Chromy Family Calendar pages

This is the third year that I've made family photo calendars for each of our families for Christmas (though they don't usually get done until February!) Here are the pictures from my family's calendar:

JANUARY

Tom & Heidi Thomann (My sister and oldest sibling)
Tyler (13 yrs), Jacob (10 yrs), and Emma (6 yrs)

FEBRUARY

Grandpa & Grandma Decker
(my mom's parents and my only living grandparents)

MARCH

Dad Chromy (and Mom, too) :-)

APRIL All of my nieces and nephews:(from top left clockwise)
Tyler Thomann, Jake Thomann, Aksana Chromy (1 yr), Emma Thomann

MAY Mom Chromy (and Dad, too!)

JUNE Chris and Heather Mitchell (that's me!)
(I'm the middle child of 5...
I have an older sister and brother, and 2 younger brothers)

JULY Nieces and nephews again (from top left clockwise)
Jake, Emma, Tyler, and Aksana

AUGUST Steve & Kathryn Chromy
~they are expecting their first baby - a boy - in June~
(Steve is my older brother)

SEPTEMBER Nathan & Caroline Chromy ~ the newlyweds :-)
(Nathan is my "baby" brother - they got married in June 2007)

OCTOBER

Nieces and Nephews once again...
Ty, Jake, Emma, Aksana (with Jovi the dog), and
Emma & Aksana playing piano.

NOVEMBER

Greg & Rachael Chromy
Aksana
~they are expecting baby #2 in September 2008~
(Greg is my middle brother)

DECEMBER

Two pics of the whole Chromy clan...
The 1st pic is from April when we all got together in FL for Easter weekend and to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday
The 2nd pic is from Nathan & Caroline's wedding in June 2007

Well, that's it for the Chromy's! Hope you enjoyed the pics! :-)

Just to clarify...

Several people have asked when we will have an update on the baby. We will not know anything until the first week of March, when we have our pregnancy test - 03/03/08, at 10:30am - if you want to pray specifically! :-) We probably won't post anything right away, just to give us time to call the people that we need to call first. Also, if the pregnancy test IS positive (as well as the bloodwork indicating pregnancy), they do a follow-up bloodwork two days later. If all goes well, I probably won't post anything until after that bloodwork. In December, the pregnancy test was positive, but the follow-up bloodwork showed that we would lose the baby, which we did. I don't really want to go through calling everyone to tell them that we're pregnant, just to call back 2 days later and tell them that we're going to lose the baby. I'm sure you all understand that! :-) So - look for a post probably toward the end of the first week of March... and please keep us in your prayers! Thanks so much for your prayers... we appreciate them more than you know!

Oh, yeah, by the way... if you want to pray REALLY specifically... we're praying for a baby boy (twins would be good, too!) The REASON that we are praying for a boy is because his name has a very significant meaning to us - much more so than the girl's name we have chosen. Our little boy's name is Jadon Christopher (Christi - I hope you don't mind us using your Jadon!) :-) Jadon is a Bible name, and you can find it in Nehemiah 3:7. Basically the Bible mentions Jadon as a man who was just building his part of the wall. Jadon also means "Jehovah (or God) has heard." Very fitting for our situation, don't you think?! Christopher, obviously, is after his daddy, Chris, but also means "follower of Christ." If God chooses to give us this little one and any others He might surprise us with... more than anything we want our child(ren) to be followers of Christ. Now, I must say, too, that we would be THRILLED with a girl, too, and have her name picked out as well. Chris and I just feel like this might be our boy, and every time we hear his name, we'll be reminded of what it means, and that God HAS heard!

So AMAZING...

... and people say that there is no Creator!

I just wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who have prayed and are praying for us through this time. I also wanted to share these pictures with you, because I think that they are SO AMAZING! Though Chris and I would never have chosen to go through in vitro fertilization to have a baby, we have received many blessings through this trial. One of which is that we have actually seen pictures of all of our embryos (babies, in our minds!) It is just so amazing to see what God is doing and most parents have no idea that their babies have even been conceived at this point, much less SEE them!

Our embryologist, Dr. Cristina, likes to take pictures of the embryos within an hour of the transfer. We went in for the transfer at 2pm, and she showed us the first picture (taken at 1 pm). She said it was OK, but she would have liked to see a little more definition. Dr. Homm, my fertility doctor who actually does the transfer, got delayed with another patient for about an hour. So, Dr. Cristina took another picture at 2:20pm. That is the second one you see below. She was very thrilled with the growth of the embryo, and was very positive.

This is a picture of our embryo at 1pm... as you are looking at the picture, the baby forms to the right side, and the bumps on the left side are where the embryo attaches to the uterus.

This is a picture of our embryo at 2:20pm. It is so amazing to me to see how much it had grown in just 1 hour & 20 minutes! Chris and I feel SO BLESSED just to be able to see these pictures. Most parents don't even have a clue that their baby exists at this point!

There are still no guarantees... it is totally up to God to choose to give this baby life and breath. However, we continue to pray as we wait, and have faith knowing that WHATEVER God chooses to do... "As for God, his way is PERFECT."

Again, we appreciate so much your love, prayers, and support! We will know the first week of March whether or not we are pregnant, and we'll let you all know when we can! :-)

As promised...

As promised... FINALLY - here are a couple of cards that I made with the stamps I got for Christmas.

This flower I stamped on vellum and embossed with black embossing powder, then used markers on the back side to get the softer looking colors.
This is my ADORABLE gingerbread girl! This card is pretty simple, but I like it just the same.

This is another Christmas card that I made. This particular one has a very busy background... I fussed with it until it looked better (and made about 5 different versions until I really liked it. If you look closely, the snowman has some glitter and silver paint accents to make him nice and sparkly!

Sorry, I don't have time to embellish the details right now, but I wanted to at least START posting some of the many cards I've made recently! :-)

For any of my faithful readers...

if there are any...

I have tons of stuff to post, just haven't had the time to sit down and post all of this stuff. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll have caught up! Stay tuned... it's coming...

My Christmas presents

Here are a couple of crafty Christmas presents I got!
My mom gave me these two stamps. I was ESPECIALLY excited about getting the gingerbread girl, since I have the SU! gingerbread wheel, but until now, I had no gingerbread type stamps to go with it. I'm very picky sometimes about the style of stamps that I buy, and I couldn't find a gingerbread stamp that I liked. I LOVE this gingerbread girl, however, so I was very thankful that my mom found it and bought it for me! I like the morning glory stamp as well, and it will be nice to have another large flower for some variety in my collection.
I also was VERY excited to get this wooden wall hanging cut-out. I am planning to put a family photo collection on the wall behind it (like a photo gallery), and LOVED this cut-out from the moment I saw it! My hubby bought this for me! I am also getting money from 2 of my sisters-in-law in order to buy frames for the photo wall. I have come to the conclusion that I will have to use collage frames, since buying over 20 frames at once (even if they are $5 each) is out of the question financially! Besides, I'm not sure that I want that many holes in the wall - though it would look cool! So - now the dilemma is just how exactly I'm going to get them all done and hanging up.... I promise to post pics when I get it done! :-)

Oh, yes, I also received the new SU! catalogue for Christmas! I LOVE our SU! demonstrator... she's a good and very generous friend! :-)

More Christmas Cards

Yes, it's after Christmas and I'm STILL making Christmas cards! Soon you will know the REASON why I'm so far behind, but for now, you'll just have to put up with Christmas cards for a litte while longer. I LOVE Christmas, so it doesn't bother me ONE bit! :-)

I got the shimmery red and green paper from Staples... the green is pearlescent Gamma Green, and the red is pearlescent Re-entry Red. :-) Love those names! White cardstock is Walmart, and black is Basic Black from SU. I got the little green tree punch-out from a friend, so no idea what that is made from! Sentiment is Papertrey Ink Holiday Wishes, (I LOVE this company, and look forward to MAYBE just getting my hands on more of their sets in the future) stamped in Color Box fluid chalk ink in Warm Red. The little tiny gingerbread man is another stamp I have no idea where it came from, the gingerbread background on the red is SU! wheel with ink from Michael's, and the tiny tree bkgrnd is TAC, stamped in Garden Green from SU!

The paper on this card is the same as above. Green vine bkgrnd is from SU! retired set Holiday Hedgehogs, as is the Hedgehog stocking, both stamped in Garden Green. Red bkgrnd ornament stamp is also SU! retired Little Layers II. Sentiment is again Papertrey Ink Holiday Wishes. Ribbon is from Walmart. I colored the hedgehog with colored pencils, gel pens, and a blender pen dipped in the Color Box Fluid Chalk Warm Red ink that I also used for the sentiment and red background. The silver faux stitches on the black were done freehand with a silver paint pen, and the tiny black doodling on the top and bottom of the white was also done freehand with a black pen. I also used glitter to make the ornament sparkle!

I made a few varieties of this Hedgehog card... here are some pics of the subtle variations:

Instead of ribbon, I used the silver paint pen to attemp to make faux brads, then outlined them in black pen. It looked OK, but I STILL wasn't happy!
FINALLY, I remembered my little star punch (I think it's Fiskars) and thought it tied in well with the stars on the stocking. No more faux stitching on the rest of the 20 that I made... too time consuming, and I liked the star punch so much, I left well enough alone! :-)

Here is yet ANOTHER card... same paper, same ink (SU! Garden Green, Color Box Fluid Chalk in Warm Red), black ribbon from Walmart, TAC tree on green bkgrnd, SU! Riveting on red bkgrnd, and the tree is from SU!'s Holiday mini collection catalogue, Season of Joy. I just cut out the tree, and in doing so cut off the star on the top.

I still have about 40 more cards to make, so I'll be busy still! More Christmas cards to come...