2012 Blue Jeans Week 2 and history

2012 makes my 4th year in doing a picture-a-day type scrapbooking and documenting of our family's life.

2008 was the first year I tried it.  I was lucky enough to get one of the Project 365 kits.  Becky's first kit like this when she was with another company. 

This is a page out of that album--sorry it is sideways I could not get it turned.  It had a little different layout with the pictures and cards.

This is my 2009 Project Life album.

And this is a page layout from it.

My 2010 Project Life album

And a page from it.

And now I am very happy to be starting my 2012 album, and these are the pictures which will go in this week's layout. . .

Sunday:  We are Settlers of Catan fans at our house.  Even my 6-year-old likes to play.  Sunday evening we were finally able to all play because we bought the extension that allows 6 to play.  Lots of fun!

Monday:  Lately Miss O and Miss E have been into having their hair braided at night after they shower so it is all curly and poofy in the morning.  Tonight after Miss O got out of the shower Miss A was nice enough to braid all her hair.  Sadly, I forgot to get a picture of it in the morning, but it was cute, curly and poofy :)  She said everyone at school wanted to touch her hair.

Tuesday:  This white bowl with this turtle in it has been on my kitchen counter for the last week.  Mr J bought one of those water expanding animals with some Christmas money and has had it in the kitchen to see how big it would get.  Those are really not one of my favorite things, but he enjoyed looking each morning to see how much it had grown.

Wednesday:  The day started out about 60 degrees, and the kids and a friend had fun playing outside, but then the wind picked up and dropped the temperature about 30 degrees, so the kids came in freezing and in desperate need of hot chocolate which is something we are never without at our house. 

Thursday:  End of quarter awards day at school today.  Miss E and Mr J show off their school awards.  I don't think Mr J was too excited to share :)

Friday:  Wow, thank goodness it is Friday, and we can relax!  What a little man with both remotes!  Too funny!

Saturday:  Sorry for the far away, blurry picture, but Miss A was in a regional honors choir this weekend and with how far away we were, this is the best I could get.  They practiced all day and gave a performance in the afternoon.  She is right above the conductor's head with a black hair band on.  They were very good.

Hope you all had a great week!

Blue Jeans Week 23

I hope all you fathers had a wonderful Father's day and everyone had a great week!  Here is what we have been up to. . .

Sunday:  Father's day--Ben with all the kids and an awesome 'Dad' shelf Miss A made him.

Monday:  The kids had made this to put on the table Sunday morning.  "You 'rock' Dad"  I love it!

Tuesday:  As part of the library summer kids' program they had a special musical concert for the kids with Thad Beach.  It was really fun and my kids enjoyed it.  We love our library!

Wednesday:  A value project that Miss A has been working on with my mom--they made this awesome quilt.  Way to go Miss A!!  Lots and lots of hours in that one!

Thursday:  This is our backyard volleyball court that Ben put up last fall.  Miss A, E and Mr J and Ben were playing this evening.

Friday:  Mr J took this picture of me and I was actually scrapbooking on the kitchen table.  I was working on the kids school albums. 

Saturday:  Burn, baby burn.  One of the advantages of living in the country is burning your brush pile.  Ben burned ours Saturday and has the hose handy just in case.  The kids thought it was pretty cool, or hot :). 

Hope you all are enjoying your summer and that you have a great week!

 

A week in pictures

I like to scrapbook. I am not a fancy, over-the-top scrapbooker that does totally ornate designs and page layouts. I think those are awesome and the people that do them amazing, but with 4 kids that just isn't feasible if I want to get their scrapbooks done before I turn 105, so I take a much more simple approach. About a year and a half ago I heard about Becky Higgins who is an amazingly talented scrapbooker, and she was coming out with a kit called 365. The idea was that you take one picture, just one, every day of the year. Thus at the end of the year you have an album with 365 pictures in it ready to go. It was a premade kit with page protectors designed to hold a week in each layout with cute journaling cards for each day. See above. I was lucky enough to get one and did 365 last year. Becky changed companies and came out with Project Life this year, which is basically the same idea. So I take one picture a day to represent my life, and then put them in the album. I love it. So easy, and my kids love looking through the album with the pictures of current things. So I wanted to share my pictures of the day for this last week.

This is today's. We are laboring hard on Playmobil toys today. We are huge playmobil fans at our house. Starting in the lower left and going clockwise we have the castle, the pink and purple princess fairytale set, garden, truck, seals at the zoo, the zoo, the pirates and their ship, and then a tree house. Today we decided we were going to get them all out and play Playmobil world and go through pieces and make sure the right pieces were in the right places because sometimes (often) they get mixed up. Does that ever happen at your house, things get mixed up and in the wrong place? Never, ever happens here either :)

Sunday: Mr J got his first official suit. All ready for church. During the service he kept moving around then straightening his suit and asking "Did I mess it up mom?" He went out the door saying "I look just like dad!" Love it!

Game on! Miss A had her first volleyball game. She was set and ready to go. In one game she served and made 10 points. Way to go girl!

People keep asking me what I am doing all day with the kids gone. I decided I was going to go through every drawer, closet, and room in the house and de-clutter. We have way too much junk! So this is what I was getting rid of this day. It is nice to do it during the day when everyone is gone so no one can say "Hey, that is mine, don't get rid of that." When I sneak it out they never even know it is gone :)

Miss O had some friends over this past week. They did each other's hair. Very creative and lovely :)

Jamming with dad. Miss O and Ben are getting pretty good at playing their guitars together.

For Christmas Miss O got one of those Knex roller coaster sets. We put it up at Christmas, but then it came down. She got it out again this past week and had races. These aren't real "exciting" things, but they are part of our lives, and I love being able to capture them and share. Hope you enjoy!