New Blog Background and an update

Hey Everyone, notice my New Blog Background. I made it using a new scrapbook kit I have designed. I will be giving away pieces of the kit FREE every day next week on my Digi Scrap Blog. Go check it out here.

Things are good here in the Sims palace. JK Mike has been home this week so it is fun. he is home, but he is working from home. We are hoping to take the kids to see a movie later this week. We are going to see Bedtime Stories. Have any of you seen it yet? It looks really cute. Anyway, I will update on that later.

I am perplexed, Kyle has a rash all over his body. He has had it for a couple of days and I have been treating it as I would allergies, (it started at the same time he had a reaction to the nickle on the snap of his pants-stupid nickle allergy) but the Claritin isn't working. I called the doc today and they didn't have any appointments available and since tomorrow is a holiday, I have to call at 7:00 am to try to get in tomorrow as they are taking "same day only appointments" (what the heck is that?) tomorrow. Hopefully I can get in so we can see what is going on.

Kaylee's ankle seems to be doing a bit better. She is able to put a little bit of weight on it now, but still not much. My brother said she needs to "man up". I think that is hilarious.

As for me, I am awaiting an appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon next Wednesday to find out what the next step will be for my dang elbow problems. When I saw the neurologist last week he did some tests. Not fun ones either. The man put needles (yes I said needles) in my arm and sent electric currents through them to see how my muscles and nerves reacted to it. It was quite painful and my arm hurt the rest of that day and the next because of it. The test really didn't tell us much of anything except that, so far, I do not have any conductivity loss in that nerve. That is a good thing, it means that the damage to my nerves is not too severe yet. I do however have 50% sensitivity loss and about 30% strength loss in that arm. I'm not sure what the surgeon will say but it sounds like there may be a couple of options. 1) surgery to reposition the nerve at my elbow or 2) casting for a few weeks to see if the rest will help the nerve to heal. Honestly, I am not sure which options sound better to me. I guess we will see what he suggests.

In FHE (Family Home Evening) last night we talked a bit about resolutions and goals. We will be talking more about it next week as we will discuss what goals each of the children are setting for themselves. I have set a couple for myself as well. 1)I am going to read my scriptures everyday (I hope) 2) I am going to do my best to be more soft spoken. (I tend to yell a bit and I hate it, so does everyone else) 3) of course is to try to exercises a bit every day. Yikes!! I hope I can do it. We also set a couple of family goals and I am excited to see how those go over too.

Oh one last thing before I go. Jacob had a birthday on Sunday. He turned 7, I can hardly believe it. We celebrated with cake and his choice of dinner (Norwegian Pancakes) and we watched the video of his birth. Wow it is truly amazing how the time flies. He got a bike and roller blades which should go really nicely with the skateboard and ramp he just got for Christmas. Are we Crazy or what?! We are already pinching pennies to plan for the ER visits we are sure to have this next year over these gifts. YIKES!

Okay I am off. C ya next time!!!

Christmas and a Trip to Urgent Care

We had a great Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had Mike's sister Kari and her husband Deron and his parents over for dinner. We had a yummy meal check out the spread.

After dinner, we read the story of the birth of Christ. Then following tradition we gathered to sing Christmas carols while we awaited a visit from Santa. Mike went out to "hold the reindeer" and Santa came in with gifts for the kids. Here are some pictures of the kids with Santa.

After Santa left we visited for a bit and then the kids headed off to bed. Well they kind of headed off to bed. We later found them all slumbering in Kaylee's room on the floor. It was so cute. They did go to sleep well though and slept until 7:30 on Christmas morning. Yeah, we got to sleep in!! Then we opened presents and had yummy scones and sausage for breakfast. All the kids were very happy with their gifts and we spent the rest of the day lounging and enjoying what they all got.

One of the things Jake got was a skateboard and skateboard ramp. We are kind of holding our breaths waiting for the accidents to happen, but he also got some good protective gear and a helmet so hopefully he will be safe.

Kaylee, on the other hand, we hadn't worried much about and she is the one that got hurt. She was simply trying out the skateboard (not even on the ramp I might add) and she fell off and landed on her butt. The problem was that under her butt was her foot. She hopped around the rest of the day because her parents were too mean and didn't take her to the hospital on Christmas to get it checked. First thing on Friday we took her to urgent care and thankfully there were no broken bones. Just a really good sprain. So she is now on crutches and in an air cast.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. I hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we did.

Merry Christmas

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We have a had a great day so far. I just thought I would pop up a little post for now and I will come back later with details and pictures.

My Cafe Press Shop

My T-Shirt shop on Cafe Press is doing so well. I have just added some new designs and gift ideas to the shop. You can see previews of most of the designs in the slide show to the right of this post.

I just want to briefly tell you all about a couple of the things I have added.

1-I have added some great LDS YW theme related gifts. One has all the values on it including the new value, Virtue, which has been recently added to the YW theme and Personal Progress Program. The second is a design incorporating the nine B's from President Hinckley's talk "Way to Be".
2-I have also designed a shirt and some gift items based on the LDS Mutual Theme of 2009, "Be thou an example." I will be expanding this section with some other designs in the near future.
3-I have added a section of babysitter gifts. This section includes gifts you could give to your favorite babysitter and bags for girls who are babysitters. There are a couple of fun designs so check them out. I thought a great gift for my daughter would be to get her a bag and fill it with activities for the kids when she is babysitting. If you are looking for an idea for your teenage daughter, maybe you could do that too.
4-I added some reusable grocery bag designs. No more paper or plastic, go for canvas.
5-The last thing is that I will be taking orders for custom designs. If you need shirts for a family event, vacation or reunion, or any other kind of event, let me design a shirt for you. Prices are somewhat negotiable based on the quantity of items ordered for custom designs.

So that's it, but I also want to ask that everyone spread the word about my shop. I appreciate any referrals. To visit my shop click here.

Sims Family Update

We have been busy, busy, busy. I guess that just comes with the time of year. All of the kids have had their Winter concerts (except Kyle, his sing along is going to be this week.) Kaylee had her Choir concert last week and I was able to go with Grandma Sims, Kari and Deron. It was a great concert and lots of fun. The other three kids had their elementary school concert the week before that. They did a great job as well. Tiffany actually had a solo to sing and she did wonderfully.

Mike has been working Monday through Thursday the last couple of weeks in Las Vegas and even though he is gone those days, it has been really nice to have him home an extra day each week. We miss him so much when he is gone.

I am in the middle of doing Christmas Cards and letters and for some reason this year I really find myself dragging to get these things done. I may end up doing a new years' card instead this year. Who knows.

On another note, I am so excited that I finally got my new camera. Mike got me this for my birthday and Christmas this year. I am so excited but at the same time a little bit overwhelmed. There is so much to learn to operate one of these things. (at least to use it to its full potential). I am very excited to start using it though and look forward to taking some (hopefully) great photos. I think I am going to look into taking a photography class.

Speaking of Birthdays, it was my 37th on Friday. I can hardly believe I am that old!!! I really felt my age though last week when Kaylee turned 13. I actually have a full fledged teenager in my home now. That is scary. Well not scary really, I just can't believe she is already 13. Well, I suppose I ought to get going. I hope everyone hasa Merry Christmas and a wonderful and prosperous new year.

Hooray, I have a new niece

I have a new niece. Yippee! Addison Kate was born yesterday. Isn't she beautiful?!! Congrats Debbie and Darren.

In shock and amazed!!!

So a couple of weeks ago (on Nov. 18th to be exact) on a whim I decided to set up a cafe press shop and see if I could sell my t-shirts designs that I had ceated for our Twilight GNO. I thought if people like my shirts, maybe I can sell a few. I really did not have very high expectations at all. That little bit of inspiration has paid off for me though. As of tonight, I have sold a total of 213 products through my little shop(17 today, 25 yesterday!). Most of that has been this one design.

That was the one I did for my own shirt for GNO. I loved it when I created it and aparently other people do too. I have since come up with a few other designs. Check them out.

This is one of my favorites:

So far most of my designs have been Twilight related, just because I have Twilight on the brain, but I am interested in branching out. I am good at the designs, but not always good at the creative side...coming up with the ideas. So if anyone is interested in teaming up with me on some designs, let me know.

You can click on the individual pictures above to be taken to that design section in my shop or

Click here to visit my shop.

I have a couple of other designs up as well, so check it out.

Also, as you can guess, I am looking to build traffic to my site. I would be very grateful to anyone who can advertise for me on their blog or website. Just a little blurb and a link would be great. You could copy a picture too if you want. Is that too much to ask of a friend? ; )

Numb Fingers and growing older

So today makes 5 weeks since I woke up with that asleep, numb, tingly feeling in my last two fingers on y left hand. You know that funny bone feeling, or how your hand feels when it falls asleep. I have had that constantly for 5 weeks!!! It is really starting to be a nuisance. Actually, it has been that all along, now I am just getting sick of it. After 4 days, I went to the doctor. She sent me for xrays to make sure there were no bones problems causing the compression on the ulnar nerve. 4 days later when I finally heard back from the office about my xrays, I was referred to a neurologist. Of course it was a Friday and already past five so I had to wait until Monday to make the appointment. When I called, I was told the earliest appointment was over 2 weeks away. So I made the appointment and proceeded to wait all the while hoping my hand would just wake up. In the meantime, I decided to try a chiropractor. I had considered that the volleyball I had taken to the face 2 weeks prior to the numbness may have caused some issues in my neck that were now inflamed and compressing that nerve. I called the chiropractor and got in the next day. He fixed me up, my neck was out in two places, my back out in two places and my hip was out as well. Imagine that. Anyway, I have never been to a chiropractor before and had no idea what to expect. After two visits, I felt better in many ways, but my hand was still numb. I decided to wait it out until I would see the neurologist the next week. The Neurologist performed some tests and determined the compression on the nerve is at the elbow. He also told me that I have weakness in that hand, almost half the strength of my right hand, all due to the "neuropathy" as he called it. He called his occupational therapist and got me an appointment later that day for therapy to try and resolve the compression without surgery. Well, that was now 10 days ago and I am still numb. I have had two visits to the therapist, I wear a stupid looking padded sock thing over my elbow to protect the area all the time, and I have to sleep with a splint on my arm to keep my elbow almost straight. That is no fun at all. Anyway, I just wanted to complain a bit. Sorry for the long drawn out story. I am just tired of this feeling in my fingers. There is also sometimes severe pain and cramping episodes. The pains are in my hand, wrist and elbow. ugh!! If it's not one thing it's another lately.

It seems like ever since I hit 30 (a few years ago) my body has been falling apart. A couple of years ago I had to have my gall bladder out, it just quit working. I had a hysterectomy because my female parts couldn't figure out that a month should be 28-30 days, instead of 14, I have had shoulder problems, foot problems, wrist problems, & digestive issues galore. I broke a toe and my foot, sprained my wrist, fought carpal tunnel, now cubital tunnel and had miscellaneous aches, pains and illnesses. And I am not even that old!!!! I am still only 36 (for a few more days anyway) and I feel like I am falling apart. I wonder what I will be like when I am 50 or 60 or 80 for that matter. Well enough of that. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to cleaning house.

On the bright side, I am hosting our ward Relief Society Enrichment Christmas Activity in my home tonight. My house is nearly clean, yeah! Mike will be home tonight(if the weather doesn't delay him). We woke up to a blanket of snow all over Loveland today(I think this is a good thing though I hate driving in it) It is a beautiful sight and the snow continues to fall. My house is all decorated for Christmas, and I am feeling the Christmas Spirit. My children are wonderful, happy and healthy. My family and extended family are amazing and I have wonderful friends. I have the light of the gospel in my life and a Heavenly Father who loves me. What's a little feeling old or a numb hand when you have so much!!!