Totes

I spent the afternoon making a couple tote bags for the kids. The puppy one is for Adam and the kitties are for Megan. This will be like our library book, going on a trip, anything bag. The idea is, I won't have to carry around the huge diaper bag anymore and depending on where we are going, just through some snacks, cups and a diaper in there.

The bag actually folds up into the pocket to form a tiny bundle. I'm going to make a larger one for myself.

Family and kids' albums

I have spent many, many hours trying to figure out how to "scrapbook" our family memories and still create albums for each kid. I haven't come up with a perfect solution, but I believe I am close to having a prototype. Each kid will have a "baby" book that details their first year of life. From that point, each child will have a scrapbook/photo album that includes primarily pictures of them either by themselves or participating in family activities. Most of these pictures will be displayed photo album style, but will include journaling and some elements of scrapbooking. I do plan to do 4-6 regular pages per child that highlights the essence of that particular age, i.e. for Megan's 2 year old section, I plan to do a layout about dressing up, story hour, new traditions we started, etc. For our family album, I will stick to mainly family activities and do mostly scrapbook pages.

Well, the concept seems simple on one hand, but involved sorting a lot of pictures. I I decided to start with the year Megan was one to see if my idea works.

This page is for our "Family" album:



I then created a page for Megan's book. I repeated the title, used the same paper line and personalized the journaling to Megan. Because I had already done all the hard stuff (picking papers, embellishments), this page came together in about 20 minutes:

Here is another page from the family book:

For Megan's book:

Yet another entry on scrapbooking...

I finished this page today and it marks the completion of Megan's one year album. (This did not scan well due to the flowers being too bumpy to lay flat on the scanner.) I started it probably 2 years ago and after picking out the paper couldn't figure anything else. I feel like I've gotten into a major scrapbook rhythm. I've been working faster and using a variety of materials. My pages are tending to be a little more diverse than in the past. It is difficult to describe, but it is kind of exciting to me. I think the main reason is because we turned off our tv for the summer. We have Dish Network and they let us put it on "vacation mode." We kept everything we had recorded so Megan still has her shows recorded and we could watch re-runs when we wanted (and most tv shows are on the internet now too). In the past, I used the tv for "background" noise and have now realized how much of a distraction it was. I've also discovered "Adventures in Odyssey" this summer and have been listening to it while I work. Chad and I have both enjoyed not having tv so much we are seriously debating turning it off permanently. Our main hang up is whether we can get football games on the computer and if we can hook a cable from the computer to the tv to view it.

This past year has been a little crazy. Adam is a great baby, but there were some serious adjustments. I think getting back in the scrapbook groove has helped me to feel like I've gotten a bit of myself back.

Okay enough rambling. If you want to see all of Megan's album in one spot, visit here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=208774&id=591839532&l=3d13731907

The Village People

Megan received the "Village People" set for her first birthday and like all toys, it has gone through cycles of being a favorite to being ignored. I thought about putting it away for a while recently and I've been very glad I didn't. Both kids have been playing with it a ton. Adam likes to put the people into and out of the cars (and any other container he deems suitable) whereas Megan's play is quite a bit more complex.

This is an example of what I overheard the other day:

"Oh, Katy, do you smell that?" said Donna. *she actually said, "said Donna" and "said Katy" etc.

"Yes, I do," said Katy.

"Lynn, come here, do you smell that?" said Donna.

"Yes," said Lynn.

"It's your favorite breakfast," said Donna.

And so it goes on. She was pretending that the people were my family and it was hilarious to realize what her perspective of life is. Later on, she invited me to play because she didn't know "how Suzy should act." I told her I'd play but refrained from telling her that my sister would probably have picked on me and bossed me around. We also had a major incident last night because the boy with brown hair who is Uncle Tim could not be found. Don't worry, she is equal opportunity and the boy also plays Daddy. She has even included Chad's cousins, Rebekah and Rachel, his Uncle Dave and Chad's 4-H animals, Bam Bam and Wild Thing into her village.

The two of them were playing quite nicely together which is what inspired to picture although it appears that Megan may have been hoarding all the people to keep Adam from taking them from her.

Delgrosso's

A very nice lady who works with Chad gave us free passes to a semi-local amusement park. We went a few Saturdays ago and had a great time.

Here is my new favorite picture (although it was the last one taken that day).

The park is fairly small in comparison to say, Cedar Point, but it was perfect for our foursome. They have a cluster of 8-10 kiddie rides and Megan rode almost all of them. Adam rode quite a few also. You may have to zoom in to see it, but Megan's face while she "drove" cracked me up. She had this serene, just going about my business look that was trying to mask the excitement of driving.

I had my doubts about whether Adam was ready to ride anything, I mean, he doesn't exactly like to sit, but I was wrong. He LOVED to ride the rides and was spinning the wheel and everything.

On a side note, he is really growing up. He's walking great, but there have been lots of other little changes. Things are starting to click for him. If he finds my phone, he holds it up to his ear (well, really it's behind, but the idea is there). He loves to put objects inside other objects. I was loading the dishwasher the other day and realized he was taking forks and spoons and putting them inside the watering pot I keep in our mudroom. He also likes to find the largest or most cumbersome object in the room and carry it everywhere with him. He leaves a little trail wherever he goes. I picked up the house while he was napping and within about 15 minutes of him waking up I had several trails. He picked up the baby doll potty in Megan's room, carried it to his room where it was replaced for a more interesting toy, which I found downstairs by the open cabinet door. I then found a bowl and a spoon on the stairwell where he left it when it just got to be too much of a hassle to get all the way upstairs. This is constant. He always has something in his hands. Oh, and at 14 months, he's the oldest kid in the world to have NO TEETH.

Megan insisted on funnel cake although neither Chad nor I suggested it.

So, I guess if I can get Adam's first birthday scrapbooked before he's 3 then he and Megan will be even. We won't mention that the rest of her album was complete by her first birthday...I started this page at Thanksgiving 2008, which is basically the last time I scrapbooked before this past month. I was feeling a loss of momentum with Adam's book, so I decided to take a look at the works in progress pages. I knocked off 5 others too, they aren't stellar, but I'll call them done. I realize there is a reason I probably got them half finished and then quit working on them.

21 Pages

18 pages

Mama's School

Just so you don't think I've been neglecting my children so I could scrapbook, I'll show some other things we've been doing.

Though Megan is technically old enough to attend pre-school this year, we've decided not to send her (and may not send her next year either). I've decided to start doing some more guided activities once a week. I checked out an ABC arts and craft book and have been researching some other materials to purchase. On Wednesday, I told Megan we were going to start, "Mama's School" soon and we needed to buy some craft supplies. She was super excited and spent the rest of the day talking about "Mama's School."

When Adam took his nap on Thursday, we had our first class. We made a "Macaroni M," read a book, made Miguel the Mouse, made an M collage and had M & Ms for our snack. I think she really enjoyed it although I think it wore her out. She acted a little out of sorts for the rest of the afternoon. We may have to split it up a little bit more next time.

When I was a girl, my mom always said that I went to "Mama's school" instead of pre-school, so in a way I'm carrying on a tradition.

Family Heirloom

The verdict is still out on this one. I'm not 100% sure I like it (the colors are better in real life).

Here's another one:

Pretty in Pink?

Chad wasn't too thrilled with my color selection initially on this page, but I figured it was my only chance to use pink in this album. (It also scanned a lot brighter pink than it actually is).

Tubes

Adam has had chronic ear infections for the past 6 months. I delayed going to a specialist b/c I hoped that warmer weather would clear up the problem. This did not prove to be true, so last week the little guy had tubes in and seems to be feeling much better. This is pre-surgery.



The whole thing took less than 30 minutes. He was pretty upset when they brought him back to me, but after about 10 minutes he calmed down and seemed to perk up. He had just started walking the week before and both Chad and I thought he was walking faster by the end of the day and was quite happy. He is always a pleasant little guy, but I don't think we realized how much his ears bothered him. I'm glad that we had them taken care of and hope it will cut down on the number of future infections.

Splash Universe

We made a wedding weekend in Indiana a little mini-vacation and stayed at an indoor water park in Shipshewana. The kids enjoyed it although Chad and I underestimated how much work it is to take 2 kids to a place like that!

These rocking horses were in the lobby.

Chad had Adam almost asleep on the lazy river.

Megan was all about the water. The first day she rode on all the slides (except the 2 for much older people) and loved it.

Adam was an absolute wild man at the pool. He wasn't real steady and after falling would prefer to crawl. The water was 8 inches deep and so he'd try to crawl, but he'd prefer to kick and splash. This usually ended up with him taking in mouthfuls of water. He came up smiling every time though. He loved it, but was out of control.

A little Blue moon in the afternoon...

10 pages

Adam now has 10 pages in his album, only 34 to go (so he has the same as Megan)...I'm not sure I even have that many pictures of the little guy.

A Little Time for Scrapbooking

I found myself wondering what quiet activity I could do since the kids were napping and the attic counters were actually cleaned off enough to do a little scrapbooking. Granted, I only had about 30-40 minutes before interrupted, but I am trying to come to terms with interruptions being my life nowadays. It was long enough to come up with the concept and after bed time I was able to execute. Over the last couple days, I've done 2 more pages stealing minutes throughout the day and after bedtime. We put our dish on vacation for the summer, so it also helped that I didn't have the tv (which always starts out as background noise) distracting me.

Popsicles with Pop

Just couldn't resist.

Story Hour

I tend to be a little crazy about reading. I read all the time and always have stacks of books beside my bed. I essentially run our church library, which is exceptionally time consuming when done correctly (and I don't always have the time). I'm even thinking about becoming a librarian when I grow up...All this to say, when Megan became old enough to attend story hour, we signed up. I took my camera numerous times to take pictures, including the first day, but either forgot or was too embarrassed to get it out to take pictures...I finally overcame all obstacles and got a few pictures the last day.

Touch your elbow...

Touch your chin...now it's time to begin.

I'm not sure who enjoyed it more. I remember going to story hour with mom and doing fingerplays like "Where is Thumb-kin." Chad even got me a shirt for Christmas that says, "Books make me happy." Megan loves to read though, so I must be passing on some good things.

Adam is along for the ride. Hopefully, he'll learn to love books too, although I find it hard to find a good time to read with him.

The summer reading program at the library has a water theme and they had an "Under the Sea Princess Party." I saw this material (the night before the program of course) and decided to make Megan this little dress. I hung it in her room as a surprise and the first thing I heard that morning was, "Beautiful...(long pause) beautiful, oh, it's so beautiful" and then she ran in to tell me about it. It was definitely worth the effort.

And again, Adam along for the ride. Here he is playing in the "ocean."