it's Valentine's already

I am hosting a Valentine's Day swap for the Charmsters group that i belong to. we formed through Artnsoul, Portland - 2007. We had a lovely charm swap with 50 participants and i met a great group of people through the group! So we decided to forge on and i suggesed a Valentine's charm swap. i wanted to keep this swap a little smaller, but low and behold, before i knew it the particpants numbered 50 again! we are each making 52 charms. 50 for swapping and then 2 will go to our honorary members, Glenny and Cindy, the two women who run Artnsoul. The due date for the Valentine's Day swap is fast approaching, so i wanted to get mine finished. As the host, i will be receiving all those packets of charms and then sorting them into 50 different piles! (my husband has already volunteered to help sort). so i wanted mine finished by this weekend as i have other things to get done as well (gifts for Artnest, trades for Artfest, 27 ATC's for a fabric ATC book with Beeshay to name a few!)

so here are my charms for the swap. i took little wood hearts and made mini collages. the background consists of tissue papers and gold foil i save from chocolates! then i reduced vintage Valentine's Day cards from a box of vintage cards i purchased at a flea market and collaged them on top. i drilled a hole, did some wire wrapping with beads, used some tea dye on the side of the wood to age it and then added my jump ring. i think they are pretty cool!

Beautiful Bracelet

this is the gift i received from my friend, Kim Bueme (http://www.artdogslife.blogspot.com/), in Ohio. (i went to visit her in sept.)isn't it gorgeous? i love the red beads and the PMC charm about friendship. Especially lovely is the clasp she chose for opening and closing the bracelet. just love it. Kim learn this technique from Nina Bagley (http://www.ninabagley.com/info/inhome.asp). Kim is good friends with Nina and just adores her - which makes the gift even more special! I will be taking this class from Nina this summer along with Kim, Julie and my friend, Zhulia! i can't wait. check out the class description to see what awesome technqiues i will be learning:
http://www.valleyridgeartstudio.com/programs/workshop.asp?WorkshopID=77

I just snail mailed a note of gratitude to kim - but in case she pops in for a visit-
Thanks so much my dear friend, Kim, i just love it!

what did you get for Christmas?

This has to be my favoritest gift. It was commissioned by my husband, from my friend and brilliant artist, Lindsay Brackeen - http://www.lindsaybrackeen.blogspot.com/ . He told her he wanted one of her brown haired girls and to please include my beloved, kitty, Pebbles in the painting some where. i had Pebbles for 18 years and i still miss him! He sent her some photos and then she went through my flickr photos as well to find other things that i love to include in the painting (birds, nests and birdhouses!)She included my favorite saying - "to seek that which nourishes my soul", which is on the skirt i am wearing in the painting - and um, yes, i am that pretty!lol.) Is it not fabulous? i got tears in my eyes when i saw it. it is quite stunning. jeff wants to have it framed. she wrote on the back of it "lovingly commissioned by jeff for kecia" which i thought was sweet. She even wrapped it so that jeff didn't have to. it really was quite a gift. Lindsay is so talented and i can't wait to meet her in person when we room together at Artfest. She has an etsy store, so if you'd like to check out more of her work, take a look here (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5143614). more fabulous gifts to be shown off later!

bad night for tucker

oh my god, tucker had such a bad night last night. he seemed like he was having such a good day yesterday too. cough was much better, he was in a good mood, etc. So we got him ready for bed around 10:00 and then jeff and i went to lay down. (me upstairs and jeff in the room across from tucker). jeff can hear tucker from his room and i keep a baby monitor in my room to listen out for him. around 11:00 i could hear that he was still up, so i went to check on him and gave him a quick diaper change. i kept waiting for him to fall asleep so i could go to bed. around 12:30 i went back to his room to see whaht was going on. well, he was just wide awake and doing this kind of moany/groaney thing. i moved him from his bed and put him on his shakey table. (it is a motion table that moves back and forth). tucker loves it as he really craves movement. i figured this would help make him sleepy. Well, that never happened! he was up all night! i gave him a breathing treatment around 3:30, followed by a vest treament at 4:00 (the vest is an airway clearance system that does percussion on his chest and helps loosen secretions). i left the vest on for 20 minutes (with me sitting behind him holding him up). i think that helped make him a little more tired. finally around 6:30am i woke up jeff and told him i had to go to bed. i haven't pulled an all nighter like that since college! so i slept for 4 hours and then got up to get tuck ready to go to see our neighbor (a doctor) at his office. we just wanted to make sure that tuck's chest was clear, etc. kind of weird for tuck to not fall asleep at all. i also called my friend who works with tucker's pulmonologist to ask her a question. then she told me that the treatments that we gave tucker yesterday (pulmicort)is probably what kept tucker up all night, since it is a steroid. Aha - that explains it! Our neighbor, Kurt, said that tucker's chest sounded clear, so that was good. he changed his antibotic, but that's about all we can do but what we are already doing. however, we won't be giving him pulmicort today! he'll get a few other treatments instead. i got in another two hours of sleep and am now waiting for dillon to get home from the movies (he went to see the sequel to National Treasure). we are going to be hanging out tonight since he leaves for Disneyworld tomorrow with our neighbors. he will be back on New Year's Eve around 9:00pm. i have mixed feelings about him going. he'll be having a great time, but i am nervous about him flying without me. Let's put it this way, it's a great opportunity, but i'll be glad when he is back home!

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas, love, Kecia