Ty's Birthday

I've been working on Titus's 4th birthday photos when I've had some spare time to scrap. So far, there are three pages and there is still a party. Haha, I have a hard time narrowing photos down because I feel they all tell the story. We'll see how the party page(s) go. ;)

Progress

These pictures are quite bad as far as focus and shadows go, but I still like the content - us! 

Leah saw these today and said that she likes the top right one because she's little and "kinda like a baby". She said she wants to be little again. She's been saying that lately but I remind her that there's no way possible. I also remind her that she's still little because she's not as big as me (yet). 

This is my last page for November 2009! Yay! I'm making progress.

Hoping

I'm hoping to get back in to a normal scrapping routine. I got way off track. 

I'm still scrapping 2009. 

2009.

No, it's not a typo. 

On the plus side, I'm through the end of November 2009. Then I can finally get the last batch of that year printed and in a book. Normally I scrap what I feel like scrapping, however, I am trying to fill in the missing pages.

This page was created a good month ago or more.

This was started about a month ago and finished yesterday. Leah said she didn't like the title of my page (happy poopy party) because it was gross and weird, but I told her that was what we called it. She also didn't like the picture of her on the toilet. Oh daughter, you'll do the same with your children. ;)

I love her faces in these photos!

2013 One Little Word + Changes

Happy New Year! Even though a new year starts with the very next day after the last, it's still the start of a new year as we know it. It's the beginning of freah and new. I like it.

I think it's been a couple of years since I participated in choosing a word for myself for the year. If I remember correctly, my last word was "be". This past year (2012) and frankly more in November and December, the Lord has really been working with me on believing Him. It can sound so simple, but it can also be harder than expected.

I felt this was a year to have a word and something to really focus on. Belief or believing was an option (as a word but it will always be something I am growing in). Another goal I have for myself is to get more organized and have a better schedule. So words associated with organizing and schedules came to mind. But I wasn't really set on any of those words.

Then I saw other's ideas of being brave or courageous. As much as I liked those, those weren't quite it either. The more I thought about it and things I've gone through, fear came to mind. I've realized that I've dealt with fear since a kid (more on that later). Obviously I didn't want fear to be my word so the word "fearless" seemed perfect. And then I knew it. That would be my word and my focus for 2013. Fearless. It encompasses a lot of the other words I considered. You need belief to be fearless. You need courage and bravery to be fearless.

For me, the fears I have had since a kid had to do with my health, my family's health, me dying, my family dying. Stupid lies from Satan. Within the last six months or so, I had issues with anxiety. I felt anxious, I felt fear rise within my chest to where it felt heavy and sometimes painful. I had some scary moments. But I see they were all brought on by fear. Fear is crippling. Fear is sin because whatsoever is not faith is sin (Rom. 14:23b). Sometimes the anxiety came out of no where for no apparent reason. It's not fun at all. The Lord has been so faithful to me through it all. He's reminded me of things that have brought so much encouragement. We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us!

Fear also has to do with doing things that might scare me. Some things I won't do for the sake of being fearless. You have to use wisdom.

Emptying a mouse from a trap. Scary. Yes, the mouse is dead, but it freaks me out. I've since bought  plastic disposable gloves for that fearless moment. I'll keep you posted.

This weekend I'm being fearless. Since I was young, I always wore shorts or boy shorts when I went swimming. Some for modesty, some because of being self-conscious. A little secret of mine...I have cellulite. I've had it since a young teen. I don't like it. I'd like to find good toning exercises to help. Until then, it's there.

I've admired people who wear all kinds of suits (although not condoning immodesty) in all kinds of shapes, sizes, weights, and those with more cellulite than me. I think it's great that they are so confident in themselves that they just don't care what people think (I've always cared what people think). I wanted their confidence but never did anything to work towards that confidence.

Until now...

Lime Ricki, a company I like to get modest swim suits from, had a big sale. I found a tankini top and then came the bottom choice. Boy short, skirt, regular bottoms. I knew I didn't want boy shorts for at least one reason. The skirt type I wanted was out of my size. What was left was a little different version which was a mix of a skirt and regular bottoms. So I went with it. I ordered it - a little reluctantly. I want to be modest yet I want to be confident in who I am - regardless of cellulite. So I've tried the suit on numerous times and asked Brandon over and over what he thinks.

This weekend we will be at a hotel with Brandon's mom's side of the family and I'll get to be fearless. I will be swimmig with my kids in my new suit. I'll have to be confident. Or at least appear that way until the real feelings set in. It's a big deal for me since I've always wondered what people think of me. Here's to being fearless!

I've also talked about how I want to start blogging about my journey to getting more organized and scheduled. I'll do that once my main computer is up and running. As of right now, this is coming from my phone. Also, I'm contemplating starting a new blog for all this or just updating through this blog. Decisions, decisions.

My hope through it all is it give glory to God and inspire others on to greater things.

Pumpkin Mess

This all happened today and while it was still fresh in my mind, I decided to document it. :)

 

Thanksgiving...2009

Oh boy. 2009. I am trying not to feel overwhelmed by how behind I am.

 

But I did get these pages done. I started them a few times and wasn't happy with them. I bought a new kit by Erica Zane called Counted and I really like it. Sometimes with the holidays, I get lost in how a page should look.

 

The kids and I had fun looking through these photos. They were so little then!

 

Leah really likes the photo of herself in the bottom row in the middle. Haha, too cute!

 

Frankenmuth 2009

It seems like it's been forever since I last scrapped. Today I decided to work on finishing up 2009. I still have a little from November and December and then 2009 will officially be done.

It was fun looking through these photos. My, how everyone has changed!

HIS&HERS

As I was washing dishes today, I was thinking about scrapbooking and then I remembered my goal! It must be completed by Thursday night if I'm to meet my goal (due to other commitments)! So during nap time, I was able to put this page together. There are probably still 2-3 more pages to do from her actual party, but this page was from a special double party with her cousin from Missouri.

I'm off to do some cleaning now, but I'm hoping to get some more scrapping done tonight or at least Wednesday or Thursday. Plus I have a little birthday project for this weekend that I need to work on.

Leah's so excited to be turning 5!

3rd Birthday

Well, I am half way to my goal! Remember my goal of scrapping her 3rd and 4th birthday photos before her 5th birthday this month? Here's the 3rd birthday!

I don't know how a person, a MOM, narrows down photos. I think it's just a given that my kids will have 2-3 pages for each birthday. My own birthday from this year had three pages! Whoa! And even though there are three pages below of Leah's birthday, I still left out a lot of photos. But I think the ones I chose tell a pretty good story of the day.

Almost all you see from these three pages is from the Erica Zane kit, With You. It's a fun kit!

 

 

 

Hello Berries

I had plans of working on other photos today but while scrolling through June 2010, I came across these and decided to scrap them instead! So summery!

The photos I was going to scrap was of Leah's 3rd or 4th birthday. Yes, I'm that far behind. And guess what? She'll be five in a couple weeks. So my goal is to get her last two birthdays scrapped before she turns five.

And then Titus is even worse. I think I'm three or four years behind on his birthdays! It's crazy! This is why I'm so thankful for my blog. So many times (if it's not recent photos) I go back to my blog to refresh my memory on events. It's helped a ton!

I think with birthday scrap pages, I "stress out" too much and think that the pages have to be perfect and I have to have the perfect papers and elements, etc. So that's why those pages get pushed back. But I am making a goal to get Leah's caught up by her fifth birthday. And then I will work on Titus's - the poor kid.

You Said It 2011

I'm super bummed that I only have nine documented "sayings" from Titus in 2011. Of course he said funny stuff all year long, but I forgot to write it down. Other moms out there, make sure you write things down right after something happens or is said. You'll be thankful later. :) So now I'm trying to be more observant and have asked Brandon to write things down when he hears them too.

You Said It

I have been working on getting all of the kids quotes gathered and separated into years. I haven't been as good lately with writing things down, so I'm trying to focus more on that. I even searched through Facebook to find any possible quotes I did have not have written down. I found a few so I was thankful for that!

I love looking back at what they said and how they said it. I also like adding a few pictures of them from that year. It's a fun little project!

Birthday, page 3

Birthday page number three!

Now I'm headed out for a walk while the sun is still out!

Birthday, page 2

This is the second page in my birthday trio. I created this probably a couple of weeks ago but had just a little more journal to write.

Now on to page 3...

I wonder what will happen when I turn 30. I just have a hard time not including pictures. As my style has always shown, I try to squeeze in as many pictures as possible. That's just me!

Birthday

I have been wanting to get back into scrapping so bad. I was doing good and getting a few pages done per week and then somehow fell off that wagon. But I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things.

I had been looking around for some new kits but just hadn't found what I was looking for. I don't really know what I was looking for, I just know I wasn't finding it. Then I came across The Lily Pad and found this kit called Grandma's Dresser. I loved it! Right away I knew I wanted to use it for my birthday pictures.

This is the first page of probably three from my birthday. Instead of cramming in a bunch of pictures, I decided to spread it out a little.

Scraplifted

I saw a layout on Pinterest that I liked and rather scrap-lifted it for this page today. I really liked how the photos were arranged. It's nice having a layout you like (which should be all the time, haha) when your pictures aren't what you had hoped for. I think it helps make the pictures look better too. I opted for black and white photos because of all the crazy colors going on. I'm thankful for having that option!

Now it's time for some exercise while the broccoli cheese soup cooks. Then I think it'll be time for a little trim painting. It can be rather therapeutic.

What? Did I just say that?

November 2009

Somehow I was able to pretty much skip over October 2009. There weren't a whole ton of pictures taken. The bulk of them was for "A Week in the Life" and I scrapped those the week the pictures were taken (if I'm remembering correctly). So I moved right along to November.

A year or two ago, I freed myself from scrapping chronologically, however that's how I've been scrapping lately so that I know where I've left off and also so that I can print off my pages. I save my pages by quarters (for example, Oct-Dec 2009) and only want to print the pages from those quarters if the whole quarter has been scrapped. So right now, printing is on hold until that is done.

It was nice to scrap today although I always seem torn in what to do during nap time. Lately it's been between scrapping, looking for decorating ideas on Pinterest, or painting. Some days more than one of those gets done. I'm working on finishing up some over due trim painting. Once that is done, I'm painting all of the living area (living room, dining room, halls). I'm super excited! It's all going to be a light gray and the living room will have a mustard-ish yellow wall. When we painted the house back in 2009, I never liked the brown color. It seemed stale to me - as weird as that might sound. The laundry room is the same as the living areas, but I'm thinking of painting that a color other than gray - like a vintage blue/green.

We first painted Leah's room turquoise. It was a pretty color, but the room didn't have the "feel" that I was going for (soft, girly, Pottery Barn-ish). So a while later I painted it a light yellow. It's pretty and I do like it, but her favorite color is pink. She said she liked pink when I painted it yellow and I've felt bad since then that I painted it what I wanted. So she and I were just talking the other day about painting it pink. It would be a light pink. When I chose the yellow color, Home Depot matched the color from a Pottery Barn magazine (I wasn't going to pay $60+ for a gallon of Benjamin Moore). I'll probably do the same with the light pink. The nice thing about paint is that it's relatively inexpensive yet makes a huge difference. I'm really excited to see how it will all look once completed!

Now back to that trim...

Special Note

Titus made this note for me yesterday. The actual note was about a 3x3 piece of paper, but scanning it and working in Photoshop allows me to enlarge it to see everything better. The ink he used was reddish but I changed that to black. Oh technology!

I have a folder of papers the kids have drawn on, things they've said, ect so that they can be scrapbooked. Not always do they get turned into a page so quickly.

I love my son!

Back to Scrap

Wow, it's been since October that I posted on this blog! Once the holidays hit, I was enjoying that time and did scrap by making the parent's yearly calendars. Since then, I've been getting back in the groove and getting some scrapping done.

These three pages are from September 2009. I've finally finished September 2009 and am now moving on to October. Like I've said before, I've scrapped a lot between then and now (not in order), so it's not like I'm that far behind, but I'm still behind where I'd like to be. Ideally, I don't want to be more than six months behind. I hope I can catch up! I'll just keep plugging away and enjoying it in the mean time!

I don't want this to sound vain or prideful: I really am thankful that I scrapbook. I'm thankful that I have a way of preserving our family memories - big and small. Even the small ones aren't small to me. They are all big and precious. I love looking back over the years and seeing what we've done, how we've grown, and all that we have to be thankful for. I love my family!

Old + New

I was going back - way back (insert tears and sad violins) - and decided to scrap these funny pictures of Leah during the beginning stages of potty training. I think it's funny to have captured crying pictures throughout their life. I think it's needed. They look back and realize the crying and whining really isn't that cool.

It happened recently at a soccer game. I was video taping Titus' game and Leah kept whining and asking for a snack. Later at home we played the video and she was shyly laughing at how ridiculous she sounded. I was told to do that by a couple people: record the kids happy and sad and have them see what they look like. I did this unintentionally, but it worked just as well. Now I can say, "Remember what you sounded like on that video? That's what you're sounding like right now. Do you really want to sound like that?"

Apart from learning lessons, crying is part of life and the journey we're all on. In it's own way, it has it's cuteness.

These photos were taken last week and I knew I wanted to scrap them today. At first I was going to have the photos in color, but there was way too much color clashing, so black and white came to the rescue again. I think it looks real nice with the pictures in B+W and that allowed me to use a busy, pretty paper.

I'm feeling my love of scrapping coming back! I've always loved it but haven't had a whole ton of time to scrap lately. Now I'm wanting to keep on scrapping!

Leah

I created this page a couple weeks ago. So much for the last post about wanting to get back into scrapping!

We've been rather busy lately. I've had some photo shoots so some nap times are spent editing photos rather than scrapping. Sometimes I wonder where the time has gone.

I've been thinking about doing Project 365 this coming year. I need to look more into it, but I think it's pretty much documenting the whole year through weeks, in photos. Does that make sense? During certain times of the year, it seems not too many photos are taken and that bugs me. I want to document more of the everyday. My kids do hilarious things and they just plain grow up way too fast.

I won a summer photo contest through Postcrossing! There were three winners. The photo(s) I entered were of jellyfish from the Shedd Aquarium. The winners got a coupon to Moo (an amazing postcard printing site) worth 20 postcards and free shipping. I was so excited and really surprised my photo was chosen since I can't remember winning anything. And it was a first for entering any of my photos in anything. I'm excited to get my order in the mail. I chose five different photos to be printed which means I'll get four copies of each (equalling 20 postcards).

Well, I'm off to make some tea and work on a scrap page. Then it's on to more Legos with the kids when they wake up. Enjoy the simple things! They tend to matter most.

Whistle

I created this page a couple days ago. I really need to get back into scrapping so I don't get further behind!

Postcrossing Update + Two Layouts

We were out of town for the weekend so today has been what Mondays normally are, but a little more. Cleaning, laundry, putting things back where they go - pretty much a never ending job.

In an earlier post, I talked about Postcrossing. It's been so fun!! So far I've received 14 post cards (which also means I've sent that many). I currently have five "travelling", which means they are out there somewhere in the world and will arrive at their destination soon. Once they are received, I'll be getting 5 more postcards from random people somewhere in the world.

A really cool thing about Postcrossing and that they send you an email at month's end showing a pie chart of where you sent cards to and where you've received them from along with your rankings in your country. It's not a competition, just really fun stats! I plan to scrapbook about it someday (hopefully soon).

I've received cards from China, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Canada, the USA, Romania, Netherlands, Latvia, and Argentina! I've sent postcards to Brazil, Germany, Finland, Russia, the USA, China, Netherlands, and Ukraine.

Below are a couple pages I put together. I'm loving scrapping summer pictures. The colors are so fun and cheerful!



CREDITS for "Hello Sun"

CREDITS for "For 500 Years?"

Caseville

Here is page one of our trip to Caseville for Memorial Day.

{Credits}

Home Owners

I know I haven't scrapped in a while! Today I finally sat down to work on a page. This one came together really quick. I love when that happens!

[Credits]