know who could be reading it. But from here on out it’s going to be a little more personal because I want to feel like I have something to keep me more accountable for the stories and because today I have some news (and I want to keep everyone updated). . . some BIG news and I don’t care what anybody thinks or says – I am going to be happy about it.

Brandon and I are going to have another baby!!! I’m pregnant!
(yes, it is going to be our 4th child!!!! And yes, I just got rid of all of our baby stuff because we REALLY thought we were done)

Wow, I said it.

Most of you know Brandon and I have not had the easiest year (actually more like years) but everything is telling me that this is God’s perfect plan – I mean come on, Brandon just had a vasectomy three months ago (he never went back to make sure all those suckers were completely gone and that everything was good to go - there went $1,000).

I have many reasons to be excited - one of them being that this one could be a girl. I am so happy with boys and would love to have another one but as a lot of you know, when a man has a baby girl it changes him in ways that baby boys can’t. If this is a girl then it could be an answer to some prayers.

It is still so unreal to me; I’m still in shock and have to make myself keep going back to look at the test to try to let reality sink in. I’m still trying to think of a nice why to tell Brandon so he doesn’t flip out (don’t worry – I’m not going to post this until after I tell him). I think I want to do something that involves the boys.

Oh, and something else that happened this morning that was totally random (this was before I took the test) - me and the boys watched Cy’s first 2 years DVD and both Cole and Chase said that they wanted another baby. They never say that!!

Seasons of Life

Tonight Brandon's out for Jeremy's bachelor party and the kids actually went to bed early. I got on the computer and looked at couple of my favorite sites to check up on, one of them being melodyross.typepad.com (she'd the owner/creator of Chatterbox). I started thinking about when I first found her blog and how there were some postings about a book she was writing to her kids about marriage and how it had inspired me to start writing a lot more things to my kids (at the time it was just Cole and Chase was just about due). Well I went back through trying to find it to maybe be inspired again and I found this post. It touched me in so many ways I had to share it with you all:


Life is a TreePart 4
Melody Ross
Life is a Tree…and every tree has a story….this one is long, and really it’s a kind of love story….I promise it will be worth it….
This story has been a hard one to choke out….I haven’t wanted to confront it…but it’s really the reason I started writing about trees a few weeks back. Every time I have sat down to try to write this out, my whole heart begs me to stop….but….here goes….
Out back behind the house in our old red barn, there’s an enormous stack of rough cut walnut boards….they have been sitting in the barn for over 2 years, ‘curing’, waiting to be planed and sanded and built into a dining room table and a drawing desk and a big, thick front door....... ….however, they used to be a tree that is now a very sad stump in our side yard….you can see it when you drive up the lane to our house…and, removing this stump will surely leave an enormous hole that will have to be filled-in (though it’s got to be done one of these days) because this tree was old old old….and tall…..and beautiful…and perfect….it was one of the oldest trees on our 100 Year old farm. We used to pick bushels and bushels of fallen walnuts off of the ground every Fall, my children hated it and loved it…every few days we’d have to park the tractor next to this giant tree and fill the bucket up…it was hours and hours of fun family time in the crisp Fall weather….
You have to understand that I wanted a house with big trees…that was my one big request…because, you just CAN’T buy trees that are 50 and 100 years old…for any amount of money…they have to come with time…they are rare and they are wonderful and I didn’t care where I had to live as long as I got to have big trees….the big trees I wanted just happened to be surrounding a beautiful 100 year old stone house that I was also in love with….all of the things I prayed and wished and hoped for all ended up on this farm……….and in all of my late 20’s wisdom….I was certain that life would always be this perfect…that the trees would continue to tower, that my home would always be filled with perfect memories and that our family would live happily-ever-after….but, really….would that make a very interesting story?
I remember the summer that I noticed that the leaves growing on the very top center branches of the old Walnut tree were starting to wilt. It seemed like there was something happening right in the middle branch….I thought maybe some bugs had gotten to it…then, every week, the circle of wilting leaves spread, outward, from the center….
Then…in the middle of that summer, my husband (who I also prayed and wished and hoped for all of my life….and wanted EVEN MORE than big trees) had a horrible sports accident, resulting in a traumatic brain injury….and our life was immediately turned upside down…. ….and as cruel as life can get…my tree was dying, too.
Every day I would drive home and looki at my tree, towering at least twice as high as my house, watching it fade and wilt branch after branch, the sickness spreading a few feet wide…until it was 4 feet wide, then 8 feet wide, then 12 feet wide….all summer, week after week, this poor tree was struggling. and dying from the inside out…I wanted to fix it, I wanted to find the thing that would make it better….i wanted the branches and leaves to stop dying…I made phonecalls and talked to tree doctors and called my mom who has the greenest thumb I’ve ever known of…I researched the problem and then finally called Genevieve….my husband’s great aunt, and the sage old botanical soul who I knew would know the answers…and, would understood my devastation….
She told me there was nothing that I could do because a tree virus (yes, it’s true) was killing all of the walnut trees in town….it came around every 50 years or so…..she’d just lost 3 walnut trees herself….it is just the cycle of life……
Ugh.
I would not call myself a tree-hugger…..but, this tree was just such a close resemblance to everything that was happening with my husband. It was a bitter irony during that time in our life….my husband was really not doing well….would go through all sorts of different phases….and I was a mess…..and I would cry and not be able to pull myself together and friends would ask what was wrong and I would say “my tree is dying….”
I would cry whenever I drove up to the house and looked at it…sometimes I would sob….I would just put my head down on the steering wheel and sob….and then I would go inside, pull myself together before I had to go upstairs and take care of my husband’s shell, lying in bed for almost a year………when he was awake he was dead inside….he was different, I was certain that nothing would ever be the same again…ever. But, is it really ever even possible?
….and I don’t think anyone really understood how difficult it was, or why it was so devastating to me when that tree died….in fact, I don’t know that I understand why I reacted the way that I did….like a real person had died…because really, it was easier to admit that I was losing my tree than that I was losing my husband and the love that I’d prayed for all of my life and enjoyed for 14 years before that #*#&^#% accident took him from me and from us and from the world….took the life I planned for us and thought we would always have….shook things up and made them scary….
Doesn’t it just feel cruel sometimes that you can’t just pick ONE thing to stop in time? That everything has a life cycle….that change must happen….that the world keeps going and going whether we are ready or not? That this walnut tree had dropped hundreds of thousands of walnuts throughout its time and that its seeds were already moving and growing into new trees that would make walnuts of their own…………..
……and that the whole, entire tree was done, after almost a hundred years of shading this place….without a single warning, it didn’t tell us the year before that we better enjoy it while it was still around….…..it just died.
And, the next year, when my husband was out of bed and starting to function again……he called some timber guys, and took out the chainsaw, and they all cut the tree down. It was a foggy, surreal day……..and they all talked about what beautiful, perfect wood it was, how straight and perfect that tree had grown, what beautiful furniture it would make….
I was still raw from a whole year of caring for him….he was just coming alive….so different and healing…..he saw me standing over in the yard, crying….while they all cut down that tree with such a disturbing and insulting lack of emotion…..DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GROW A TREE THAT BIG? DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IT CAN NEVER BE REPLACED??? DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I LOVE THAT TREE???? …..and my husband came over to try to comfort me…..and he said….’someday I will build you a whole house of furniture with this tree….you’ll be able to enjoy it every day…just in a different way, it’s going to take on a different shape….this tree will live on forever….”
Then some guys came out and cut the big tree into thick, beautiful boards…….and, there’s a zillion of them stacked out in our barn….and someday they will be ready, after their ‘curing’ time.
…..and whether I accept it or not, life will grow up right around that stump in my yard……if we don’t pull it out, it will be overgrown with new life someday….nothing waits….and new walnut trees grow every day, that was not the only one…….and the world enjoys their shade and their fruit and all of the things that will be made from their wood when the time comes…….but not a single tree will be alive in the ground forever.
….through nature, Heaven, God….there’s a plan….for birth and life and time to go….then new growth….nature even cleans out the forest with fires….completely gets rid of ‘dead wood’ and the next Spring, through black and burnt trees, a whole new forest grows….it just does…..it just does. You don’t even have to do anything…it just grows when it’s time….right through the rubble. That’s how a tree’s life is…that’s how OUR life is….So……the lesson I learned from a dying tree…..from change that I did expect, from change that I did not want to accept….was that my tree will someday be a table for my family to eat and talk and play around………and it could never be a table if it was still a tree….and now it’s time for it to be a table…..
…….time for the carpenter to do His work…. …..so we gotta stop crying about the fallen trees….
Whatever your fallen tree is…I hope you can see the table that is within it….and look back and remember the shade it once brought, but just to be thankful, not to be sad….there’s a million other places to find shade.
…..I don’t know if what I wanted to say, what I meant, really came across….this is still a hard one for me…the stump is still in my yard…..and the wood is still curing….and my tree is gone………..I am gonna start looking forward to that table and all of the life that we’ll be living around it…..
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, that you're making big plans for the rest of the holidays... and that you really took the chance to dig deep and found the millions of big and little things to be thankful for.

Family Vacation

Our family has been blessed by the little perks of Brandon's job lately. He has to go out of town a lot more - this past week he had to go to Houston and San Antonio - so we decided to make a little family vacation out of it.
The first leg of our trip was to Houston. We made it out there, checked into our hotel, then made our way out to Galveston Island - all I can say is that I must be spoiled living by the beach in California for 21 years :)

This was the best picture I got of them. They were too busy looking at all of the shells.

It was the first time the boys got to stay in a hotel and they simply loved it. Cole was amazed that he didn't have to make his bed in the morning! Another one of the boys' favorites was the huge breakfasts - they loved having so much to choose from and the Texas shaped waffles (they eat like this now, what is it going to be like a few years from now!!!). And of course, they loved getting to play in the pool so much - that's what kept us busy while Daddy was out working.



On our second day of Houston (after Daddy was done working) we went to the Johnson Space Center and we LOVED it. Definitly take the tram tour and make sure you get off where you can see the space shuttle. We're hoping we can take a trip to Florida this October to see the next space shuttle take off. How exciting would that be!!!

Before bed the boys were deciding which planet they were going to travel to. So cute!

Our third day we drove to San Antonio and that evening went to the River Walk. While we were there we took the boat ride and you guessed it - walked along the River Walk.

I love that we got to sqeeze in a little family get away in the midst of Brandon being so busy with work. Letting go of all the day to day stuff at home and focusing all of my energy on family is always a nice vacation for me.

Gallery

I've made a little picture gallery of some of our latest creations. We have so many products that arn't up on Etsy (mostly custom orders)that are so cute I couldn't resist to not show them off.






























Go to Needleinascrapstack.etsy.com to view all of our products.