Phew!

Wow, I haven't been here since Thursday and my hits are showing it. LOL! Sorry for the long delay. It's been a weekend let me tell ya! Long story short we had a very near tragedy with our puppy; my DH's football team won their first football playoff game!; and my sister let us know she is expecting! WOOHOO! I can expand on these after the real reason you came here, a creative fix, but for now here's what I've got. The colder it gets the more I get motivated to scrapbook, so here is the layout I did this weekend.

This layout is a sketch from Lyssa's blog: Song of My Heart Stampers. I loved this sketch and was excited to use it, even though it meant serious cropping of some great photos... but what better way to focus on the really important feature of a picture?! For this one I used some parts of a new-to-me Simply Scrappin' kit that I've been so anxious to use- Hoppy Memories. This kit is retired but I can honestly say that all SU Simply Scrappin' kits are AMAZING!! I'll have to count someday but I am willing to bet I have at least 20 differnt SS kits!

This is the second half of the spread which is why it has no title. This sketch is from a challenge on SCS back in May. You see, there is this awesome gal on Splitcoast who hosts a weekly Scrapbook sketch challenge. She has a huge gallery of wonderful scrapbook sketches, so when I need one I just head over there and scroll through until I find something that would work with the pictures I've got. This is an amazing resource! CLICK HERE to view this gallery.
The specific one I used is the right side of this one. This side of my layout is a little lacking on detail but the colors are pretty bold and I thought I'd better leave well enough alone.

So about my puppy... oh my! This sweet little face is only 3 months old and she is a little Houdini! She has managed to get herself into and out of some tight spots... until Friday. I went out to our kennel to feed her (and the other 3 dogs) and when I open the door to the building she was hanging by her hind haunches caught in the wire fencing that is supposed to keep her in! It appeared she might have been like that all night!

OMG, it was the most horrible site- her front legs couldn't touch the ground, her back legs couldn't touch she was wedged so tight she was cut in numerous places. The worst part was her little tail wagging as soon as she saw me and I had to leave her to run for help and wire cutters! I felt terrible. Anyway, when my kids and I finally got her out her back legs were so grotesquely swollen she couldn't move. I wish now I'd taken pictures, but at the time I thought she wasn't going to survive and I really didn't want to have those horrible images. She slept the entire day and night after we took her in the warm house and lo and behold, early the next morning she was up walking around! By the afternoon she was running, albeit limping, all around our property. Today she was romping and wrestling with her sister and mama! My poor kids- we prepared them for the worst- but they were so thrilled to see her moving my son said "either this is a miracle or she is one tough dog!" He wanted to change her name from Crystal Ann (long story) to Miracle. I told him if her name gets changed her new name will be "Stupid"!

This dog has already been into mouse poison at about a month old (because she escaped), and today she cut her mouth while playing somehow and she swallowed a squirrel tail that was tied to a string so the string was hanging out of her mouth while she was running. I had to pull it out and let me tell you it was disgusting! Who knows what that would've done had she swallowed the entire string. Isn't she a cutie though?

As for the other news, yes football season will be at least one more week long (go Cats!)... and while my parents and sister were visiting this weekend my sister gets a call from her husband who wants to talk to my son. They talk a while and when they hang up my son says "Mom, I think Uncle R just told me that our cousin is going to have a baby brother or sister." And I say "what do you mean you think? Is she or isn't she???" Now he's confused and not so sure. Well, sure enough, that's how we found out they are expecting baby number 2! WOOHOO! We're so excited for them! I told my sister I hope she has a boy so she can experience first hand just how different they are-having a boy is a whole different world.

So if you read this far (wow, you deserve an award!) now you know why I've been away and hopefully this makes up for the last few days of nothing!

Thanks so much for visiting,

~Kristin

PS- My supplies are SUO (Stampin' Up! Only) as always, but I'm just too tired to type them out. If you have any questions just let me know.