There Goes My Life...

May Memories.

I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. And I was on such a roll! I worked in the office most of the day, and then snuggled with my little guy on the couch after school. It was a rainy afternoon and was just right for a little nap.

Since I last posted I did manage to get May done for our 2011 Family Memory Book. Love that I have almost half of the year done! Here is the month highlight page.

And here is a layout for Mother’s Day.  This photo makes me smile. :-)

Everything for these layouts are by my friend, Heather.

I just finished a cute Valentine’s Day pennant banner that I will share next week.  Right now I have to run to the office to meet a client.  Have a great weekend!

Scraping away.

I am so happy with the progress I’ve been making on our family’s 2011 album. It’s so nice to be motivated.  The pages are coming together so easily. Love that.  April is now complete.

(layout credits here)

I also put together another page for April.  I wanted to highlight this favorite photo of the kiddos and their cousins.

(layout credit here)

I’m planning to just mix in the regular scrapbook layouts I have done with the month recap pages. Otherwise I might not ever see them in print.

Not so smurfy.

My youngest is currently obsessed with the game Smurf Village.  He plays it on my phone.  As soon as he gets up in the morning he asks me if he can check his crops on Smurf Village.  When I pick him up after school in the afternoon he is asking if he can see my phone ever before he has his seatbelt buckled. 

Can I check my raspberries?

I need to see if Handy’s house is ready.

If I don’t build Smurfette’s house she is going to leave!

I will give him permission to check his crops and will get busy with something.  A while later I will start looking for my phone to find him still playing and my phone battery almost dead.  The other day I scolded him because I found my phone on the kitchen counter with the battery completely dead. We don’t have a home phone, so I asked him what would we do if there was an emergency and needed to make a call?

I am surprised I don’t hear the music in my sleep at night.

This morning he really topped the cake though. For the past week or so he has been coming up with excuses to get into our bed.  He had a bad dream…he saw a shadow that  scared him…

Last night I woke up to find him standing beside our bed.  It was dark outside.  I had no idea what time it was.  When I was finally awake enough to understand what he was asking he said,

Can I check on my carrots?

I. could. not. believe. it.

No! Go back to bed!

At the time I thought it was like 3:00 in the morning. I now realize that it was probably about 6:00.  Chris’ alarm went off at 6:30.  Not a very smurfy way to wake up to say the least! We will be having a talk this afternoon.

Making progress.

Since I mentioned it a couple posts back, I have put together a couple more pages in our 2011 Family Memories book.  I love how quickly these are coming together by keeping it simple.  This weekend I put together February’s page.

(layout credits here)

This morning I put together March’s page.

(layout credits here)

I’m just keeping it simple and concentrating on getting the pages done.  Right now that is hat is most important to me.  I can’t wait to see it finished and in print!

My Little Eskimo.

No snow here so far this winter.  Just rain, rain and more rain.  I’ve been enjoying the mild winter as far as running goes, but it would be nice to have some snow like last January.

Today I put together a page with one of my all-time favorite photos of Stewart.  Love, love, love his red Kool-aid mustache.

A little scrap time was my reward for cleaning the upstairs today. Supper is in the crock pot, and I have a little time to play. Good times.

Doing it my way.

I tried the Project Life thing last year.  I will be the first to say that I was a major failure at it.  Sure, I started out great, but somewhere mid-February I fell behind and never attempted to catch back up. So many of my friends are doing it again this year.  When I open Pinterest that is about all I see these days.  My Twitter feed is full of tweets to inspire.  Inspire me it does not.

I was reading my friend, Robin’s blog the other day and I noticed where she had posted her family’s 2011 book.  Robin says she doesn’t scrapbook anymore, but I would have to disagree.  She has started putting together a memory (some of us would call is scrapbook) book of her family each year.  She does a page from each month with a collage of photos from the events of that month.  Then she mixes in a few special pages. It’s a simple approach that documents their family life. Inspire me it did.

I opened one of Heather’s old quick fill pages and started putting together a page about last January.  As I started picking out photos, I knew that there were way too many of our snow storm last January to not dedicate on spread to it.  So,  I quickly put together a page about the big snow on Chris’ 40th birthday.

 

So this is my plan.  I am going to do at least one page highlighting each month.

Simple.

Quick.

Templates.

I will also include any scrapbook pages I might have done.  I’m going to try to get 2011 done, and keep up with each month through 2012.  At least that is my plan.  We shall see how well I do.

This year his birthday was a little different.  No snow, but we had fun anyway.

(photo taken with my phone)

This one will have to make it to the January page for sure. :-)

Christmas Card Mini-album

I have wanted to do one of these albums ever since I saw Martha Stewart create one on her show a few years ago.  That episode may even still be saved on the DVR.  I saw it again on Pinterest and then Gina created an awesome album.  I was wanting a quick craft project for this afternoon to reward my self for cleaning the house (well most of it…my office is still pretty much a mess).  We’re just going to overlook that right now though.

Back to the project! 

First I measured my largest Christmas card.  The largest one I have is 6x7.5 inches.  So I cut my front and back covers the same dimension.  For the front I used a patterned paper, and for the back I just used a coordinating green cardstock.

Next I punched two holes in the covers and then used those as a guide for my cards.  After I had punched holes in all the cards I put them on binding rings.

Here’s a view of the inside.

My first thought was to just include my photo cards, but as I went through our cards from this year I decided to include all of them.  A lot of the traditional cards had personal handwritten notes in them and I wanted to keep those as well.

Here’s another view of the inside.

I plan to make albums for previous years, also.  I have several years worth stacked in a cabinet.  Next year they will be part of our Christmas decor. Love that.

Consumed.

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a very long time. It belongs to my sister-in-law.  She loaned it to me about a year ago I think.  Several, several months at least. It is the sequel to my all time favorite book, The Pillars of the Earth.  So why you ask has it taken me so long to start it?  Because it is over 1000 pages and I knew that when I started it I would be consumed by it.

In December I ordered the miniseries from Netflix.  Chris had never read the book, but he really got into the story.  Just like with the book, I was sad to see the mini-series end.  That’s the bad part about a really good story, you just don’t want it to end.  With the story fresh in my mind, it seemed like the perfect time to start the sequel.

Just as I predicted I am consumed by it.  It’s all I can think about during the day.  When I am cleaning or working, I want to be reading.  I don’t let myself pick it up because I know I would be lost then.  So I wait until night, and then I read.  One night I stayed up until 1:00 a.m.  Last night I was so sleepy.  I kept losing my place and would read the same paragraph two or three times.  Finally, I gave up and went to bed.

Today the kids went back to school.  The house has been quiet.  I want to read, but I haven’t even let myself get close to it.  I’ve locked myself in the basement and worked.  Tonight after the kids go to bed though…it is all mine!

The last day of 2011.

This last day of 2011 I…

…watched a movie with Stewart.

…went for a run alone in shorts and short-sleeves.  It is a gorgeous, warm day.

…scrapped a Christmas layout.  At least one is done if I don’t get around to doing any others.

(layout credits here)

…am planning to read a little of the book I just started.

…am planning to spend a quiet night at home with the family.

In all honestly, I cannot say that I am sad to see 2011 go.  This year to quote a friend “has been a roller coaster ride.”  I love roller coasters, but I am ready to get off of this one. To paraphrase another friend, God got us through 2011, and He will get us through 2012. 

I’m not making a lot of goals for 2012.  I did last year, and I don’t think I fully completed any of them. 

I set a goal to read 50 books in 2011, and I think I am finishing the year with around 36 read.  I didn’t mark that one off, but that is a lot more than I read in 2010.  I enjoyed each and every one, and I am glad to have read the ones I did.

I planned to read a classic each month of 2011.  I think I read 10.  I started on the other two, but I haven’t finished them yet. So another failure you might say, but there are 10 less classics on my list of books to read.

I planned to lose weight.  A lot of weight.  10-20 pounds.  I started off great (as I do most years), but soon fell off the wagon.  I am not 20 pounds lighter or even 10 pounds lighter for that matter, but I am ending 2011 with a slightly smaller number on the scaled than I ended 2010.  I guess that is something.

I was committed to 2011 being the year that I took a photo each and every day.  I made it farther than I ever have before – some time in February I believe.  I don’t think that is a goal I will ever complete.  I think I need a different approach all together.

So here I am on the last day of 2011.  I’m not making a lot of lofty goals.  There are a few things I would like to accomplish.  I would like for 2012 to be the year of my second marathon.  I would like to scrapbook more, sew more and just craft more.  I have lots of new ideas for my business, and I am excited about those.  Chris and I are entering a new chapter in our lives, and while it’s a little scary, I know that we can make it successful.  I have all faith in him, in us and above all in our God.

So with that I say good-bye to 2011. I am so ready for a new year and new beginnings!

Jasper and Jingle Belle.

This hasn’t been the scrapbooking, paper crafting December that I had planned. Work-wise, I am pretty much finished for the holiday season, so I took a few minutes yesterday and put together a quick page about your elves, Jasper and Jingle Belle. 

(layout credits here)

Love their scarves?  The girls made those for them last year and left them for them to take back to the North Pole with them on Christmas Eve. When they came back this year, they were wearing them.  They get into a lot of mischief, but I have to say I am always sad to see them go.