Birthday Bash Fun January 12!!!

Welcome to the Birthday Bash Blog Hop, January 12!! Today is Zenita's aka Scrappinwith’Z’s (that's me) 50th Birthday and Shawnee’s Birthday is Monday so we decided to throw our selves a Birthday party and invite some of their friends along!! To help celebrate Jen’s Digi Stamps and Scrapbook Stamp Society has graciously gave us some digis to give away to a couple of our commenter’s!! Plus Chriss has some Washi tape for another commenter. So please leave a comment at each of our friend’s blogs for your chance to be a winner. I'm your hostess today (since I'm the oldest birthday girl)…lol. I hope you enjoy all my friend's creations!!

Here's my card with a cute digi from Jen's Digi Stamps!! I made the ribbon on this card to look like it's pearl since the cancer ribbon for mesothelioma is pearl. I also used Viva Pearl Pen-cream to make it look like there is pearls around the Spellbinder die cut. A white Gelly Roll was used to make dash lines around the diecut and the sentiment that I made using MS Word. The corners of the sentiment was done with a retired corner punch from Making Memories. The white flowers from Celebrate It was chalked with ColorBox chalk. The ribbon and the bear's nose was filled in with Inkssential Glossy Accents. Zig adhesive and ATG adhesive was also used. The pattern paper is from It Takes Two and me & My Big Ideas. The base of the card is Bazzill.

Copics were used to color the digi:W00, W1, W3, BV20, R02, R17, R46, E04, E09, E09, E13, E31, E39, E55, E57, E59, C00, C0, C1

  Today is a little bit different start for a hop. In my section of Southeast Missouri our local TV KFVS12 has a thing called "Think Pink" on the 12th of each month. It's all about breast cancer. So, since my birthday is on the 12th we are going to start, beginning this month, spotlighting different cancers. I recently was approached by a beautiful young lady asking me to share her story with mesothelioma cancer. Here's Heather's story:

How Cancer Made me Thankful

My daughter was born on August 4, 2005. My family and I were ecstatic. Life was good. At this time, I really learned what people meant when they said it takes a village to raise a child, because our home was full of our loved ones. My husband and I enjoyed the visits from my family, his family, and our friends. We were very happy in those first few months of Lily’s life. That happiness was short-lived, however, because after I went back to work I started to feel that something was wrong. I was extremely tired all the time, and found myself out of breath frequently. At first, I just attributed all of those things to my body simply adjusting to being a new mom. Later, after I finally decided it was severe enough to see my doctor, I found out that what are usually just new mom symptoms, fatigue, exhaustion, and a severe lack of energy, turned out to be symptoms of mesothelioma.

Without my knowledge, I’d been exposed to asbestos as a child, which is what caused my diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma. According to my doctor, I had about 15 months to live unless I sought medical treatment. As any mother in my situation would, I looked at my daughter and my husband and I knew that I had to live, and that I’d do whatever it took to stay alive and raise my daughter. I needed to be there to watch her grow up. Whatever it took’ wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.

We had to go to Boston to see one of the best mesothelioma doctors in the country. In a surgery called an extrapleural pneumonectomy, he removed my left lung on February 2, 2006 and I spent 18 days in the hospital recovering. After that, I spent an additional two more months recovering and preparing my body for chemotherapy and radiation treatments. While I was in Boston, I made friends who were going through similar things as me. While I was there, my daughter was in South Dakota living with my parents. A ‘village’ to raise Lily really came together at that point. My parents work full time, and they needed help. It seemed everyone who ever loved us, from kids I used to babysit to friends from our church came together to help my parents. While they were at work, our friends were watching Lily. I will never be able to express my gratitude to those people who helped during that awful time. Knowing that Lily was in such good hands was so important to me and it helped me to be able to concentrate on my health and recovery first and foremost.

I missed a lot of Lily’s firsts while I was in the hospital. I saw them through grainy photos that my mom would email and my husband would print off for me. The nurses would ooh and aah over her when we looked at the pictures. I tried not to cry, but it was hard. We took everything one day at a time, and it was the love and support of our friends and family that made the day-to-day possible. Now, my family likes to embrace life at all times. We now understand that from horrible situations comes good, even if it doesn’t seem possible at first. Despite my horrible ordeal with cancer, we formed bonds with our loved ones we never had before. My daughter and my parents are so close, and even time and distance cannot change that. I am so thankful every single day.  

Thanks for stopping by to celebrate with us today and please keep on hopping to see what Shawnee Penkacik our next birthday girl has created for your enjoyment!!

1. Zenita Smith-- http://www.scrappinwithz.blogspot.com
2. Shawnee Penkacik--http://quiverofangels.blogspot.com
3. Tanya J - http://little-scrapper.blogspot.com
4. Yolie - http://www.justyolie.com
5. Sher- http://www.patternsbysher.blogspot.com
6. Cathy-http://cathyplus5.blogspot.com
7. Chriss - http://chrissandlou.blogspot.com/
8. Robin- http://www.thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com/
9.Anita ~  http://www.anitaandbugs.blogspot.com

I have entered this card into these challenges:

2 Sister’s Challenge Blog—Challenge #126 Celebrations http://2sisterschallengeblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/challenge-126-celebrations.html

A Gem of A Challenge—Challenge #62 New Beginnings http://pinkgemchallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/challenge-62-dt-call.html

AllSorts Challenge Blog—Challenge #189 Dies & Punches http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/2013/01/week-189-dies-and-punches.html

Bugaboo Challenge Blog—Anything Goes Birthday http://catchthebugblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/week-long-bugaboo-birthday-bash.html

The Kraftyhands Challenge Blog--New Beginnings http://kraftyhandschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/january-new-beginnings.html

Stamp Your Life, LLC—Challenge #2 New Beginnings http://stampyourlifeblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/challenge-2-new-beginnings.html

Live Laugh Stamp Blogspot—Challenge 1 Word-Play Anything http://livelaughstamp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/word-play-saturday-1-january.html

ATC’s Cards and Attitudes—Anything Goes

http://atcswithattitude.blogspot.com/

Cardmaking Mama’s—Anything Goes http://cardmakinmamas.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/a-new-year-and-new-challenge.html

Lady Anne’s Challenges—Friday Anything Goes with a Sentiment  http://www.ladyanneschallenges.com/sentimental-friday.html

Fairy Tale Challenges—Challenge #58 Animals and Pets

http://fairytale-challengeblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/challenge-58-tiere-animalspets.html

Fat Pages and Cards with Attitude—Anything Goes with a Sentiment  http://fatpageswithattitude.blogspot.co.uk/

Joyful Stampers—Inspire Me Fridays Anything Goes--  http://joyfulstamper.blogspot.com/2013/01/inspire-me-fridays-91-anything-goes.html

Stampin’ For The Weekend—Anything Goes http://stampinfortheweekend.blogspot.com/2013/01/happy-new-year-and-anything-goes.html

Stampin’ Dragon Challenge—Anything Goes http://stampingwithdragon.blogspot.com/2013/01/stamping-dragon-challenge-anything-goes.html

Third Coast Creative Challenge—Anything Goes http://www.thirdcoastchallenges.com/2012/12/tccc11winner-tccc12anything-goes.html

Totally Papercrafts Friday Challenges—Ribbon-http://totallypapercrafts.blogspot.com/2013/01/challenge-149-ribbon.html

Wags and Whisker’s Challenge—Challenge 95 Celebrations http://wagsnwhiskersrubberstamps.blogspot.com/2013/01/challenge-95-celebrations.html