Did you miss me?

I sure missed you! Where have I been and why have I been such a bad blogger? Many of you know every summer my nieces come and stay with us. We’ve been busy doing lots of touristy things and having tons of fun. So much fun that I’ve been just too tired at night to get any personal time to blog or craft much.

The girls have gone back home now and I’m resting up and preparing for the arrival of our new baby. I’m due in 2 weeks (August 29th is the official due date). But I hope this little guy is coming early. For those of you who are on Facebook I will be updating on there during my delivery. Feel free to connect to me. I would love to see more of my crafty friends on there (NanaB, Tona)!!

I also post a lot of photos on Facebook too. I have a “Summer Fun” album on there that is public so you can see some of things I’ve been up to the last couple of months. Feel free to check out the pics here. Shown in the photo to the right is me and Nika at Boehms Chocolate factory in Issaquah Washington. One of the many places we took the kids while they were here.

Oh and I almost forgot to share we got a new puppy!! This is Scar, our new Great Dane. We got him end of June. Here’s a photo of him hanging out in Grandma’s garden.

I just wanted to give everyone an update since I’ve been MIA for a while. Now that summer is winding down I’m hoping to have more time to craft and blog. Thank you to all my blog subscribers who have been waiting and wondering when I was going to come back to my blog. I’m here and have missed you.

What have all of you been up to? Would love to hear from you or just leave a comment and say hi. Connect to me on Facebook so you don’t miss any of the baby delivery news. I’ll try and be back as much as I can. XOXO

Kids CD winner!

The winner of the new CD from the Brian Waite Band goes to comment #11

Congratulations *** Brenda *** and thank you to everyone who entered.

Where have I been?!?!

Hello May and where have I been?!?! I took a bit of a hiatus during April. It wasn’t planned. Now that I’m in my 2nd trimester my energy level seems back to normal and it just turned out to be a busy month. Many of you were so sweet to reach out and see if I was alright (thank you). Yes, I’m perfectly fine and baby’s doing fine too. Here’s a short list of what my April was like and a few pics.

• Celebrated little Nika’s 2nd birthday (over 3 weekends) and hosted a 40+ person party at our house.
  

• Finally finished my taxes!
• Had 2 Easter celebrations.
• Finished up the last of the remodel projects on our old house. Getting ready to put it on the market next week. Woo hoo!!
• Been doing a lot of work in our dirt yard (aka the front yard). Trying to get it weeded so we can put down some grass and landscape.
• Put in a new Rainbow play structure for Nika in the backyard.

• Getting ready for these two cuties to come visit and mapping out our summer plans.
• Took a trip up north and went to the Tulip Festival. This was such a fun little get-a-way. I’ll share more of these pics and details with you next week.

• And a baby update…had the 20 week ultrasound and it’s confirmed we are having a boy! He is doing great and looks super healthy. Feeling lots of little baby kicks now too, so exciting!

That’s just the short list from last month. I’m sure now that the weather is getting nicer a lot of you are spending more time outside, spring cleaning and planning summer fun! I have missed my online friends and hope to get back to blogging more regularly. Thank you again for the emails and comments. I always appreciate hearing from you. I’ll post a great freebie find for ya tomorrow. Big hugs and kisses XOXO ~ Cathy

Random updates and exciting news!!!

• I’m half way through listening to week 1 of Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories class and reading over the handouts. I already love it!! There is so much good stuff.
• Getting ready to start my spring themed ATCs for an upcoming swap.
• I’m now on Twitter and would love to connect with you if you’re on there!
• Love this photo of Nika I took the other day. This is at our favorite local park. She was sitting on the slide just watching some kids play.
  
• And for the exciting news…{drum roll inserted here}. I’m so excited to share with you that I’m pregnant!! I’m 12 weeks along and baby is due end of August. I had an ultrasound on Friday and the baby looks great and healthy. Doctor said there’s 70% chance it’s a boy!! I’ve been extremely nauseous and tired. January was a slow crafting month for me with all the nausea and tiredness. I’m now getting back to normal. I’m so happy to finally tell you about this wonderful news. XOXO

I missed you!

After a week and half of site issues I’ve switched server hosting companies. You won’t see anymore down time at MamaSheg.com. Long, long story short…the company I used to use, Myriad Network is rumored to have sold their business to another hosting company. For those of you who are interested in all the juicy technical details check out this forum thread here. There’s been a lot of chatter about it and it’s been a real mess. I’m just glad my site was backed-up and got moved ok. I sure missed you!

Stop by tomorrow for a book review. XOXO

I’m still here

My blog was unexpectedly down the last few days. I got a last-minute notice from the hosting company there was some emergency updates and patches. The server that holds MamaSheg took a while to fix or repair. Sorry I wasn’t able to give any notice…I’m still here!

What’s coming up?

• Yesterdays Friday Freebie
• Valentine ATC sneak peeks
• A book review/online class that you will want to take!

Stay stuned…hope you’re having a great weekend! XOXO

Are you on Facebook?

Hope you are having a great weekend! It’s a beautiful sunny morning…woohoo!! It’s so nice to have dry weather finally.

I wanted to invite you to join Facebook or if you are already on there…let’s connect! There are a ton of scrapbooking/crafty people on there, lots of craft groups, and you will find people you haven’t talked to in forever! I have re-connected with old childhood friends from way back in the day. I just love it and it’s rather addicting too. It’s also a great way to get to know your online friends better. If you’re on there please look me up and I would love to have you join my MamaSheg blog network too. Hope to see you on there. XOXO

50% off Joanns coupons

In case you have any crafty shopping needs here’s some printable Joanns coupons. These are good for instore and online purchases. The 50% off coupon is good today and tomorrow. The 40% off coupon is good until January 31st. Print the coupons here. Happy Shopping!!

Rain, rain go away!!

Thanks to so many of you for the thoughtful emails regarding the horrible flooding in Washington state. Our family is one of the lucky ones that has not been affected. We are up high, but the areas all around us have not been so fortunate. We had some damage to one of the windows just from all the massive rain. It’s totally insignificant compared to others. My in-laws who are just down the street have a basement full of water (knee-height) and they don’t even live near water. It’s from the water underground! The valley just below us is still a giant lake. All the farmland is still covered in water. It’s so crazy to see and sad…houses, bridges and cars submerged in water. And where do all those animals go?? Here’s a video from the local news of how the water has just taken over. The 1st part of the video is the valley just below our house.

Thank you again to all my wonderful online friends for your kind emails and thoughts. It’s always so great to hear from you. XOXO ~ Cathy

Seattle Wedding Show pics

Last weekend I went to the Seattle Wedding show with my girlfriend who’s getting married this year. We had a super fun day and saw lots of inspiring things. Here’s some pics from our day.

I like the colors and designs on these invites. Both of these invitations were done with letterpress printing. This process is very popular for stationary right now.

I like the black trim on this dress.

I thought these dresses looked cool next to the grand architecture of the building.

Check out all this yumminess!! There were a lot of cake vendors at the show. We saw some amazing designs and did a lot of cake tasting too!! Here’s some of the ones we liked.

After the show we ventured downtown for lunch. We ate at this charming little European bakery, Le Pichet. Super good food!!

If you’d like to check out what I did for my wedding a couple of years ago. You can see lots of pics and all the details here.

Our winter wonderland

It’s not often we get a real good snow in Redmond Washington. If any, we get a light dusting. Today we finally got the snow we’ve been waiting for. We have about 7″ and it’s in the teens tonight. There’s more snow in the forecast too, yay!! Here’s some photos from today.

This is the front of our house.

This is our backyard/Parker’s pasture.

Here’s the back of our house from Parker’s view. Parker was so excited for the snow this morning. It was the cutest thing. She was running around, rolling in the snow and even licking it. And she got even more excited when we came out to play in the yard. It’s so wonderful having her home now.

Here’s my honey Vlad and little Nika. Sledding around in the back yard.

Making a difference

Have you heard about the food drive Cocoa Daisy is hosting? They are asking scrapbookers to help out local food banks and make a donation. For every 5 items you donate, you can be entered into a drawing for some amazing prizes. You can get all the information here. I counted over 27 sponsors who are donating prizes. Such a worthy cause and you could win some cool prizes too.

I like to do donations at least once a quarter to local charities. Last week Nika and I stopped by the local HopeLink office and donated some baby food and formula.

Here’s little Nika helping organize our donation for HopeLink.

Here she is at the HopeLink Center in Redmond Washington where we dropped off our contribution.

50% off printable Joanns coupon

Just in case you have some crafty shopping to do here’s a printable 50% off Joanns coupon. Good through December 24th in-store or online. Happy Shopping!!

Print the coupon

DIY chandeliers for paper crafters

I’m really loving these chipboard and paper chandeliers. Patti over at the Talk of the Town makes the most fabulous DIY chipboard chandeliers. What a fun and unique home decor piece. I totally want one. Good news is…she’s giving one of her chandelier glitter kits away on her blog. She also has an Etsy shop with several really cute DIY chipboard mobiles.

On a smaller scale, check out this super cute chandelier ornament from the Cheeky Magpie. For you Cricut owners, she even gives you the svg file to make them!

Fall “thank you” card & Michaels coupons!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow U.S. friends!! Little Nika and I have been sick all week and I haven’t done much crafting. I wanted to share this lovely fall-themed “thank you” card my friend Aims sent me. She always makes such nice cards.

Oh and for all your upcoming holiday projects here’s some printable coupons for Michaels. These are good today, tomorrow and Saturday. 20% off entire purchase and a 50% off one regular priced item! Print the coupons here. Hope everyone has a fun turkey holiday!! XOXO ~ Cathy