So, I’m back this week with a very special Friday Fix on the bay before (inter)National Scrapbooking Day!  Woot, I love this holdiday, and every year at the Sweet Shoppe we bring you a whole bunch of special stuff (can anyone one smell a sale coming???) be sure to stop by our fourms tomorrow and see all the fun stuff we have for you!

You’ll have to forgive me this week too, because I’ve got a seriously wobbly head, I had oral surgery this morning (wisdom teeth) so i cannot be responsible for what ever confusing mumbo jumbo the post contains…

So yes, I’m excited… my mouth is numb… brain is a more than a little foggy… iNSD… lots of great stff… yada yada…

Lets just get to peeking shall we?? First and foremost I teamed up with my digi mentor, and seriously one of the BEST designers in the field, Dani Mogstad.  We had a blast putting together this kit that will be ideal for all those guys in your life (no…. not like that!  you are all a bunch of hookers!)

:p

It’s so awesome guys!  I can’t wait to share the full preview

In addition to that I’ve got several element packs.  Two alphas and two wordart type packs:

So there you have it, all together there are 5 new products and so we”ll have 5 new release winners tomorrow.

I think you all know the drill, but yeah, leave a comment for a chance to win, tweet/fbook/blog and you can leave an additional comment for more chances to win.  Also remember that you don’t have to wait to shop until you know if you win, I will give you your choice of another kit or element pack in the store if you have already purchased these and won!

Um, I think that covers all of it… also, I know that I’m having typing  issues seeing as I’m actually typing with one eye open an one eye closed…. LOL… I should sleep…

Happy commenting, and happy Friday everyone!   Be back tomorrow!

As promised,I’m back today with some photos -and some winners- from my March Of Dimes walk yesterday.

We were so happy to see that the sky had pitty on us, and although it looked a little questionable starting off, the rain stayed up in the clouds where it belonged.  We had a really nice, and even a little bit sunny, day!

I brought tennyson with me to take a little stroller ride – here we are getting ready to head out on our big race:

I walked with a small group from my MOMS club, here’s a picture of us all together:

I think next year we’ll definitely be able to wrangle more people to walk with us

I walked with my sweet friend Brenda, here’s a picture of her pushing Tennyson – poor Brenda I totally set her up for that one!  We have this running joke that brenda looks for the worst pictures possible of me on her blog, so just for that b here’s some payback!

Just a few pictures from the beautiful walk:

All in all it was awesome – and I have so many of you to thank for it!!!

Speaking of thanks…

Tennyson and I also did the drawing for the three prizes from a  print out of my sponsor form:

Our three winners are Kellie T., Kirsty Binston, and Christy N.  I’ll be sending each of you a coupon code to my shoppe!

Thank you Thank you Thank you all!  I’ll be pressing send on a thank you and a download of my newest alpha for each of you right now. I can not express how much it meant to me to have your support in raising money for such a great cause!

This morning I was so excited to get the opportunity to walk in the Walk America for the March of Dimes, there was an incredible turn out and it was a beautiful day!  The start to a busy day of running around!  By this afternoon I was so tired I wanted to curl into a ball, so I did, and I’m just now waking up… sigh, sweet Saturdays!

Today I released 2 new products, and here are the full previes for you:

Aren’t they fab?  I have such a sense of pride about my work every week lately, it really is fulfilling!  If you like these goodies, you still have a few hours to pick them up at 20% off!  Just click the images to get to each product or you can just go straight to my store.

So just like every week put random.org to the difficult task of picking a winner from the comments on yesterdays post.  It thought long and hard and decided on these lucky two!

Laura (simply scraps) and Priscilla (wheelchair mommy), congrats girls!!! Please just send me an email so I can get you your prizes!

Well I may have just woken up from a nice long nap, but I’m still pretty dead tired, so that’s all I’ve got for you today!  Tomorrow I will post so pictures from the walk, and the winners from that drawing as well!  Enjoy your Saturday night all!

Ok so Owen’s birthday party went off with out a hitch last week, thanks to me not spending Friday with my nose to the designer grindstone LOL.

This week, though, we are back at it!  I have a brand new kit and an alphabet coming to the shoppe. I hope you love them as much as I do!

The fact that I had birthday on the brain last week may or may not have had something to do with my theme selection for my kit:

Boy mama’s I think you will enjoy this one, and even if you have a little lady, this kit is perfect for non-gender specific (ehhem birthday) layouts! You should go see the awesome layouts my team has made with this kit!

I also put together this alpha:

I am a bit taken by my alpha’s name (yes… I should probably just come out of the closet and admit here and now that I’m a serious JT lover…)

I also wanted to take a second to say THANK YOU to all of you who sponsored me for the march of dimes Walk America that I’ll be participating in tomorrow.  I am just so excited that we actually met and exceeded my $500 dollar goal. I will be personally emailing each of you who donated with a link to my new alpha as a thank you gift.  If you didn’t get a chance and would still like to sponsor me it’s not too late! Click the image below and it will take you to my page at MOD, and be sure to leave your correct email addy when you fill out the sponsor form so I can get you the alpha too.  ALSO, on Sunday I’ll be doing the drawing for the $25, $10, and free kit prizes, so there are all sorts of reasons to get involved if you haven’t yet! 

How mindblowing would it be if we made it to over 600?  Seriously us scrappers are an incredible bunch!

Ok, that is all for now everyone!  I’ve got to head over to the library so that I can get back to work in peace!  The same Friday Fix rules as always apply – leave a comment to get a chance to win one of tomorrows releases for free. As always, you can up your chances by tweeting or linking this post on at a social networking site or your blog.  This week lets add something too: get an EXTRA chance by to win by tweeting/linking my personal sponsor page for Walk America and encouraging your contacts to donate! Here’s the direct link to that: http://www.marchforbabies.org/shawnaleaclingerman Be sure to leave an additional comment for either of those things so you are in the running an extra time!

Happy commenting everyone!!  Be back tomorrow with some winners and some photos from my walk!

This morning, totally was not kind to me.  I woke up to the hacking cough I’ve been dealing with for 3 days. My house is a wreck. My laptop is not working correctly.  Blah. Bad morning. 

At about 7 am, Reece woke up too, he wanted to play xbox (not now sweetie), he didn’t want to get dressed (you have to be dressed love), he was angry he couldn’t sit an inch from the tv (it will hurt your eyes hon!)… oh and then when he found out today is a school day, that was just the straw that broke the camels back…

“ARGH!” he yelled (and not like a friendly pirate).  I was perplexed, clearly my Reecey had woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

“What’s going on with you today sweetie?”

“I don’t WANNA get dressed, and I don’t WANNA wear shoes and my eyes hurt, and I’M just MAD mom!”

I told him I was sorry he was mad, but he needed to figure out how to get himself under control…

A bit later, after Reece was dressed and he was not in the act of screaming at me.  I walked into my kitchen to get breakfast for the boys.  I  glared at my stupid messy countertops, and I grumbled when I realized we were out of spoons.  THEN, I stepped in something… I think it was actually butter… (yes butter on the floor, that was Tennyson’s special project yesterday…)  I was sooooo aggravated, for mercies sake!!!  Then… I actually heard myself growl… like outloud…

My incredibly sweet and caring kids all ran over to check on me, “Mom are you ok!?”

I took a deep breath and sighed… “I’m ok, its just that this is NOT my morning… I’m sick, and my computer is broken! The kitchen is trashed, and we are OUT of spoons AND! I just stepped… In BUTTER.”

I looked around at all their faces, and it was obvious they were all feeling my frustration…. suddenly I realized my growl was suspiciously familiar to Reccey’s “Argh!”  and it all sorta fell into place for me…

You see, I am not really one to be all that aware of myself.  I am pretty much not ever thinking – hmm what do I need, or how do I feel.  Nope, I mean it’s bad, and something I’m trying to do better… but seriously there are times that I’m walking into walls, or tripping or something because I’m too distracted to put any thought into things like where I’m going… who has time for that!?!  Emotionally, I do the exact same thing… I’ll be getting more and more and more agitated, but be completely unaware of the fact that I’m actually angry… well I guess until I actually growl outloud.

I said to them, “I’m sorry guys, I am ok. really.  I just got frustrated and was throwing a temper tantrum.  I’m taking a deep breath, I need  to control myself.”

So I did, and what do you know? Reece sat down at the table with a significantly better attitude, I sucked it up and decided to be more pleasant, and apparently so did he.  I praised him for his attitude, and told him I knew he could do it.  I got out a trash bag and started collecting the things I could throw out on the counters, it was amazing how Reece turned a complete 180 from the grumpikins I was dealing with earlier.  But you know, so did I. 

Reece is an incredible kid, and you know, probably more like me than any of the boys.  He is also a challenge to me because of that. Not only because he’s so firey and bold and emotional, but also because Reece is really a reflection of me.  Emotionally, he totally takes his cues from me, a great example of that was when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and then he in turn was quite moody when he got up. 

Reece also totally reflects my actions back  at me.  When I’m busy and short with him, he is snotty and mean.  When I’m distracted and inattentive he acts nutty and acts out to make me pay attention. But you know, when I’m being a proactive parent, when I’m speaking to him respectfully. When I’m taking time with him, when I’m giving him positive reinforcement and telling him he is amazing: My Reecey totally responds to that.

Some times this realization has been frustrating, because I can start telling myself that if something isn’t going right, it must be because I’m a screw up…  but, you know also this is just another thing telling me that, actually I am in control of my own life.  Reece is such a perfect example for me that when things are not going the way I want them to go I can actually make them go differently.  The house being messy, the butter on the floor, the grumpy kids… none of that actually equals me being hopelessly flawed, or incapable as a human being… (although saying that is one thing, believing it is a… big step for me).  All those things are not things that I am powerless to change, and my sweet Reecey is a living breathing example of that day after day. 

Sometimes there’s nothing I can do to change my kids bad attitude, that part is easy for me to accept.  What is harder for me to take hold of, is that sometimes that grumpy “ARGH” IS all about me. Maybe I am the angry one and I just haven’t taken a second to notice it.  Sometimes I’m just grumpy, and that isn’t necessarily bad, but with Reece as my son, it WILL be reflected back at me even if I’m doing my darndest not to see it!  I may not be very self-aware, but Reece is very “mom-aware,” so in the end I guess “me” is pretty unavoidable.

oh! and speaking of it being all about me, I’m still trying to reach my goal for the March for Babies this Saturday!  Remember that every donation enters you into a drawing for 3 different gift cards to my store, click the march of dimes banner in my side bar, or just scroll down and read more about it in the next post.