Blah Bunny for a Friend

Are you feeling Monday??  Whew! I stayed up way too late reading, so I look like this bunny right now. lol I started a new book yesterday and I just couldn't sleep until I knew how it ended. Of course the ending wasn't so great, so I'm tired AND grumpy. I did manage to make a card today. Laila has a little space in my room now, so we both stamped and created today. I wanted to enter a few challenges which I have been so bad about doing. I've made cards for them, but never managed to get them posted.

Stamps: Blah Bunny and Blah Blah Blah by Honey Bee Stamps
Die: Wonky Stitched Rectangles by Avery Elle

Playing along with:

Paper Players

Creative with Stamps

2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Before I go, I'll share a picture of one of our Black Swallowtail caterpillars. We aren't seeing any Monarchs, but the swallowtails are keeping us busy. 

Have a great week!

Rita

Happy Trails

Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing well. It's been kinda busy and crazy here, so I haven't had time to post. I haven't been stamping much until this past week when I crazily decided to make cards for all the staff and teachers that Laila interacts with at school.  That sure kept me busy!!  This was the card I made for the technology teacher. I'm hoping she is old enough to remember The Oregon Trail. It was one of the first games I remember playing on a computer. (Yes, I'm old.) The stamps are from Kindred Stamps. The dies for the background are all Lawn Fawn.

Today is the last day of school for Laila. I'm thankful for that as it's been a rough year. I've had some talks with her principal over the past two weeks and it seems that our concerns about her teacher were also noticed by him and the assistant principal. He is thinking a lot about the right fit for her next year and seems positive that we'll find what works for her. I just hate seeing someone obviously dislike my girl to the point that she pretty much tells us that. :( So only 3 more hours of that and we move on to better things!! 

I should have more cards to post over the next few days.  Take care!

Stamping Bella Bess the Butterfly

Hello! It's been almost a month. How did that happen???  It's been a crazy busy month, so I haven't been stamping much. I started a new medication to try and get my depression/PMDD under control and it was wiping me out. I don't know why they told me to take it in the mornings, but now that I'm taking it at night it's okay. Whew! Our school issues with Laila continue and that's been rough. We have a second ARD review on Wednesday, so send good thoughts. I think we are going to end up having to homeschool, but Jason isn't ready to pull the trigger on that yet. Add in the death of a cat, a cat catching our resident cardinal, and my dad being sick and it's been a month. A very long month.  Now we just need to get Laila through her ear infection and get a plan for school and cross our fingers for a better May.

I hope you are having a better time. Our butterfly season is off to a small start, so I'm excited about that. We've been helping the school with their butterfly garden as well. That has motivated me to color up some of these adorable Stamping Bella stamps. I love them and I kinda want the other two in the series. lol

 Have a great Monday! I'm off to try and clean off my desk and get ready to try and stamp some tomorrow before I volunteer at the book fair for a bit. Laila's class gets to shop tomorrow, so I am going to go shop with her as well. She only wants every book in the flyer except for one. Ha!! 

Tiny Townie Butterfly Girl Blanche

Happy Easter Eve as Laila's been saying. She was determined we needed to go out and have dinner to celebrate. lol Stinker!!  Stamping Bella recently had a new release and there were four awesome butterfly stamps. When I saw Stephen's card I was sold. You guys know how much we love our Monarchs. It's funny that I got this stamp this week as we just saw our first Monarch of the year!

I wish you all a Happy Easter. Hugs!

Kitty Love

Hello! I hope Monday was kind to you.  It felt like a long day here, but it's almost over, right? :) I am about to put on my pajamas and grab a book. I wanted to take a minute to quickly post this card I made for my aunt. She's my Aunt Rita and we have a special bond that goes past our shared name. I with she wasn't all the way in Virginia.

I've been trying to do better about mailing cards and so far, so good. I think I mailed out almost all my Easter cards today! It's like a miracle. Ha!  I have been stamping and coloring, just not posting I guess. Maybe I'll catch up with that this week. Maybe...

 Laila and Little Lady. That cat loves her even though it doesn't look like it with that face. lol She's always trying to lay near Laila or sneak into Laila's room. It's cute. Laila had a great day at school today even though her teacher was out. She's so inconsistent with that though, so we are still at more bad days than good.  I think her teacher is pretty much done and only sees the negative side of her at this point and I don't know what to do about that. Her aide's last day was Friday, so we are waiting to see if she gets a new one. She needs it, so we'll have to fight if necessary.  It's been an exhausting year for sure and it's hard not to be completely discouraged at this point. I keep second guessing our decision to transfer her to this school and to start her at a young five instead of holding her back for a year. Who knows though? She's already bored because her reading level is so much higher than everyone's so waiting would have made that even worse. I wish her teacher challenged her more instead of just saying she knows all the sight words we have and can read all the level books we have. That doesn't seem helpful to me, but we've asked for a change with no results. Again, frustrating. Anyway, that's the never ending saga and I won't bore you to death. It's not like we are making any progress to share. :/

MFT Card Challenges 376

Just a quick post to enter my card in the MFT Card Challenges sketch challenge. :) I finally managed to finish it up today in between cleaning bathrooms. I had put it to the side because one of my markers made a big blob on her face as I was coloring her hair. I tried to fix it as best I could and I think it recovered okay.

Now I'm heading to the kitchen to start up the dishwasher and then off to relax and read for a bit. It's been an emotional evening of school drama and I need to decompress.  Have a great week!

Sick Birdie

Hi guys! How's everyone doing this weekend? This card is pretty fitting for ours. I made it for my dad, but Laila looks about like that poor bird about now. Of course she gets sick for spring break, right? lol Ugh!!!   Oh well. We'll have a slow start to the break and hopefully she'll feel like something fun by the end. I want to go visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin so bad! 

This is the other sweetie who is recuperating at our house. This is Little Lady's mom. Our neighbor still never had her spayed, so I took the money I earned from blogging from the past 3 years (a whopping $100) and added to some money I'd saved to help her. I knew it was about time for her to start up a third litter and neither she nor our neighborhood needs more kittens. This one girl has turned into 6 cats or more already. It's crazy. Now I have to work on getting the kittens she's had taken care of. She's been such a great house guest, but I can tell she's anxious to be back out where she can roam. I'm keeping her one more day and then she can go.  I'm hoping she'll stay on our porch a lot like she had been.

I'm off to love on her. She can't stand me being in here and not petting her. lol Have a great week!

MFT Sketch Challenge 374

Hey!  Happy Sunday. Where did Saturday go so fast? Man!!  We worked a little outside in the butterfly garden this week, but I also found some time to come in and color. I've been trying to get back in the habit of making cards. Oh, and mailing them. lol This card is for the MFT Sketch Challenge from this week. I'm usually a coffee girl, but I do have a couple friends who enjoy tea.

Things have been about the same here. Laila had some great days at school, but ended the week in a blaze of glory. Jason had to carry her out of the library on Friday at dismissal. That's two weeks in a row for that. :(  We did get her results back from testing and she will qualify for an IEP. We meet with the large group this Friday to see what that will mean for her. She already has a full-time aide which helps some, but not always. I feel so down about it all right now because I've reached a point where I don't know what else to do.

She did earn her white belt on Thursday. She should have gotten it on Tuesday, but she wasn't listening or participating very well. That was our first screaming meltdown of the week. She did much better on Thursday though. We have a couple more weeks to decide if we want to do the year contract for it, so we'll see how it goes.

That's all for me. I am off to read a bit and maybe have a second coffee. :)