Whew, what a weekend

The kids and I had a great time with our moms' retreat last weekend. Ben really enjoyed seeing our friends and did better playing with them this year than he ever has. The first night after dinner I was so proud when he told everyone as we were leaving, "See you tomorrow!" Sarah charmed the pants off everyone and wanted to be everybody's friend. She seemed to like playing with the youngest baby, Amy, who is 9 months to Sarah's nearly 15.

One of my favorite moments happened on Friday when we tried to go blueberry picking. We were just hanging out and playing at the playground but didn't realize they closed the picking at 4 and we missed it. At one point our friends Abby and Ethan took both of Sarah's hands and started walking with her - it was adorable. They did want to go a little faster than little Sarah was able. But it was just so cute. We tried to go blueberry picking again on Saturday but it rained a lot that day and so we stayed indoors a lot. We managed to get in about 15 minutes of swimming at the hotel pool in between storms. Ben didn't want to go in the water beyond his knees, but I took Sarah in and she really seemed to love it. I think it made a difference that the water was heated.

I had done two stamping projects for two friends that were part of the retreat. One was a gift for a Christmas in July swap. Our friend Karen is hoping to adopt a baby from Taiwan, so I made her a picture frame with that dream of hers in mind. She really loved it, and I just felt honored to make it for her. The idea was featured in the most recent issue of Paper Crafts magazine.

The other project was a card for a friend's sister who is newly pregnant and horribly, awfully sick. My friend chose the printed paper and asked for "Tuscan" colors. It was a color scheme I'd never used but I really enjoyed doing it. The card went through several iterations, but this is how it ended up.

I've been trying desperately to keep up with the challenges on SCS this weekend. It has been pretty overwhelming with so many ideas coming at me. There is no way I'll be able to make all 36 extra cards. I think they are giving everyone a couple weeks to finish the special challenges if they want, so I'll see how much I can get done. I'm quite tired from the weekend and not feeling so well, so I'll just post my favorite cards that I've made this weekend. Sorry for not having more to say about them right now!