Template 54, Christmas Card 2009, and Scrap it to me Tuesday

*sigh* Do you ever have one of those days where you just want to scream, run away, and hide? Especially from your small child(ren)? For me, today was one of those days. Emma fought me on EVERYTHING. I did a few productive things, but of course needed to rest, so I laid down on the couch...and Emma FLIPPED OUT. Like, serious tantrum and Mommy-hitting. Naturally, she got a time out. Heh, I think she spent like half the DAY in time out. And oooooh how she fought me at naptime!! She didn't nap AT ALL. But I'm a mean mom and made her stay in her room for "quiet" time anyway. Ha. It was anything but quiet...

Add to that nightmare the following "joys" of being 35 weeks pregnant: carpal tunnel, sciatica, lack of sleep due to insomnia, and, of course, the wonderful hormonal mood swings. Fun stuff. I had several crying break downs throughout the day...

What happened to my sweet little girl?! Is this because she's 2 now? Well...in her defense, she IS cutting 2 eye teeth right now. She's been working on them for oh, 2 months now? The dentist said they were coming in back in mid October (though, ironically, he said the bottom ones were a lot closer to coming in than the top ones, but she's cutting the top ones and NOT the bottom ones). But NOW they're actually visible just below the gums. I really hope all these issues, or at least most of them, are teething related and not age related. PLEASE let these teeth pop through tonight in her sleep! I don't think I could handle another day like today...

Oh, and I DO give her Motrin, Orajel, and teething tablets, but they only do so much. Especially since now little miss independent insists on putting the Orajel in herself - and of course, she doesn't actually put it on the places where it HURTS...but if I try to help, she freaks out even more. So I just let her do it herself. And she's NEVER been one for teething rings. Maybe I'll give her an Otter Pop tomorrow. Good thing I still have some in the freezer!

*sigh* Today is a chocolate needing day. Speaking of, have you tried those Hershey's mint truffle kisses yet? OH my gosh, SOOOO good!! Of course, mint + chocolate = perfection. In fact, I'm uh, finishing off the bag now...and I bought them yesterday:D No, I didn't eat all of them myself. We had friends and family over to make gingerbread houses last night and shared the yumminess with them.

There WERE some good things about today, though. Most of them are thanks to the sweet generosity of friends and family:) Thank you! First, Mom sent us money for diapers since the credit we had at Sam's Club wasn't going to work the way we thought it would (they're sending Mom a check for it, since she's the primary account holder and I'm just the secondary person on it). Then, John totally took over toddler care so I could get a much needed bubble bath - and he rubbed lotion on my feet afterwards for me, too. But he does that all the time; especially since I can barely reach them these days!

Of course, Emma behaved MUCH better for Daddy...but, to be fair, I got her calmed down before he got home. Until it was time to start the bedtime routine, that is! I could tell John was getting a bit flustered with her (so was I...) and I said, "THIS is what I've had to deal with ALL DAY." I'm desperately praying that tomorrow will be better - and that those teeth will pop through tonight! But she's a slow teether...so probably not:(

Also, John got his sister to babysit for us Thursday night so we can FINALLY use our Outback Steakhouse gift card. Sweeeeet! Again, thanks to the friends who gave it to us in the first place:) We SO desperately need a REAL date like that - especially before the baby comes, or we'd have a little need-to-nurse-24/7 tag along. Sure, we have a "date night" every week, but it's usually a stay-at-home-and-watch-a-movie-or-play-a-game-after-Emma-goes-to-bed kind of thing. And it's been slipping the last few weeks or so because he's just been SO busy with school and homework. It's impractical to find a babysitter each week, and we certainly can't afford to go out much (more like at all) anyway. Here's hoping Emma behaves for her aunt - and is fast asleep with no fuss by the time we get home!

And I got a PM today that I get something for free that I thought I'd have to "pay" for with a gift certificate:D Yay!! Thanks, Chanin!! You're awesome!

Which reminds me, I have a couple of other non-today raves to share. First, I mentioned that we were looking for boots for Emma. Well, the boots I liked at Payless are apparently only for kids with narrow feet - and Emma has wide feet, just like John and I. She freaked out when we even TRIED to get them on her (she was being difficult anyway, though). Well, geniaBeana's little girl is just a month or so shy of being a year older than Emma, and she still has a bunch of her too-small shoes - and she's going to send me some!! Thanks, Val!! We REALLY appreciate it! You're amazing!

Aaaand, last but not least, my parents got me something AWESOME for Christmas! It's what I asked for:D I'd heard from another CT friend that Target had an amazing Black Friday deal on a 1 TB external hard drive. The sale lasted 2 days. So I emailed my dad and told him about it (since Mom said I had to ask HIM instead), hoping for the best, but knowing that Dad is harder to convince than Mom, I didn't expect much. Plus, I knew that with the great sale price, the likelihood of actually getting it (even if I DID land Dad's approval) was slim to none. But my dad amazed me. Not only did he say yes, but he went to Target himself when it opened at 8 AM. MY dad. He's not exactly a shopper - unless it involves computers! For him to go shopping on Thanksgiving weekend when a store opens...yeah, MIRACULOUS. And it was NOT the Target closest to him, since we already knew they were sold out (thank you internet). Not surprisingly, this Target was out, too (the website said "limited availability"). BUT there's an AWESOME computer/electronics warehouse store next door to that particular Target and THEY had a 1 TB external hard drive for the same price!!! It's a different brand, but that doesn't matter much as long as it's not a dud. Dad's a programmer, so he did research on the brand when he got home and it's good:) So YAY, I'm getting a 1 TB external hard drive for Christmas!! I will soon have a GREAT place to back up all my digiscrap files! Definitely better than trying to burn over 100 gigs onto DVDs...;)

And on that note, let's talk about scrapping! Chanin just started this new fun thing called "Scrap it to me Tuesday." Click on this banner to check it out on her blog:



I made our Christmas card this week, so that's my contribution for it:) I know, it's technically Wednesday now. I didn't even turn ON my computer until 11 PM! Anyway, here's our Christmas card:



I haven't actually sent it out yet, though. I'm (supposedly) working on a letter to go with it to email to friends and family (haven't started yet...). We're just doing the digital card thing this year. We're too poor/cheap to print and mail it! Plus, this way, more people can get it:) Friends and family who read this: please make sure I have your email address if you want a copy! Anyway, I used Holly Jolly by geniaBeana Scraps and Dylabel Designs to make it:



Aaand it's currently 45% off, too! How cool is that? I used a few pieces of it to make my new festive blog background. I mostly used geniaBeana's and Kimi's Kreations' portions of the GDS December collab. You can get the whole thing if you spend $10 (excluding coupons and gift certificates) at GDS.

I have a freebie for you, too. I made a template of my Christmas card LO:) Template 54 is a 12x12 PSD template. Here's the preview:



You can download it here.

Well, now that I've ranted about how horrible my day was and then raved about lots of awesome stuff, I'm feeling MUCH better! Now hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep! And PRAY that tomorrow (ok, today) goes MUCH better!