Without Filters

Project Life 2012: Week 2 and a Little Something Extra

2012-02-13T00:30:00.004-06:00

Hello! The weekend was good for me and much chocolate has been consumed. Saturday I completely unplugged from work & enjoyed the family while attacking laundry. Sunday I snuck in bits of work early morning (think 4:30AM) when the family wasn't awake so the kids remained oblivious to the fact that I had to bring work home this weekend. My time is theirs & I like to keep it that way.

In other news Garrett had a Karate tournament on Saturday and won first place in his form & in sparring. So very proud of him since we had a big talk this week about my investment of time during the week (class on Wednesday & Thursdays) and the necessity for his time outside of class to reflect his own personal commitment. We really try to teach the boys, especially Garrett, the value of time through our actions. Activities that don't increase the overall quality of life don't get much of our time. I would love for them to grow into men who see their investments of time much more valuable than their investments of money. I digress. We saw a good increase in practice at home & it paid off this weekend. Love when life lessons work out that way :)

As I type it's Sunday evening (I should have had this post drafted a week ago!) & now that the kids are asleep I still have a few tasks to mark off my list for tomorrow. So my friends this will be a picture heavy, word light post since my eyes are ready to close.

First up to share is Week 2 of 2012. I can already tell its going to kill me to not add lots of words to this post. Moving on....

There will be a full supply list at the end but I LOVED working with Cathy Zielske's 6x12 Photo Templates. Super easy to use & I was able to include several shots of Garrett's belt testing in an insert. I went completely digital on this particular template. I'm branching out!!

The other side of the insert uses another template from the 6x12 Photo Template. I tried so hard to keep this one 100% digital using just a background paper for the journaling squares but it just felt too flat for me. So instead I used the digital Cobalt Edition Journaling Cards and the Clementine Edition Journaling Cards for my journaling squares but instead of printing my journaling on the cards I left them blank so I could handwrite it.

I wanted the journaling to be on cardstock so when I went to print my file I hid the picture layers and then printed them separately so I could layer on. Essentially, I printed only the journaling block layers on cardstock, went back and printed only the photo layers on photo paper and then brought it all together with my handwritten journaling. I was so pleased I took the extra little time, it felt so much more like me.

I'm really loving Page Protector Design G for the mix of horizontal & vertical pictures.

Since I was feeling a bit confident in my digital skills I decided to give my blog banner a much needed facelift. I used elements from the Clementine Edition Full Elements to add a little extra to my standard blog banner format. If you are not visiting the site go ahead and click over. I love the new look!

If you have any questions please ask, especially since I was light on words (for me) today. Not sure if I'll check in again this week but here's hoping I do!

Supplies:
Becky Higgins (Page Protector Design A, Page Protector Design G and 6x12 Page Protector, Clementine Edition, Cobalt Edition, Turquoise Cardstock, Clementine Digital Edition, Cobalt Digital Edition)
Cathy Zielske (6x12 Photo Template)
Cosmo Cricket (Chipboard Letters Iron Port)
Basic Grey (Micro Mono Stickers Life of the Party)
Jenni Bowlin (Reverse Brown Stickers)
EK Punch
White Labels
Studio Calico (Scrap Pad, Stamps, Alpha Stamps, County Fair January Kit)
Recollections (Tag Punch)

Monica

Buried

2012-02-09T14:33:00.004-06:00

This will be my only post this week. I'm simply buried alive right now. How do you like my kitchen?

That was last night. Right now it is pristine because it was cleaning lady day. Thank goodness.

Life is running over me right now so it will likely be quiet here until I can get a grip. Boy do I need a grip. Usually when life gets like this a nice glass (or two) of wine turns me back into a pleasant person but seeing is how that isn't an option these days I'll just take a few deep inhales & exhales (perhaps a little chocolate) and pray it works for my sake and for the sake of those around me. You laugh? Oh how easily I can cross over to the dark side.

I will be back Monday to share a Project Life layout. And just so you don't think it's all doom & gloom. Yesterday I played along in pictures with Ali Edward's Day In the Life. I am so thankful I did. I adore quite a few of the pictures I captured and I've only looked at the ones off my phone.

Did you know that if you put your phone in airplane mode you can Instagram pictures without having to share them on Instagram? Awesome. There are parts of my work life that I can't share publicly and it was fun that even though I went out to a client I was able to capture that part of my day without worrying about confidentiality. Very cool.

In other news we had our 4D ultrasound of Travis today and it was fun to see how similiar he looked to Owen and Garrett. They will definitely be a little band of brothers. The real goodness is that everything looks perfect at Week 30.

He is going to be here before we know it. I can hardly wait!!

Monica

Happy Saturday

2012-02-04T06:34:00.003-06:00

Good Morning!! The sun has not come up & I'm laying in bed making myself be still a little bit longer because today my plan is to turn what you see on this design wall into a quilt top for Travis.

Late Thursday night I picked up my best friend from the airport and was over the moon to have her in the same state with me much less my home. Yesterday after we got the kids settled at school,

[ Side Bar: Apparently not so well since I received a call from the school that Garrett was eating ice cream and milk for lunch. There was some misunderstanding on my part when my husband said that morning that Garrett got a lunchable and I presumed that meant it was taken care of and totally missed that I needed to grab the lunchable. Ah, mother of the year! However I did remember to take diapers & wipes for Owen so that counts for something, right? ]

grocery shopped for our weekend, and packed up the car we finally made our way to our quiting retreat. Yesterday was spent being sassy and unfiltered and authentic and it felt great. When I'm around Pam I feel safe. She loves me just.as.I.am. Yesterday was full of story telling, teasing, laughter and connection.

We were talking last night and I realized to the extent I compartmentalize the different areas of my life. I have work, I have the "school" world associated with Garrett, I have "couple" relationships shared Mitch, I have my core loves (Mitch, Garrett & Owen), I have my public crafting, I have my private crafting, I have my family and then I have a very small space where very few individuals transcend and I am simply me.

This weekend I'm spending time in that very special place. It's a beautiful thing to have Pam here and I'm already dreading her flight home Sunday afternoon. But for now I'm going to bask in the glory of her company and fully immerse myself in the day ahead.

Similar to last weekend I'm so thankful to be able to spend time with friends, both long standing and those full of promise, where I get to spend my energy focusing on connection. I've brought someone else along on this retreat, someone crossing over another compartment of my life and it has been so nice to have her here in my company, where I am simply me.

While I miss my core loves greatly, yes, I'm already in a bit of withdrawl, I know it's good for me to leave them from time to time to fill my bucket and give them the chance to be just the boys. Last night they conquered Gattiland and Owen rode his first carousel ride. So cool.

The clock has officially struck 7:03 & I think I can safely get out of bed without Pam fussing at me that I'm not resting ;) My sciatic nerve is really giving me a run for my money and no matter how stubborn I am she is making sure I'm taking it easy.

Hope you have a beautiful weekend, I know I plan to do the same!

Monica

Project Life: A Playdate

2012-01-31T12:24:00.002-06:00

So, I know that I said I wasn't going to post bi-weekly about Project Life and I still don't plan on it. And I think I said I was going to post on Thursday but I was editing these pictures and how can I not post these cute pictures of these adorable kiddos, yes, mine included.

Poor baby girl was so not OK with Owen deciding she was the perfect chair :) And yes, those are her shoes on his hands.

And I really, really had to share what I did on Sunday because I think this is exactly what Becky has in mind when she says "Cultivate a Good Life."

I had a playdate. Well, at least that is what Garrett told me when he got home from his playdate :)

(Photo Credit: My always grounded friend Lucia's Instagram feed.)

I have wrangled a group of six of my girlfriends that are working with Project Life this year to meet once a month. I usually hesitate to bring groups together because schedules can be chaotic and it never seems like a good time. But, I decided to go for it. When I sent out the note I felt like a highschool girl who just asked the cute boy out on a date!!

I was happy to have a good bit of interest & we've set our calendar. I'm taking the approach of even if only one is able to make it we keep our date.

I am so glad I did. I've mentioned before that this is my year to live intentionally. I have always been somewhat more of a quality than quantity person when it comes to girlfriends. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of awesome acquaintances both in my daily life and this online crafting world and I am absolutely blessed by those relationships. But you know those relationships that extend beyond. That you can be completely vulnerable and strong in and both are welcomed. Yeah, those, I can count on one hand.

I tend to find these relationships through my passions and its been awhile since I've been intentional about developing some of these acquantaince relationships into something more. Connection is very important to me right now, I have learned that it fills my soul.

On Sunday my spirit was full of laughter, connection, inspiration and fun.

I share this all with you in hopes that you reach out to one, two, five women you know taking on Project Life this year. There is something very magical about sitting together to celebrate life. Thank you so much to the sweet Stephanie who inspired me to bring my own group of women together.

Hopefully my girlfriends won't kill me too much for this post but I really did have to share that sometimes life is great because of the people you invite into it. The time they gave on Sunday was exactly what this mama needed. And I look forward to sharing the same experience with my girlfriends that weren't able to make it this month.

I am happy to report thanks to my husband wrangling Owen I was able to complete Week 2, get all my pictures & memorabilia slipped into Week 3 & have most of my pictures slipped into Week 4. I'm hoping but not counting on making time to journal Week 3. Right now I'm very much looking forward to an awesome weekend with my best friend who is flying in from Kentucky and a great group of friends on a quilting retreat. I have to make baby Travis a quilt & all I've done is decide on a design! I must pull my fabric this week. Good thing I have an extensive stash :)

Oh, and Lucia suggested that I could share all my layouts if I do quick overview pictures as a Wordless Wednesday post. I'm mulling it over but as usual she does have a good point! What do you think? Would that still be something you guys are interested in?

Hope you are having a wonderful week. Thanks for stopping by to read.

Monica

Project Life: Week 1

2012-01-26T05:00:00.011-06:00

This week is flying by mostly because I spent the first two days resting in bed. Amazing how a bad cold can really wipe you out when you can't take anything much stronger than Mucinex D. The good news is I'm feeling much better.

Here is Week 1 of 2012. There was so much to include but I realized when photographing I was really focused on daily life as opposed to the start of the year.

This year I really want to focus more on the story of Us and my journaling really took on more of that tone this week instead of just what we were doing.

Garrett, my oldest, is doing his own Project Life this year and already this week I've stolen some of his pictures. The football shot is one of his.

I used Ali Edwards 6x12 layered template to include a post I wrote about Owen this week. I already had the picture printed so I used the template for the journaling and hid the picture layer when I printed on cardstock. All I had to do was adhere the picture. This made it so easy!!

I really love having a place for the bits of school that come home. I am certain that without Project Life these report cards would be living in a box in a closet. I like that including them in the week will give them extra context in the years to come.

Because the boys spend time looking at the albums I try to find creative ways to tuck away journaling that is a little more adult or better read by Garrett as he is older. I certainly don't want these albums to gloss over real life. However at the same time I don't think absolutely everything is appropriate for a 7 year old audience.

Here I tucked away just a bit of journaling about Garrett's success and struggle at school in one of the folded cards.

The upper right hand corner is another picture that Garrett took. When we first downloaded his pictures from Week 1 I was overjoyed by the amount of self portraits he took. I wish I had half of his self confidence.

Again, lots of journaling. I really want my written voice to be included this year as much as my photographic one. There are so many stories that don't have any associated picture.

A couple of thoughts at this point. We are now living Week 4 and I just finished Week 1 last Sunday. Week 2 is on my desk and I have not printed my pictures for Week 3. However, I have spent a good bit of my time on Project Life so far this year. This tells me that I'm spending too much time sharing about Project Life than doing.

I've decided to cut back my scheduled posting about Project Life to once a week likely on Thursdays. Twice a week is proving to be too much for me. Sometimes the posts will be a Behind the Scenes look and other weeks it will be a Weekly Share.

This means that I will likely not be sharing all 52 of my weeks on the blog. This may disappoint some but I'm choosing to spend the extra time it takes to photograph, edit and post the pictures working on my album instead.

I shared yesterday that my word for 2012 is intention and that focus really has me evaluating how I spend my time dedicated to Project Life. Talking to my husband earlier this week, about why it is so important for me to be dedicated to this project even though we are about to get crazy busy with Travis' arrival, it hit me that the part of Project Life I love the most is not the end result.

Yes, I know with time these albums will grow in value. Yes, I love that the boys adore looking at the albums right now. But what I love most is that this intentional observation of my life, immersing myself in the minutiae of today opens my eyes and my heart to the experience of life.

I am no longer just going through the motions. This awareness of life around me allows me to see, while I'm picking up toys and paper and colors that are scattered about the house, that at the end of every book Garrett writes (a lot of animal books these days with illustrations) he says "Thank You". How sweet is that?

I fully realize in 5 years I will not remember this tiny detail of life. But I lived it this week and captured it and will be reminded of it in 5, 10, 15 years time.

This quote shared by Ali Edwards says it beautifully.

Source: aliedwards.com via Monica on Pinterest

See you next week with more Project Life.

Monica

One Little Word, 2012

2012-01-25T11:30:00.002-06:00

At the beginning of the year I settled on Intention for 2012.

1: a determination to act in a certain way : resolve

2: import, significance

3 a : what one intends to do or bring about
b : the object for which a prayer, mass, or pious act is offered

4: a process or manner of healing of incised wounds

5: concept; especially : a concept considered as the product of attention directed to an object of knowledge

6plural : purpose with respect to marriage

I want to cultivate a life that says at the end of the day, every day, no regrets. To me that doesn't mean living a life without mistep. Instead I want to be intentional in everything I do, where I choose to spend my time, where I let my thoughts lead me, the words I say, the people and things I bring into my life, the food I put in my body, all of it. If I can carry with me in 2012 deliberate thought about the life I am crafting, at home, at work, with my children, with my husband, in my spirit then I think I will become a more authentic version of me and that is what I want in 2012.

Source: aliedwards.com via Monica on Pinterest

My hope is that at the end of the year I will be able to look back at this journey and know that each day I kept this at the front of my mind and for that I will be more of an authentic version of myself.

I am loving this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt right now:

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices
one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The
process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own
responsibility. "

The beautiful part of life is that in each and every moment we have the opportunity, the gift to shape our life. In 2012 I will take this opportunity and accept this gift.

Monica

Project Life: Printing Instagram Pictures

2012-01-24T08:09:00.010-06:00

I've received a fair amount of questions about how I print my Instagram pictures so I'm interrupting the "My Perspective" series for a quick how to. I'll be back next Tuesday with my last installment.

Here are the tools I'm working with at home:

iPhone

Photoshop Elements 8.0

HP Photosmart Pro B8350

I will be the first to say this is likely not the most efficient way to accomplish the task & I am not tech savvy but it's been working for me so I hope it helps in some way!

At the end of the week I connect my iPhone to the computer and the pictures are imported into my Windows Photo Gallery, Pictures folder.

Once they are on my computer, I open the Organizer in Photoshop Elements and get the below message. I have an option set in Organizer to "watch" the Picture folder for anything new. I'll show how to set that option at the end.

When I say "Yes" I get to choose which pictures I want to import into my Organizer. I don't automatically bring everything in. I only select what I eventually will want to print either for Project Life or general scrapbooking.

Once they are added to my Organizer I like to look at them in the Import View so that I can easily tag them for Project Life.

Once they are tagged I switch back to Thumbnail View just in case I've imported other relevant pictures in another import batch. I scroll through my relevant date range and select all of my Instagram pictures. From there I go to the File menu and select Print.

Under my Print Options I select Contact Sheet & set the Columns to 3.

This prints my Instagram pictures at 2.5 inches x 2.5 inches which are perfect for my 3x4 slots in the Page Protectors.

OK, so how did I set up my "watch" folder. If you go under the File Menu there is an option Watch Folders, at least in Photoshop Elements 8.0.

From there all you do is point PSE to the folder/s that you want it to "watch" for new pictures. Simple as that. I don't have this set for my regular pictures since I import them directly into PSE.

If you have any questions, please let me know and see you on Thursday for a weekly share.

Monica

Project Life, Week 41 & 42; Week 50

2012-01-19T11:30:00.003-06:00

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. I'm always excited when the next day is Friday :) I just had an awesome checkup and we only have 13 more weeks until Travis joins our family!! I passed my glucose test with flying colors and we have a sonogram in 3 weeks. I have been so blessed in this pregnancy and it is not something I take for granted.

Today I'm sharing Week 41 & 42 that lives in one spread. This included a week where I was out of town for training and I didn't feel like the weeks needed two individual spreads. This was the first time I did this & loved taking off the pressure of having to "fill" a week where I just didn't capture a bunch. I like that this album reflects our life even in this way.

Lots of Instagram pictures these weeks since I didn't really take out my DSLR.

Loved cutting down an envelope so that I could add more journaling about finding out that the baby was a boy :)

Week 50 was shared in part on Becky's blog post yesterday but I thought I would share the rest here today.

I am loving these bags from Michelle, my fellow creative team member, I actually just ordered a bunch of Chevron ones that came in the mail yesterday. A great place to tuck away some journaling. The small bags fit perfectly in the 3x4 slots!

Santa brought me a Silhouette for Christmas and the happy birthday was my first cut. I need to play with it more. Both Lisa Truesdell (gluestickgirl) & Ali Edwards are rocking it and provide such inspiration!

So this was fun. One of the games we played at Garrett's birthday party was guess how many Legos are in the jar. Garrett has known a few of these boys since he was Owen's age and I anticipate we will watch many of them grow into young men. I really wanted to capture their handwriting right now so I set out journaling cards for them to right down their guesses.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Monica

The "Why" & a Giveaway Winner

2012-01-18T22:20:00.003-06:00

Thank you everyone for your comments talking about why you are doing Project Life. I so enjoyed reading them as they came through over the week. Your stories made me smile, laugh and several touched my heart. Thank you for sharing of yourself.

According to Random.org the winner of the Clementine album is comment #43.

Congratulations Heather Emans I'll be sending you an email shortly! Heather said.....

I've kind of given up on scrapbooking the last 2 years. I am not an artist or very creative. I make a layout and it never turns out how I'd like it to. I see "pro" scrapper layouts and just feel defeated. I did the online version of project life the last two years, but really missed the feel of the paper and embellishments. In one short week, I've learned that I don't have to be an artist or uber creative to make this album. I just have to love sharing the stories of my family.

Because I can't help but share and I think it is always good to know we are in this together here are some of the other reasons why you guys are doing Project Life this year. I hope you are inspired by them as I was.

I'm giving PL a go this year and while it is a bit daunting, I feel the results are well worth it. I have stepped away from scrapbooking for a while, partly because three kids keep me running, and partly because of burnout and overload from all of the fabulous stuff I was seeing on the blogs. I admit it did give me a bit of inadequate feelings.but very recently my 6 year old son discovered my scrapbooks and loved them. We spent a long time going through them and he read the stories and asked so many questions. It gave me the spark I needed to get going again. Enter Project Life. I am super excited to see everyone's perspective. And I may even post some of my own on my blog this year.thanks for the inspiration.

Project Life is the easiest way I have found to capture what is happening not only in our lives, but in the lives of our immediate family. We're sort of spread out all over the place and only come together a few times a year. Those pictures are a part of Project Life. Reunions, weddings, new babies, plays, football games. It's all a part of one book. I'd never find the time to scrap those in a traditional scrapbook. But I have three years of books thanks for Becky and the relaxed way of doing Project Life. I love it.

I am doing Project Life to challenge myself......I find it hard to finish alot of projects so I will not pressure myself to do it every week but my commitment is to finish the year.

I absolutely LOVE project life. I used to scrapbook a lot-before I started my PhD. Now, I have years worth of photos to sort out. I did a DIY PL last year, and it is my absolute favorite album ever (so far!). I am hoping to get the real product this year, to document my last year of university (year 10 lucky!) before job applications, moves, and working full time.

This year is a full year for me. From an infant son (asleep on my chest as I type this), to taking the physician licensure exam, to applying in a hospital, to having our own place for the first time, this is a busy and eventful year. I have made scrapbooks before, but it was way before my son was born and it centered on me and my life. Then when my son was born, all I made when I had the time was all about him. After months of plotting out how to get the page protectors and core kit from amazon to Cebu, I finally found a way to bring the 'me' back into the picture without leaving out my husband and son. It's a perfect way to bring our family into paper and to put the little memories we collect as we shuffle through the bills, exams, jobs, spit ups and diapers into actual paper to relive years from now. In an eventful year ahead of us, it encouraged 'me to not forget the simple everyday memories.

I'm so grateful that for some reason the thought of starting Project Life has been basically SLAMMED into my face (in a good way!) over the past week or so. I've been so drawn in by Becky's posts (and links to everyone else's awesomeness) and love what you have to say about your Project Life experience! I'm just like so many...paper scrapper, overwhelmed momma with busy kids, beautiful supply hoarder...But I just want to keep up with the stuff and the stories. I am eagerly awaiting the day the Amazon store is re-stocked so I can place my order! ;)

I am doing PL this year because I love to capture the everyday for my family. It is a great simple system that is so doable. Love that!

I'm doing PL for the first time. I want to capture the crazy fun of our lives now that we are a family ~ life is certainly different and my baby daughter is so amazing. There are so many little things to capture, and it looks like PL gives me the best tools to capture them quickly :)

Why am I doing Project Life? I am doing PL for my family. I want them to look back and see what life was like. I barely remember when I was little and I don't want that to happen with my children. I want to document what life was like "way back in the olden days" for their children. Plus I love to take pictures and scrapbook. PL is the best of both worlds. ;)

I'm doing PL not so much for me (though i love doing it) but for my 3 girls. while i will occasionally flip through our 2010 album, my kids are constantly looking at it. and that's what i want: them to have a tangible presentation of their life, their memories

I am doing PL so that I won't forget anything. We have some pretty huge challenges and some pretty huge blessings and I want to make sure to document them all as a way to express my gratitude for this wonderful life I am living. :)

I've discovered it's hard for me to do standard 12 x12 pages, there are too many design decisions, and journaling is my main goal--that doesn't always work on a larger format for me. So this year, in an effort to be more organized, documents our everyday lives, capture growth and change, and focus on enjoying the here and now and being present in the moment--Project Life. I'm from an Alzhemer's family, and in the back of my mind, I'm afraid one day I won't remember all the little things, so I photography as much as I can every day and try to tell the stories, large and small. It also helps me focus on this year's OLW: "Act." I want to see that I am planning more and doing more and not letting any days pass me by! And hopefully my children will appreciate these glimpses into their world when they are older.

I would love to do project life this year! I am using the online project life (old version) to make a month by month baby book for my son (he's 10 months) and I'd like to now use it in the traditional sense!

I am doing Project Life this year because I love scrapbooking and documenting life, but I always seem to get bogged down trying to be fancy and create amazing works of art and then I end up years behind. I'm excited to try something new and simple.

I have contemplated several times on doing Beck's Project Life and have always been afraid I don't have the commitment it takes to do it. I would love to win Clementine (my fav) as motivation to jump right in and DO IT!!!

I could lie and say that I do it for my family but I really do it only for me. I don't even like to show it to other people. It is personal, the journaling is honest and it is just for me! I love to read back back months/years and see how things have changed, grown, moved on and sometimes stayed the very same.

I am doing project life because I feel like I am missing things. I keep thinking "oh I should make a layout about that" and never do...then I forget what it was I wanted to do a layout on. This will hopefully be faster and give my family a real picture of who we were this year.

i did P365 in 2009 and LOVED it. i haven't been prepared to start up again for 2012 but am drawn to PL. the 2012 kits are beautiful.

I'm on my 3rd year of doing PL. I first did it for my son to document his first year and now I'm doing it to document our family. The day to day, the stuff that gets over looked. The little stuff, the details, the stuff that really matter, the stuff the makes up family life. I enjoy reading you and look forward to your updates/posts.

I'm doing PL again this year because I did it last year and I am officially addicted. Addicted to seeing it happen right before my very eyes! Addicted to saving the memories/stories/stuff in one place, accessible to anyone who want to look. Addicted to hearing my husband say "Hey! I forgot about that!"

I'm doing PL this year because it is fast and easy and it's the only way I could be able to document the little and big things in our hectic life without falling to far behind since it is so easy. For some years now I had been doing something similar, scrapbooking with photo protectors but just the regular ones and inserting my pictures and a few cards for journaling. Now with PL and all it's accessories it is certainly much more fun!

I did Project Life for the first time in 2011 and LOVED it! I'm doing it again this year because I love how simple the process can be of saving memories, one day at a time!

I'm doing PL to capture the every day stories. I've realized my kids are growing up much too quickly and I only took pictures of the big events, now wishing I had the every day. Better to start late than never. I completed 2011 digitally, but want to switch to the paper version for 2012. Love what everyone is doing with the new versions:)

I'm a 3 year veteran project 365'er. I have yet to scrap my photos. In fact I haven't actually scrapped in over a year. I really miss it and this project life is all new to me and looks really cool. I'd love to try it out.

I would like to start a project life for my nanny, a woman who has raised me since I was little. She has become very Ill this past year and we dont know how much time we have left with her. I would love to be able to document the time we've had with her so I can remember the best person Ive ever known.

This is my first year using Project Life and I jumped in with both feet and, I too, am involving my children (ages 11 and 4)and my husband even is a little ore interested than he's ever been in my scrapbooking. I am really excited that my kids can share in the picture taking, journaling and selection of what goes into each week. This is OUR story as a family and I love that it is being told from all of our perspectives... Not just mine. I love that Project Life can work for anyone. Becky's philosophy is so simple it is genius!

This is my first year using Project Life and I'm involving my 10 yr old son too. When I finished the first week (on Monday!!) it left me with a sense of accomplishment - go figure! This is what fits in our busy lives right now and I'm so happy that I'm capturing the stories of our family and not waiting to make a scrapbook page - missing out on remembering the full details.

I am doing Pl because I want to soak in and savor these moments with my boys (Bowen is 5 and Wilder is 3).

I did my first attempt at PL in 2009 I made it through January but kept comparing myself to others. I have had some health issues this last year and I have learned that I need to focus on the positives in my life so I decided to give PL another try. My goal is to use what I already have on hand, focus on the positive and enjoy the process.

I am using Project Life this year as a simple way to document the many things we do as a family. I can preserve all the little (and Big) things without too much hassel or needing to spend hours working on my scrapbook!

I am doing Project Life to have fun and be creative!! I love all the little stories my son tells and want to capture them, along with his burgeoning collection of artwork/school projects. We all have so much fun looking back. I am taking a laid back approach, just doing it here and there, not strictly week by week. I started with my son's birthday in October and going on from there randomly!

I'm doing Project Life this year because I want my kids to know our story & see our life from this time when they are older. My 4yr old has some major lower spinal issues & is currently recovering from spine surgery & is in a body cast for the next few months. I want him to see his progress, the highs & lows and to know how much we loved him through all of it! Also, it's a way as a family we can process through this journey with him and see our highs & lows & how we are working to have it knit us closer together. I LOVE Project Life because you can record the pretty AND the not so pretty parts of life!!!

I'm a first-time PLer. I'm going to be doing two albums. One will be P365 and the other for all my 2011 pics. I just got week 1's pics and all of 2011 pics from winkflash and ANY minute now UPS will bring me my first binder (black signature) and 2 different styles of plastics. At least I can get started on my 2011 album now! I'm dying for amazon to get more PL in stock. I desperately need to start my P365.

I am doing project Life, to try and catch up on all my photos! I have 2 kids a daughter 7 and a son 3.5 ( 4 this month) and I have not finished his first year of life, and I stopped at my daughters second. I am using this as a way to catch up ..HOPEFULLY seems to be working im moving alot faster.

I'm doing PL because it is simple. Might not be able to do a spread every week (life gets busy :) ), but will make it work for me.

Last year I did PL to tell the stories behind the photos I would normally take (no memorabilia), this year as my eldest son starts Kindy it's all about documenting life. What I love about this difference is that I can tell the stories behind the memorabilia - as it's not always the photos that have a story.

For me PL urges me to slow down and appreciate the little things. My kids won't be this young forever. I am so thankful for this tool.

I wish, wish I had Project Life when my sons were small, but now that they are grown, I am finding it a perfect way to chronicle my days.

I lost my mom almost four years ago to multiple sclerosis. I was 29 at the time. The memories we have of her are so precious. I chose to do Project Life because I want to remember the sweet normal days of life. Most of all, I want my kids to be able to have those memories close to them when I am no longer here.

I am doing PL because I want to be more intentional with my picture taking. I want to take pictures of the everyday and not just birthdays and Christmas. I want to document our family life so that we can look back at this year and really remember what we were about.

I am doing PL in order to capture the moments the I think "oh I will remember this" but in reality know that I never will! My sons are 4 and 2...so many of the little things are already forgotten!

I'm doing PL because I want my kids-ages 10, 9, 7 and2 -to have pics to look back on and I've noticed I haven't been taking many pics in the last couple years:( much less taking time to scrapbook. And I LOVE scrapping. So this is perfect for me!

I'm doing Project Life again this year because I hadn't scrapped for about 5 years until I found PL last year. Now I have 2010 & 2011 done! PL helped me find my joy in creating again.

I am doing Project Life because I want to create something for my girls to look back on and see the everyday...so they know that each and every day with them is special.

This may sound trite but I am doing PL for my children and their children and so on. The most cherised items I possess are scrapbooks my grandmother created chronicling her life.

I'm doing PL because I love to capture the everyday moments. My favorite thing to do is to see how much my kids have grown through the year.

I'm doing PL to capture my first year out of college since I just graduated in December. I love the set up of PL!

I'm doing project life so I can have a place to put all my pictures of my sweet baby boy.

I'm doing project life to help preserve memories for my children. I don't recall a lot of my early childhood and want me children to have plenty of memories. Project Life has allowed me to not feel as overwhelmed as scrapbooking made me feel at times.

Right now I can't order all the goodies from Becky so am doing it a little simpler and with the supplies I have on hand. The good news is ... I'm SCRAPPING again!

I am doing project life as a way to capture our family life for my young son.

I want to capture all the little details that are often overlooked in my regular scrapbooking.

I am doing PL so that not only will my kids remember what life was like but so will I! The everyday can easily be forgotten and the little memories can go by the wayside. With Pl they are in safe keeping! I so love PL and am glad for the simple memory keeping it promotes.

This is my first year doing PL and I'm doing it because its not as overwhelming as traditional or digital scrapbooking is, I struggle when it comes to scrapping! And my whole family can be involved as well, instead of just me. Also because I want to capture our life in a way that enables me to enjoy our life as it is right now, to remember and count our blessings and to document us in whatever season we are in.

See you guys tomorrow with two weeks to share. Also, have you seen all the great inspiration from the Creative Team on Becky's blog today? Loved everyone's layouts :)

Monica

Project Life: My Perspective (Part 2)

2012-01-17T22:30:00.008-06:00

Yesterday we celebrated Martin Luther King in the states which meant I was home with the boys. It has completely thrown me off! All day its felt like Monday and Monday's are always a tough transition day for us.

So it's now 9:20 and I'm just now finishing off this post on my iPad and Zaggmate keyboard. Love technology and the fact that I can be in my bed, with the TV on, propped up with pillows and a lovely heating pad on my lower back that has taken a beating with sciatica the last few days.

Several of us are now in the middle of the third week of Project Life & it seems like most are going strong. It is my guess that there are also many out there that do not have Week One "complete" or are already feeling "behind" in some way. What I know for sure is that 85% of us on this journey will feel overwhelmed or behind at some point. What I share with you today is my personal journey in 2011. I hope that this provides encouragement when you are needing it.

I love this quote from Thomas Moore especially this part "be willing to surrender a measure of our rationality + control in return for gifts of the soul."

Source: sarahearn.blogspot.com via Monica on Pinterest

My goal going into 2011 was to not give up. That meant letting go of any preconceived notions of what complete looked like and readjusting my definition of success along the way. My reward was a year of moments, memories, captured and most importantly an awareness of gratitude for the blessings of my life.

Here are my Project Life 2011 albums. Volume 1 is complete in the traditional sense of the word. Volume 2 is complete in the parameters that I have set. Volume 3 has a little bit of work to be done to where I feel I can put it down.

When I see these three volumes I am so happy I never stopped taking pictures, I never stopped looking at my life with gratitude, I never labeled myself as a failure and quit. My albums are not perfect. Some would argue they are not complete and depending on how you define the end game they might be right. My end game though was to keep on going, to push through the weeks, months, where life got in the way.

Source: scrapstudio.tumblr.com via Monica on Pinterest

This layout is what I consider good enough in my book. This is how I'm defining complete. All my pictures and memorabilia are in their slots and even without any journaling or embellishments I believe you can still get a sense of what our week was made up of. I define this as success especially when I think about all the months of pictures that are trapped on my hard drive from earlier years.

Would I prefer to have the journaling & embellishments? Of course I would. In 2012 I'm making adjustments to help me keep timely. I learned alot from my experience in 2011 and happy for the chance to adapt in 2012.

Source: 120-in-june.tumblr.com via Monica on Pinterest

In case you are wondering these are the weeks I would like to back to. Some of the pictures are in the slots, some of the memorabilia but a good bit still in my gathering page protector.

What I appreciate is that it is all here waiting for me whenever I have the chance to come back to it. But for now I'm looking forward to 2012 and jumping in with both feet. I've decided that I likely will not share all the "incomplete" weeks from 2011 that I finish out so that I can spend the time it takes to photograph, edit and post working on them. I do intend to share most of 2012 here on the blog.

There are going to be many of you reading this that will have a hard time understanding how I can call the albums done at this point or feel a sense of accomplishment when I have weeks that aren't perfect. Next week I'll share a bit of my +10 year scrapbooking journey and how I went from someone who scrapbooked every single picture I took in chronological order to someone who can call projects good enough.

We are at the beginning of a very long project. The most valuable advice I can give you is to define your base level of committment for 52 weeks , 365 +1 days, and keep to that. Anything on top of that is just icing on the cake. Please do not let expectations of what this project should be keep you from doing this project as it best fits your life. You define the success of this project and trust me no matter what you accomplish in the end it will be cherished in the years to come.

I hope you are having a wonderful week and that this post finds you well. I'll be back tomorrow with the winner of the Clementine album and on Thursday to share a weekly layout. Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions please feel free to share in the comments & I'll likely have another Q&A post in two weeks.

Monica

I Stamped, I Punched, I Glued, I Journaled, I Had Fun

2012-01-12T23:10:00.001-06:00

A behind the scenes on how Week 51 came together.

Day One: Wednesday, 1/4/2012

Here is how all my weeks started in 2011. An opening card stamped with the week dates, a sticky note showing which week I'm on and a page protector (either 8.5x11 or 12x12) full of memorabilia collected during the week and (once my pictures are printed) both my 4x6 pictures and my instagram pictures.

My weeks go Sunday through Saturday so I can split the weekend. If I've had a busy week at work and not captured a ton of pictures this split can save me as I tend to get my camera out more on the weekends.

I print my pictures at Walgreens and pick them up within the hour. I usually print a few weeks at a time but send them in their own individual batches so I don't have to go back to Photoshop Elements to figure out which pictures go to which weeks. I'm thinking about trying Shutterfly this year since many times I end up not picking up my pictures for a few days and I love how with Shutterfly can add text to the back. I used Shutterfly when I was printing quarterly batches for my storage albums for my Library of Memories and was really happy.

I print my instagram pictures at home (with my HP Photosmart Pro B8350) right out of the Organizer in Photoshop Elements as a contact sheet with three columns. It's easy and the size works.

When I'm ready to start a week I sort all my pictures by portrait & landscape. I print way more pictures than I plan on including in the week (and I typically include a lot). I am not a planner. How I wish I was organized enough to pre plan my layouts but if I'm being honest I'm a fly by the seat of my pants girl when it comes to my crafting. My friends and co-workers would tell you that I am certainly Type A in many aspects but not here. If you are more of a planner, Marcy has an awesome download here and walked through how she put her weeks together here.

Oh! I don't edit my pictures. So, when looking through my album you will find some are too dark (my camera's default exposure problem), some are too light and honestly some are simply not the best photograph. I am not concerned if the pictures are post processed. I just include them straight out of the camera.

Since my base page protectors are Design A I grab all the landscape pictures that touch me the most either because I simply love the picture or I feel it really captured our week. I just slip them in without any thought. I don't worry if everyone is "even". I just go with it.

What happens to the pictures that aren't included? They go here. This is my "reject" pile from 2011. Next time my husband & I sit to watch a movie at home my plan is to grab a storage binder, stuff them in and label it 2011. For those reading with a Library of Memories system in place I have a post drafted (in my head for now) that will talk about this a little bit more.

What didn't make the cut? The series of Owen on the left because after I printed I decided to make a 6x12 collage. This was before I saw Ali's layered template and Cathy's layered template. The quilt shot got cut because I had printed a landscape as well to see which orientation would work best. The picture of Garrett is in my December Daily so it got left out as well.

These were the portraits I knew I wanted to include.

I plan on using these in my December Daily, which yes is still in progress, so they were left out as well.

Once I figure out which pictures are keepers I go searching for a page protector that will work. This is the variety pack.

I narrowed it down to Design B & Design D.

Ended up with Design D and then cut it down to the size I needed based on the number of pictures I had which were 4.

Here it is in the binder.

I slipped the 6x12 collage right into a 6x12 page protector. Also, Ali has a great tutorial here that walks through the process that I went through.

After all the 4x6 pictures are inserted then I trim down my instagram pictures.

And I start to slip them in. Again, not every picture makes the cut and the extras go into my little basket.

At the end of the night I had all my pictures in the week & left it for another day. Next week I'll share more about this but many of my weeks in volume 2 of my 2011 Project Life end right here. This may be all that they ever are & I'm 90% OK with that. The other 10% of me says I'll come back to it eventually but it is definitely not a priority.

Day Two: Thursday, 1/5/2012

When I have a series of pictures I want to pull together like these of my December Daily in progress pictures I use a piece of patterned paper to pull them together and sometimes pull the title across.

The two pictures on the bottom were from a night in the kitchen & I wanted to tell a longer story so I used one of the folded cards. To fit it into the week I decided that the appointment card wouldn't make the cut.

I used the Martha Stewart Glue Pen to adhere the little house & it worked amazingly. This was the first time I tried it & loved it! I really wanted to add Kitchen but hate my cursive. I went with it anyway and was surprised it worked out well.

I hunt through my little drawers that pull out for labels, tags, etc. to add to pictures for journaling. Eventually I will do an organization post but I'm still moving into my space right now so that may be awhile. The drawers I use are from The Container Store, here. I just saw they are on sale. Seriously I'm in love with these drawers.

I saw Marcy mention on Twitter that she was going to let Christmas & Christmas Eve have its own spread & I loved that idea. So, I had to make a new week card. I started looking through my pre cut 4x6 cards from scraps and then decided it was more energy than I wanted to spend. So I just pulled out another Turquoise Edition card and stamped new dates.

I also keep my flat letter stickers in my drawer. I like to use my stash for the week title cards.

I finished up this side & called it a night.

Day Three: Friday, 1/6/2012

On Friday all I did was trim down the 6x12 page protector since for some reason my collage wasn't exactly 6x12.

Day Four: Saturday, 1/7/2012

On Saturday I finished up the right side of my week primarily using the journaling cards and not much else extra.

Day Five: Monday, 1/9/2012

I usually finish my inserts last. This is the back of my collage. I included the packing slip from my husband's gift that I made with Blurb. Seriously, my favorite gift ever given. I do plan on sharing here eventually.

I had a longer story I wanted to tell about the pictures of the boys so I cut a 4x6 card into two 3x4 cards so I could make it work.

I love using my scraps in this project. This super cute paper is actually the back of a Studio Calico advertisement. LOVE.

The bottom paper used on the Goodnight journaling card is also the back of a Studio Calico advertisement card that came in my kit. Since I really don't have any local Scrapbooking Stores around me anymore I pretty much exclusively get all my supplies from my subscription with Studio Calico. I love that they do all the thinking, coordinating and hunting of new supplies. All I do is open the box :) This is a huge time saver for me.

And with that the week was finished. I don't have large chunks of time to work on Project Life so yes it took 5 days of lots of little bits of time. Usually its 20/30 minutes maybe an hour after the kids go to bed or some days just 10 minutes. The inserts make my process longer but I love the cozy feel they give my album. I do want to try to get faster this year knowing that in April with a newborn this will be tough to keep timely.

I know this was a lot but if you have any questions please post in the comments or you can always send me a note at withoutfilters at gmail dot com.

Thanks for reading!

Monica

Project Life, Week Fifty One and a Giveaway

2012-01-12T05:00:00.003-06:00

Thank You for reading.

Thank You for sharing.

Thank You for your kind words.

The response to my post on Tuesday has brought me such joy over the last few days. I wrote that post first for me and second in hopes to connect with at least one person.

Thank You for taking time to connect.

As a small thank you I would like to give one of you a brand new Clementine Album. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post as to why you are doing Project Life this year and I'll draw a winner on Tuesday.

I have so much more to share but I made a promise (to me) that I would pace myself to make sure I work on Project Life as much as I blog about it :)

With that here is Week 51 which was all about working up to the holidays, happy mail, getting ready for Christmas, with a good dose of daily life thrown in.

The pictures are little fuzzier than usual. That would be due to my growing belly & gloomy weather this week. It is very hard to contort to take pictures of these layouts at 26 weeks pregnant!! My behind the scenes post on how this week came together will be up later today. Thanks for stopping by!

Monica

Project Life: My Perspective (Part 1)

2012-01-10T00:30:00.006-06:00

I am so very excited about all the chatter I'm seeing on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs and on message boards about Project Life 2012. Most times the paper crafting part of my world exists primarily online but this year I am thrilled to have several close friends, including my very best friend, and even my 7 year old son join in the Project Life movement.

A movement is defined by Webster as an organized effort to promote or attain an end. Organized? Maybe not but there is an effort within this scrapbooking community of ours to find manageable ways to capture and record the beautiful, crazy lives we are all living while still living this crazy, beautiful life. I love that this is an encouraging community, a community that works to inspire one another and willingly shares so much of what is personally working simply for the collective good. What works is different for everyone, we are all in various seasons of life and looking to fulfill different purposes with our craft but it excites me that this year there are so many people trying Project Life to see if its the right fit for them.

What I personally love is that Project Life will look different for everyone. Not only in the stories that we record but also in the way we record them.

In this community we have:

women at the beginning of their story,

mothers in the center of the tornado that surrounds early childhood,

families in the midst of the all important teenage years,

seasoned veterans of life writing some of their most exciting chapters,

and some men that fall within all of these groups.

In this community we have:

chronological scrapbookers,

scrapbookers who approach their stories from a Library of Memories perspective,

scrapbookers creating individual children and/or family yearbooks,

paper scrapbookers,

hybrid scrapbookers,

digital scrapbookers,

industry leaders,

design team members,

everyday scrapbookers who have no connection to the industry,

scrapbookers fully immersed in the online community,

scrapbookers who do not share their layouts online,

scrapbookers who fall somewhere in between,

some taking a picture a day,

some viewing their layouts through the week viewfinder,

some using a monthly approach,

scrapbookers who are using Project Life to supplement their existing system,

those who are only scrapbooking via Project Life,

some who are using Project Life as a school album for their children,

some who are using Project Life to organize pictures from the past,

scrapbookers who are coming back to this craft after a long break due to whatever,

scrapbookers who are want to get back to telling their stories for them,

and scrapbookers who just want to try something new.

What we all have in common is that we are leading full lives that are worthy of being honored, we all have stories to tell.

Not only are our stories different but the way we tell them, the voice we use, the pictures, the creative energy and the authenticity of ourselves is different. I love that Becky has brought together so many different creative energies together in her first Project Life creative team. There are so many opportunities for connection and inspiration. I love that Becky welcomes and encourages all kinds of scrapbookers from the simplest to the artistic to those that fall somewhere in between to use Project Life in a way that works for them.

All that you've read up to now has been in draft for over a week but I feel it is important to touch on something that has been on my mind all weekend before I go on with any of my other planned content. I share the following with you in hopes of bringing the focus back to you, your story, your approach and the truth that how that compares to anyone else simply isn't important. What is important that you are telling your story. I take great pleasure that my children, my colleagues, those I admire from afar and my very close friends are so very unique. Their differences are what make my life beautiful.

Last week I read a lot of feedback from those that were overloaded with the inspiration of Project Lifer's that lean towards the artistic end of the spectrum. I read of feelings of inadequacy regarding simple layouts. I read of questioning whether or not Project Life has become too trendy, too complicated, too much.

My confession: Days/weeks before I read any of this, I saw the popularity of Project Life increase and became keenly aware that so.many.designers that I greatly admire were taking on this project. I was absolutely intimidated and questioned being on Becky's creative team.

I asked myself, what do I, a full time working mother of two (soon to be three) who has taken a step back from scrapbooking publicly, possibly bring to the table? All I'm trying to do is tell my family's story. How can I fulfill my role on this team when there will be so much inspiration out there by designers that I simply cannot keep up with?

I recently expressed some of these doubts to Becky and she encouraged me, as she has encouraged you, that there is no pressure to be creative. Do what you want do to. Simple = good.

Remember simple looks different for everyone. Becky's simple, my simple and your simple are all going to look different.

Becky's encouragement propels me to leave behind my insecurities and find the value in my work for me, my family and in sharing with you. I may not bring you the latest techniques, the most creative layouts, or most efficient process. However, I will share with you my journey, my best practices and hopefully some creative inspiration as well. What I will work to bring most is my unique perspective.

I'll be back next week to share more of my originally planned content regarding my perspective, specifically on being "behind" but before I do since so many reading are new to my blog I'm going to share my personal scrapbooking journey to put my 2011 Project Life experience into context. Depending on how long winded I get this may end up being a three part post. :)

See you back on Thursday for a sharing of Week 51, including a behind the scenes on how I put the week together. Thanks for stopping by!

Monica

Project Life: Q&A

2012-01-05T14:26:00.004-06:00

Today I wanted to share the answers to a few questions I’ve received in the comments and through Twitter recently. Since Blogger makes it difficult for me to respond to comments individually and Twitter limits my characters I thought this would be the best way to open more dialogue with you guys that take time to comment.

But, before I jump in I want to share that I’ve decided to take the month of January to test posting twice a week regarding Project Life. Tuesdays will be for general Project Life related posts (Q&A, behind the scenes, tips & tricks, inspiration found, the why behind pictures I take (maybe the how??), philosophy, etc.). If I’ve missed anything you would like to see just leave a comment. Thursdays will be for sharing my layouts (those I still have to share for 2011 and of course 2012). This doesn't mean that these will be the only days I ever post about Project Life but I want to try to post on at least these days.

OK here we go…….

Q My one question for you is . . . are you planning on mixing in different styles of page protectors or are you planning on keeping the two "ends" of the week the same, and take a look at adding in the variety in between those pages?

A The short answer is that I will be mixing page protectors this year. With that said, for simplicity, I have set up my 2012 album using only the Design A Page Protectors. While working on a week I am open to swapping out a Design A Page Protector for a Design B Page Protector if I find I have a lot of vertical pictures and I do not plan on using an insert that week.

If I have enough pictures/memorabilia/journaling where I plan on using an insert I most often leave the Design A Page Protector for my main pages and incorporate my vertical pictures into the insert. I do a lot of trimming down insert page protectors to accommodate my needs.

I tend to take a lot of vertical and horizontal pictures during the week without much thought so I love the flexibility of variety pack to add inserts. Funny enough, I found myself taking both a horizontal and vertical picture of the same moment towards the end of the year so I would have more options when pulling together my week without using an insert, especially where maybe I only had one or two vertical shots for the week.

Q I was wondering how you journal when you are doing PL. Do you talk to the kids or tell the story as if someone else is reading it? Make sense?

A For the most part I do not write as if I’m talking to the kids. I definitely write in the first person but I do not address a particular audience. It’s not something I contemplated before it’s just what seems most natural for me. I was reading this post from Jenny Meyerson and I adore that she writes a letter to the kids each week. I’m seriously considering adding that to my album this year and that I would write directly to the boys.

Q I would love to hear some behind the scenes stuff on your process…tips, tricks, etc. as a fellow working mom, I’d love to know how you make sure you make time for this project while balancing family and your career.

A I’m currently working on Week 51 and am documenting my process to share, hopefully, next week. I am also planning out a series of posts regarding my philosophy & organization that will likely be shared in parts over several weeks.

I hope this was helpful! Thanks for stopping by to read.

Monica

This Guy

2012-01-04T12:35:00.007-06:00

has completely stolen my heart.

This guy is really coming into his own.

This guy is going to go through life fearless and full of adventure.

This guy owns both his joy and frustration with equal passion.

This guy is crazy about Elmo.

This guy thinks every loud transportation sound is a bus.

This guy has started using "I", "I tuck (stuck)" is a favorite.

This guy is part billy goat.

This guy thinks all colors are yellow and all numbers are 2.

This guy is equally a daddy's boy and a momma's boy.

This guy says "ya ya" with a whine when he needs comfort.

This guy has no idea he's 5 1/2 years younger than his brother.

This guy adores his Bubba and refuses to call him Garrett.

This guy calls himself "O-ee" and we have all started to do the same.

This guy definitely has a grasp on "yessss", "yah" and "no".

This guy cannot eat enough broccoli.

This guy takes great pleasure in eating, period.

This guy is already of lover of the great outdoors.

This guy tells us "poo poo" whenever he wants his diaper changed.

This guy likes to hold hands through his crib when he's falling asleep.

This guy has developed a bad habit of wanting to sleep with us in the middle of the night.

This guy is an animal lover and envelopes "Pat TON" and "ti ties" every chance he gets.

This guy will reach out his arms to you & say "upa upa upa" when he wants to be held.

This guy loves to put on his hat & jacket.

This guy is obsessed with shoes.

This guy uses "peees" and "ta-too" frequently and always when prompted.

This guy has an infectious giggle.

This guy is learning to not put his toes on the table when he eats.

This guy gets spanked (a swat on the hand) more than his brother has ever been spanked because he is constantly pushing his boundaries and timeouts don't work.

This guy understands what a spanking is and it has become a deterrent, finally.

This guy says "cheeeeeseee" everytime he sees the camera.

This guy is not shy about saying "No, nooooo Bubba" when he disapproves.

This guy has a vocabulary that is exploding.

This guy is communicating with us more and throwing less fits.

This guy is so very confident and owns the house.

This guy has brought so.much.love into our life in 19 months and 6 days.

Monica

Project Life 2012: The Beginning

2012-01-03T13:17:00.010-06:00

Happy 2012!! I hope you have had a wonderful start to the New Year. We've been hanging out at home and I have been nesting in a big way. We started to put things up on the playroom walls and I'm falling in love with my new space with the boys. I've also been putting together my Project Life 2012 album.

There has been a ton of inspiration floating around the last few days. In fact, Becky has a great post up today, here, that should point you to much of it. I also suggest following #projectlife on Twitter.

I've been working through how I'm going to share my Project Life 2012 with you (both layouts & general posts) and I'm coming close to settling on a post or two a week on scheduled days. I'm trying to find a good rhythm for me and my life. I'm also trying to be very eyes open that in 3 1/2 months Travis will be joining our family and the precious little free time I have right now will become even more precious and much diminished in capacity. So, I'm still thinking but hope to settle and share soon.

Today though I want to share with you what I'm doing to set myself up for success this year. There are four known things that I'm trying to plan for: 1) my work schedule come February is going to be wild 2)Travis joins our family mid April 3)I will have all three boys home with me this summer 4)I know going back to work with three little ones is going to be really difficult. With all of that in mind I want my Project Life 2012 to be much simpler than last year and more timely. To help me accomplish both I've done the following.

Choosing My Elements

I am lucky enough to have be working with both Cobalt & Clementine this year. But that means double the choices. In order to take out that part of the process while I'm putting together my weeks I picked my favorites from both kits.

Here are my introduction cards, they rotate through the weeks in this order expect for Week 1, because I goofed, and Week 7 which is Valentines & I mixed it up a little bit.

Here are the Cobalt journaling cards and filler cards I picked.

Here are the Clementine journaling and filler cards I picked.

Here they are all playing together so nicely.

Making my Opening Page

You might be wondering about my Title page, here it is, not done. I really want to live with my album a little bit before I set the tone in the beginning.

Filling the Album

The first thing I did was slip in my introduction cards in rotating order. Then, I took the grid journaling cards that come in each kit and placed four in each week. I love these as a base and plan to use them more this year.

After that I laid out all my journaling & filler cards and just started filling in the remaining four slots with whatever suited me. I added the dividers, using the month stickers. My next step was to get out some old 12x12 page protectors and add them to the first 2 months to keep all the little bits of life collected during the week.

Remember the goof I mentioned? Well, I decided to start stamping my dates on my introduction cards and got it wrong :)

So, in order to keep my weeks straight when stamping the dates I sat down with my calendar & post its and wrote the week and the dates. I added those to the each spread.

The date stamp I'm using came from last year's kit but you can find something similiar at your office supply store.

A couple of things. I'm not worried about whether or not the cards I've choosen will match my week. I made it work last year (with the introduction cards) so I'm going to go with that this year. Also, some of my stamps are off. In the big picture it won't even be noticeable so I'm moving on.

And here is what I ended up with for Week 1.

So you have an idea of what it looks like all mixed together here is a little overview.

I've heard that some of you are loving your kits but are not sure where to start. I hope this helps to show you that it is OK to jump right in & start putting in your elements.

What I've Done Differently From Last Year

1. Added in journaling cards and filler cards ahead of time. Why? I want to cut down the choices during the process.

2. Added in 12x12 page protectors for 2 months. Why? The amount of memorabilia I collected was a ton. I still have piles to sort through to make sure I didn't miss something. I want to cut this time out.

3. Prestamped my dates. Why? I use these as guides for printing my pictures especially when I am a few weeks behind. And I was always looking up the date ranges. I want to cut out this step.

4. Predated post it notes. Why? I'm not quite ready to put the Week XX on my cards since I do try to get get a little crafty with this part but I don't want to be figuring out which week I'm on. I goofed on that last year when I was a few weeks behind and had to redo all those cards.

If you were wondering why some of the extra steps, well at this point I really am trying to streamline my process a bit. It is so important for me to keep timely this year knowing that my extra time to go back will be next to nothing and I really want to capture this very exciting year.

If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. Also, Becky has this great getting started video, here. Welcome to Project Life 2012!!!

Monica

December Daily: Day Twenty

2011-12-21T06:00:00.005-06:00

I have a confession, my completed December Daily pages are a grand total of four. But, I have been snapping away and am planning on making time over Christmas weekend to record in my December Daily these memories.

Tonight with adhesive in hand and a new blade on my trimmer I jumped in to tell today's story. It's really difficult to photograph at night so I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.

I didn't have a picture to go with today's story so I played with Ali Edwards Holiday Word Art, my Studio Calico December Daily kit and a new package of American Crafts Thickers.

My journaling was inspired by Ali Edwards Thick Journal Lines.

Journaling: A few days ago Garrett saw a commercial that was emphasizing gift giving and he said "Don't they know it's not about gifts, there's more!" When I asked him what more he told me "Christmas spirit!" Today while walking to my car I could hear someone's car wouldn't start. I was in a rush but Garrett's words rang loud. I went to see how I could help & gave her my jumper cables. In the news I hear of random acts of kindness & it warms my heart. Garrett is right, there is more. This is the season of goodwill to men. He is such a special boy to know this at seven years old.

So happy to have this story down in the book. I'm excited to make time to get the rest of the stories we've been making in there as well.

Monica

Project Life, Week Forty Four

2011-12-19T06:19:00.010-06:00

While I escape the work day with a few bites of a yummy slice of hamburger pizza from across the street and indulge in some garlic bread dipped in marinara I thought I would share my latest Project Life week finished. Can you tell with my focus on comfort food it's been a stressful morning which included but is not limited to driving to work not once but twice today because I left my wallet at home and didn't even have enough money to pay to park? Sheesh.

On to happier times, like Friday. I had a Project Life date with one of my favorite girlfriends and her new baby. In between gushing over our boys, general enjoyment of her company and admiring my new furniture in the playroom I actually was able to put the finishing touches on Week 44.

This week was all about Halloween, a new artist in the house, missing teeth, thankfulness, deer hunting, soccer, check ups two months too late, new recipes and Project Life.

What I love about this week is that I used the Turqouise edition (my opening card), the Amber edition (my thankful cards) and the Cobalt edition (the card on Owen's drawing) and it all worked together!! I love that I can mix and match the different editions to get a look that is me.

I broke out my typewriter for the first time and really love the feel it gives the week. But, I'm afraid I don't know how to really use it since it doesn't seem the ribbon actually moves/progresses/winds when I type. It should, shouldn't it? Yeah, I have no idea. So, whenever it was looking too faint I would manually "reel" the tape. I don't think I should have to do that. Any ideas?

One of my favorite things is the added extra instagram pictures to the month divider. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the back of this divider but there are more pictures there too!

For my Halloween pictures I added Design D and really loved the way I could highlight my vertical pictures and have enough room to play and add in the story. I really don't think through the orientation of my pictures very much during the week so I love having the flexiblity to incorporate all of the pictures I take with all the different page protectors.

To unify the two pictures of the Dutch baby I cut a 4x6 Turquoise edition card in half so it could fit into the 3x4 slots. Quick and easy. You will notice I don't always add journaling for a picture. For example, the pictures of Garrett playing soccer were pretty self explanatory. I call it done at that point. When I do add journaling I really like adding it right to the picture, that way I have more room to add more stories.

Since I tend to layer in lots of little bits from my stash, some of which is very old I don't really highlight the products I use. But if you have questions, please ask!

Also, a couple of posts I have rolling around in my head are how I keep my products organized, my favorite journaling products, tips for those starting Project Life in 2012 (really anyone working on Project Life) and maybe a bit of my process. Would you guys be interested in this behind the scenes look? If there is anything else you can think of I'm open to suggestions.

Hope you are having a wonderful Monday!

Monica

Project Life, Week Thirty Nine

2011-12-12T21:45:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we hosted Garrett's 7th birthday in our home and I'm still recovering just a bit. After last year's Harry Potter extravaganza I opted for a smaller, simpler lego party this year. What I forgot is how much harder things are with a toddler in tow and how much more you feel everything at 21 weeks pregnant. After the party my sciatica was getting the best of me so I laid down on the sofa to rest. It was great until I tried to get up and had a hard time standing straight!

So, even though I'm dying to play with paper I think it's best I head to bed shortly :) To appease myself a bit I'm here to share Week Thirty Nine. I think this is one of my simplest weeks so far and I still love it!

This week is looking promising with the potential to catch up on my December Daily, a scheduled Project Life playdate with some of my girlfriends and a Saturday Sew with my quilt guild to finish Mitch's Christmas present.

Hope you had a wonderful Monday!

Monica

Project Life, Week Forty

2011-12-07T20:23:00.004-06:00

So my list is out of control crazy tonight and includes baking, sewing, building a table and those are only the have to's. The want to's are December Daily & Project Life but I'm trying not to kid myself :) So, while Garrett finishes his dessert which he forgot to eat after dinner and I'm a sucker letting him eat right before bed, I thought I'd pop in to share Week 40 of Project Life.

It may look familiar because it went live on Becky Higgins blog today. I'm seriously still pinching myself that I am part of her creative team. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be working with this amazing group of women.

As bedtime is quickly approaching here is Week 40. But before I do there has been a request from Garrett to type this: Go Aggies!

This week was about a missing tooth, ice cream in October, afternoons in the park, signs of Owen, school field trip, school accomplishments, snuggles, the first tardy of Garrett's school career and remodeling progress.

That little envelope holds a very special something that I wanted to keep but is not for little eyes.

The little envelope might have something to do with this next picture, but who knows? :)

I'm off to read a bedtime story. Hope you have had a wonderful day!

Monica

December Daily: Day Three

2011-12-05T23:00:00.001-06:00

I really like this layout probably because I didn't use traditional Christmas colors. I used the T-Rex as a jumping off point and love it!

The chipboard is from my Studio Calico December Daily kit and I believe the patterned paper is from the Studio Calico kit, Handmade. I am using Ali Edwards 2011 December Daily 6x8 Overlays for all of my base pages.

I'm traveling for work today and tomorrow and looking forward to working on Days 4-6 when I get home. This morning I left Garrett with a very important job of being my December photographer while I'm gone. I'm looking forward to seeing if he 1) remembers and 2) what he captures. I'm hoping to have at least 4 images to pull together in a collage for one of the days.

My husband was asking how I was going to cover the days I'm gone and since I am focusing on telling a story a day I'm not too worried. Some days have multiple stories and I can choose when I tell the stories. Yesterday itself had three stories, 1) Garrett's letter to Santa, 2) Owen telling me that his nativity and angel were "petty" (translated pretty) and 3) Garrett decorating the tree while I was putting Owen down all.by.himself. Sunday was a good day rich with life.

Hope the start to your week was wonderful.

Monica

December Daily: Day Two

2011-12-04T23:00:00.000-06:00

This was a story two days in the making. The picture of Garrett is from the 2nd and the picture of Owen is from the 3rd. I'm OK with that :)

I'm still trying to keep it very, very simple. Especially this week with Garrett's birthday on Friday & party on Sunday at our home.

For the left page I used the new Outline Christmas Brushes and Stamps from Ali Edwards. I also added a text box at 60% opacity, font size 10 to add my journaling. I've found anything larger than 10 is too big for me.

To add the pictures of Owen I created a new 5.5 x 6.75 document in Photoshop Elements and added the two pictures to that document. The patterned paper came from my Studio Calico December Daily kit and the template is Ali Edwards 2011 December Daily 6x8 Overlays.

Thanks for stopping by!

Monica

December Daily: Day One

2011-12-02T23:39:00.003-06:00

I am so very excited to be participating in Ali Edwards, December Daily this year. I will be working on this project while continuing to document our life with Project Life.

My plan is to follow Ali's approach and focus on one story a day. I really think this will leave me with more than enough content for both projects.

You can see that I'm keeping this really, really simple. For the last two years I've created an album with every intention of participating and not one single page was completed. Ironically, this year I have no album but am jumping in with both feet.

I have purchased the Studio Calico December Daily kit and due to manufacturing delays I am waiting for my album to arrive. I actually find this very freeing as there is no pressure to build my album. Sometimes I can tend to overthink these things and then end up not telling the story.

So for now, I will simply focus on building my daily pages and when the album comes in have a little bit of creative fun. I am using the following Ali Edwards Products for all my foundation pages: 2011 December Daily 6x8 Overlays and Holiday Word Art Vol. 3.

I hope to share here as I complete the pages so I expect these posts to be short & sweet. Are you playing along? I would love to see your projects!

Monica

My Heart is Full

2011-11-28T12:46:00.008-06:00

and judging by the picture so is my belly :) First I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented, sent a tweet or a posted on Facebook congratulations for the new baby. You made my heart so happy last week.

The Thanksgiving holiday was good for my soul. Leading up to the holiday I continuously was asked, "Any big plans?" and my answer this year was, "Nope, just rest." Both our extended families seem to usually scatter during the holidays and it looked like this year would not be any different so we planned a quiet meal and lots of football for Thursday, both watching and playing. I overheard Mitch and Garrett talking about when Owen and Travis, (did I tell you we already have a name??) will be big enough for them to all go play football on Thanksgiving and my heart did a little dance.

An unexpected turn of events had my parents join us for Thanksgiving and it really made the boys day. It was great seeing them light up (both boys and grandparents) when the door bell rang. Truth be told Owen & I were napping when they came in, heaven, so he lit up once his sleepy little eyes opened. We've asked our parents to not give the boys a ton of material possessions this year as we make room for Travis and because honestly, they want for nothing. It makes my heart so happy when I see their grandparents give them the gift of time and experience.

I think what set the tone for the day was how the day started. Looking back on all that I gave thanks for in the days leading up to Thanksgiving it all seemed to come back to or be tied to one thing, my husband. So without any fanfare I told him just that and my heart swelled with emotion. If you haven't done this lately, I highly recommend that you do. I forget that even though someone knows how you feel, there is magic in telling them and in hearing yourself say the words.

After a mini meltdown on Friday when I realized that now that Thanksgiving had passed I now had exactly two weeks to pull off a lego birthday party at our house for Garrett (umm house is still not put back together from renovations) while getting ready for Christmas (no shopping or decorating done at this point with a handmade gift still to finish) with Mitch out of town for two out of the four upcoming weekends (deer hunting season runs a short few months during the holiday season and my husband is a hunter) I was gently reminded by my husband that I have to ask for help instead of ....well, you know, flipping out. My go to coping mechanism :)

I love that we have come to a point in our marriage, where he knows me well enough to see the signs and redirect me in a way that I do not become defensive and spiral further out of control, which I can easily do. Lots of hard work to get to this place. I am high energy and with that comes high emotions. Something we talked a lot about this long weekend was how much we have grown together because we are in each other's lives. I am so in love with him right now.

He ended up staying home from work to help me around the house (the plan was to go in) and somehow found himself standing in a line outside of Costco to buy me a new Dyson at a discount. If you knew my husband you would know that was the ultimate sign of his love for me. He does not shop, he does not stand in line. Truly ironic since I didn't even buy a newspaper this year and had absolutely no interest in shopping on Black Friday. That was until I saw on Good Morning America that Costco had the Dyson for $100 off that morning. Ever since our Dyson succumbed to the pressure of a home with 2 indoor cats, 2 indoor dogs and a preschooler years ago I've lamented its loss. I usually am not bothered by the much cheaper but far inferior quality of our current vacuum but our cleaning lady was not feeling well this week which left me to battle with the vacuum and I was weak when I saw this on GMA.

Aside from the Dyson which was a long standing item on my household list there was no Black Friday shopping done which is a 180 from year's past where I was one of those in line in the early morning hours. I've come to a place where I just don't have the energy for accumulation of things. The last few months have been spent getting things out of our house to create more space, both literal and figurative. It makes my heart happy to see items from our home getting a second life with friends and family that are able to put these items to good use.

The rest of the afternoon and following Saturday was spent completing the purge and clean of Garrett's old room and moving all remaining items into his new room. We worked as a team and the stress melted away.

Saturday found us with an unexpected trip to Grandma & Grandpa's house for Garrett which gave us with one on one time with Owen. Our focus was to organize and decorate Garrett's room. I loved that instead of being out purchasing more items for him we took a huge load to Goodwill and the items we did buy, love the Container store, only helped us to give everything a place in our home. I also finally gave in to my coveting and purchased a Bisley 5-Drawer Cabinet.

Since I moved out of the craft room I've had to re-evaluate how I store the items that survived the purge and what I really needed to reclaim was some desk space. This drawer is PERFECT for all my journaling embellishments I keep on my desk for Project Life. Really happy with this purchase, it even fits the label stickers from October Afternoon and all my alphas. I digress.

It was also nice to have that special time with Owen. By the end of the day it was obvious that he was just loving all the attention from both of us together. He is starting to communicate more and the fits are decreasing in frequency. He's entering that super adorable toddler stage and I love him more every single day. The cutest thing was seeing the dance he did when he saw his brother pulling up to the front of the house. Time apart is good for them but he really did miss his companion.

As all good things must come to an end, Sunday was focused on groceries and laundry a sure sign that it was time to go back to reality. Looking back it sure doesn't sound like there was a lot of rest occurring but truly I came back to work today at peace and that is the sure sign of a successful holiday. It was so good for my soul.

For my U.S. readers, I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday and for everyone else, a wonderful weekend. Oh, and my co-workers keep commenting that over the holiday I decided to be pregnant as I came back with a full belly. Looks like I finally popped :)

Monica

Three Little Birds

2011-11-21T11:02:00.003-06:00

Did you know that Mitch & I got married in Jamaica? One of the things that I've held on to the most after almost 10 years is the Bob Marley song, Three Little Birds.

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:"

Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. Don't worry!"
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing" - I won't worry!
"'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

I am beyond thrilled to share with you today that very soon I will finally have my own three little birds.

This morning we confirmed that my third little bird is definitely a BOY!!! Six weeks ago when the doctor asked me if I wanted to know his guess I of course said yes. When he told me that it looked like another boy I felt joy radiating from every pore in my body. I love my boys so much and cannot imagine being anything other than a Mama of boys.

As I watched his little feet kicking like crazy and his hands blocking his face I said "He's going to fit right in!"

I have always wanted a house full of children's laughter and at 18wks4days am so blessed that my dream is coming true. I cannot wait for April 19, 2012 (give or take a week) to come and hold this little miracle in my arms.

Have a beautiful day!!

Monica

Bait & Switch

2011-11-16T15:37:00.006-06:00

I know I promised to share Week 41 of Project Life next but I've been distracted by Christmas. Since Sunday I've been working furiously to put together a quilt top for my husband's Christmas present. I was very excited to get it done last night!!

My husband's first comment was that it really fits into the color palette of our house. I would love to say that I planned it that way but since I pulled fabrics for and began this project last Christmas I have no idea what I was thinking :)

My favorite print is the chicks which I pulled in because I wanted to use gray. Love. This is the first quilt top I've taken the time to iron my seams so they "nest" in order to get my points to match. The kicker is that it worked!! I was so afraid I'd get off track since this design really needs them to line up and was tickled with each row to see it come together. And here is the inspiration for the quilt from Film in the Fridge, same but different.

So that I keep my word, something my six year old keeps me honest on, "a promise is a promise", here are pictures of my almost finished Week 41 of Project Life.

This is most certainly one of my more random posts but I've only given myself a 10 minute break from Mid Year Evaluations at work so it's time to get back it. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Monica

An Exciting Announcement

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

I am so very excited to share with you some very fun news. A few weeks ago I received a note from Becky Higgins asking me to be a part of her Project Life Creative Team. I do believe you could actually hear me gasp and my jaw drop when I read her note at work. To say I was flattered would absolutely be an understatement. When Becky later shared the other team members, I had yet another pinch me moment. I am blown away to be in the company of so many scrapbookers whose work I admire. I highly recommend getting to know the following ladies:

Deb Duty
MaryAnn Kennedy
Marcy Penner
Liz Tamanaha
Jennifer Woodbury
Michelle Wooderson

Today I would like to share how I came to say yes to this fantastic opportunity.

When Owen was born in May of 2010 I gradually stepped down from my crafting commitments in anticipation of the decrease in creative time that would come with growing our family. However, I didn't anticipate the loss I felt from not telling our story on a regular basis. In 2011 I looked to Project Life, a system created by Becky Higgins to simply the process of documenting your life, to help me simplify the creative process without sacrificing our story. What I have come to love over the last year is that it truly can be anything you make it to be. There are so many people embracing Project Life and each has their own unique implementation.

What it means for me is a space to capture bits of our life, the motivation to intentionally pick up the camera, a greater awareness of moments that are not captured by the camera and an opportunity to play creatively in pockets of time that fit into this season of my life. With those parameters set I am able to not worry about being "caught up" and stay true to the Library of Memories philosophy Stacy Julian has instilled in my core that I believe in wholeheartedly.

When I was approached by Becky to join the creative team I paused for a moment in concern of the time commitment. A pause that I think several of you reading may share with me. The outlook for 2012 is just as busy if not fuller than 2011 has proven to be so would I really have time to take on Project Life in 2012? This seems to be the largest question for both my personal friends considering Project Life and the crafting community I follow online.

I answered this question for myself by looking back on what I have accomplished in 2011. Since the first of the year I have been immersed in my life both daily and retrospectively. My family's awareness of the little details that make up who we are today has exponentially increased. Both my husband and my son frequently deposit memorabilia on my desk to include in Project Life and both regularly stop to flip through the open album as it sits on my desk. I have carved out enough creative time for Volume 1 of Project Life to sit as a finished album, an extension of my Library of Memories. I have inspired several of my personal friends, many who would not consider themselves scrapbookers, to begin documenting their lives. So even if I do not find the time to go through the "incomplete" weeks of Volume 2 to round them out creatively I have accomplished so much with this project. If it were not for Project Life, "incomplete" weeks and all, the story of 2011 would not have been told in near the detail it has been thus far. It became clear that I could not pass up this opportunity. I look forward to continuing to find what works and what doesn't work for me in 2012 and share it with you here and on Becky's blog.

If you are wondering what I mean by "incomplete" these are the weeks that have pictures inserted, both SLR & iPhone, memorabilia slipped in and any snippets I've captured included. What is missing are the fun creative touches but the meat, the story, is all there. While rounding out my weeks creatively is a second priority I enjoy going back as time allows. In fact, I am very much looking forward to spending much of my holiday time playing creatively with Project Life. This is something I did on our summer vacation to finish Volume 1 and it was perfect.

For those who also maintain a Library of Memories, my Project Life album is the same color as my other Things We Do album and sits right beside it. I love having it incorporated into my existing system as I still do scrapbook traditional layouts when I have the time to play more creatively.

If you are considering Project Life in 2012 but are concerned about the time commitment or keeping up or making it perfect please don't let that keep you from telling your story. If you are in a season of life where you are struggling with finding time to create layouts either with paper or digitally I would highly encourage you to take a closer look at Project Life.

I'll be back tomorrow with Week 43 but for now here is a look at my opening and closing page of Volume 1. Similar to the rest of my album I combined scraps from my stash with the Turquoise Edition.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit and if you are new to my blog you can read more about my Project Life here. Have a beautiful day!

Monica

The Best of Now

2011-11-08T02:34:00.002-06:00

I love Thanksgiving and the opportunity it provides to be mindful about giving thanks. Not to mention that it is also my birthday month which always puts a smile on my face.

On November 1st I found myself at the Apple store at the mercy of the Genius Bar to see if there was any hope for my iPhone 4 that Owen had decided needed to take a swim in the toilet on Halloween. While my phone was still under warranty, a dip in the toilet was not a covered event. Despite that Erin appeared with a brand new phone, free of charge in less than 20 minutes. Being that this is my work phone I was prepared to pay the replacement cost and write it off as the cost of having a toddler in the house. To say I was grateful is an understatement.

I found myself sharing my thankfulness with the worlds of Twitter and Facebook. Little did I know that there was a trend occuring where lots of my friends were recognizing and expressing what they were thankful for that very same day. To be honest, I didn't notice it until the second day when I myself was still giddy about my lunch date with Mitch and again shared it with the interwebs.

I then decided that everyday leading up to Thanksgiving I would commit to being aware of my world around me and pick the thing, person, event that brought the most joy to my heart. Some days I will share this publicly, others not. I jumped into this without a plan of any sort except that they would all be captured in Project Life. I love that I have a place for something like this and I'm not adding another mini album or project to my list. Yesterday I decided that my gratitude could not be captured in a snippet but instead was a larger story. Before I forget the details, I want to capture them here.

November 8, 2011

Today was a windows down, radio up kind of day for me, the best kind. After a restful night of sleep the crankiness of the day before disappeared and I started my morning with an apology for being difficult the night before. There was nothing spectacular or eventful during the day but it was simply the first day in a really long time that I was at peace. Owen & I walked into a tidy house with dinner on the stove, thank you Mitch. After our early dinner Mitch and Garrett went to a basketball clinic and Owen and I had one on one time. It was glorious. With a full belly and my full attention he was the happiest little boy. We had an amazing few hours of quality time that ended with the sweetest snuggles before bed. For this I am thankful.

I'm hoping to stay up tonight after I put the kids down so that I can pull together last week's Project Life and see all these bits of gratitude come together. Thank you for taking time to read.

Monica

To Love or Hate Facebook

2011-11-07T12:23:00.004-06:00

I've been sitting with this for awhile now, whether I love or hate Facebook and it wasn't until I took this conversation from my head to some of my trusted sounding boards that I really understood my internal conflict.

I'm just going to say it, I don't think Facebook is a great way to stay connected. In fact, I think it has become a detriment to personal connection. However, I do think it has the potential to immerse you in the lives of those you are connected to if used wisely.

When I came to this conclusion I felt like such hypocrite because I use Facebook all the time and I'm not willing to give it up.

My primary hesitation to giving it up is that I primarily use it as an easy way to capture my life as part of my memory keeping/scrapbooking. There would be weeks/months that I would be lost in Project Life if I didn't have my feed to go back to. This is simply too valuable for me to give up.

Ironically, I also think that relying on Facebook to capture our life has taken me away from blogging. As much as I love having all those quick snapshots & tidbits of life on Facebook I hate that I'm missing some of the intricate details of our stories by not capturing them on this blog. You see, I believe that this blog is in its simplest form one of my scrapbooks, pictures and stories captured.

My biggest pet peeve with Facebook is probably the thing I myself am most guilty of. We are aware of the details of others lives without actually being involved in their life. There is no need to reach out to say I'm thinking about you and want to check in because it is all there laid out in neat little snippets. I hate this. Connection is not about snippets and cannot be captured in status updates and wall posts.

The last month I've been experimenting with Facebook, commenting more, liking more, and removing it as a crutch by actually calling friends and sending personal emails. I think I might be able to make it work for me but I have to make some changes.

When I first signed up I was deeply involved with Library of Memories and posting crafty things on a regular basis. In turn, my friends list is a very diverse group that includes personal friends, family, crafty friends, neighborhood friends, old school friends and some work friends with multiple layers of connection in each group. I feel like these are too many worlds coming together. I've decided that this week I'm going to take a good look at my friends list and only keep the relationships, in all categories, that have connection. In order for me to craft the life my intuition is telling me I need to be living I need to focus my energy further developing these life lines instead of spreading myself too thin.

I'm learning that when I have too much (of anything) I become overwhelmed and am not able to focus on anything effectively. I truly hope not to offend anyone, that is sincerely not my intention. In the end, I'm at a place in my life where I need to simplify so I can fill my life with recognizing and appreciating the gifts that I have, most importantly the people who have an impact on my daily life.

So as not to leave you without a picture, here is a shot of a little more simplifying my life. This weekend involved a lot of purging and giving away of supplies that I no longer have the energy or space to keep up with.

And I got to the point where my cardstock and patterned paper fit on one shelf in my new space in the playroom.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter (MonicaMcNeill) where I tend to find and share more crafty focused tidbits and to continue reading this blog where I hope to spend more time sharing my personal life as a result of this change.

Thanks for listening,
Monica

May the Force Be With You

2011-11-03T02:22:00.006-05:00

When we were pregnant and found out that we were going to have another boy I had grand plans of reusing much if not most of Garrett's things that had been saved through the years in the attic. Little did I know that Halloween costumes would not be recycled by Owen. I couldn't resist Garrett's request that Owen be his Yoda since Garrett was going to be Anakin Skywalker (before he goes to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader).

When Garrett was Owen's age our Halloween picture taking was a bit tramatic. Imagine trying to keep an almost two year old in front of a black velvet back drop while wearing a monkey costume that he wanted no part of. Well, not even the allure of sweet chocolate could make that work. Exhibit A.

Lesson learned and knowing that Owen is even less of a willing subject than Garrett ever was we headed to the backyard, one of his favorite places, and offered the chocolate well before tears ever had a chance to make an appearance. Those big brown eyes are not focused on me they were all about Da-deeeee.

We started the night of trick or treating with stops at some of our favorite neighbors. Owen was all too willing to walk right on inside :)

After that we headed over to a fabulous Halloween party that culminates in the mad dash for candy but not before the picture in front of the great black cat. This is just a smattering of the kiddos in attendance, such a gracious host to welcome 30+ children into her home every year.

Last year the boys thought that the trick or treating portion of the evening was the Amazing Race so this year we all agreed, um not again! So while the boys were much improved over last year there was still some of this.

Owen didn't even make it out of his stroller for the big boy trick or treating and by 7:15 he looked a little something like this.

The poor little guy had a check up and shots that morning and was all done. Luckily, we had begun the celebrations earlier in the week with my annual trick or treating at work, where he discovered chocolate.

And with pumpkin carving at friends where Mitch branched out into the world of Angry Birds, Garrett was more than happy to scoop out the guts and Owen watched in deep observation.

What we didn't do this year was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch or fill the house with decorations and while I beat myself up that I did not live up to our usual level of festivities the kids were absolutely unaware. Garrett was just as happy picking his pumpkin from the grocery. I don't think not doing it all had any impact on their fun of Halloween. Another lesson learned that maybe, just maybe, less is more or if not that then good enough.

I have enjoyed seeing all the pictures of little ones (and big ones) in costume this last week. I hope you had a very happy Halloween!

Monica

White Space

2011-10-20T15:56:00.003-05:00

I know it's been awhile, quite awhile. If you are reading this I am highly impressed that you haven't given up on me by now. Right now I'm sitting in the Ft. Lauderdale airport waiting for my flight back home. I've spent the last four days in training, acquiring that all too important CPE for my CPA license that is up for renewal at the end of November.

The entire time I've been here my mood has matched the weather, gloomy. The fact that I generally despise being away from my family (lucky I don't travel much) coupled with a nasty virus that infected both me & my family this week has made it a long couple of days. But today the sun made an appearance as did my own sunshine because I woke up knowing I was going home.

The last month or two of life has been good, full of blessing, but hectic and stressful none the less. Mitch has made an amazing recovery from his ACL surgery, our home has finally undergone renovations we have planned and talked about for years, I've made it through big deadlines at work, we are navigating Owen's new toddler phase (and I am marveling at how very different children from the same parents can be), Garrett is growing and changing so much in front of me (I am adjusting to the absence of my constant companion), and I am in a state of reflection, standing on the edge of change.

What there has not been is the expected creative spirit within me. The one that sews, photographs, scrapbooks, or writes. And I think that's OK. I believe in my soul that sometimes we need to be still, be quiet, to hear the whispers of the universe. And in this white space I have found myself inspired. My creative spirit is instead focused on simply my life, my family, me.

Am I brave enough to craft the life my intuition is telling me I must have in order to be a more authentic version of me? I think so. There are pockets of time, moments, where I know in my core, this is who I am.

Right now, there is a mother and three girls sitting behind me and I am shamelessly eavesdropping. They put a smile on my face. They are connected, intertwined. I can hear in their voices the love and joy they have in their life. Ironically, connection is what I have found in these moments where I know I am living my authentic life.

It's this realization, which really shouldn't be a surprise to me as I am a huge fan of Brene Brown's work, that has me looking hard at relationships, choices, and habits so that I can recognize what fosters connection in my life and what robs me of it. Ironically, some of the things that society believes fosters connection I am beginning to believe robs me of it in my life.

Here I sit in the white space keenly aware of those around me wrapped in the comfort of connection, overjoyed that in the span of hours I will be back in the arms of the ones I love.

Monica

Remembering & Praying

2011-09-11T13:52:00.006-05:00

All day I have read others accounts of where they were on this tragic day ten years ago and while catching small bits of the coverage this morning old wounds opened and once again my heart aches for those families affected on September 11, 2001 and those families who have paid the ultimate price ensuring my freedom and safety every day after.

My first inclination was that my story has no place among the families grief and sorrow, today is their day. Yet, my thoughts keep turning to where I was on that terrible morning.

A recent college graduate working for Arthur Andersen in Downtown Dallas & living in Addison Circle, a secure apartment so I could be safe while living on my own for the first time. That morning I took the bus downtown and while walking to my desk I passed a group of people in the breakroom gathered around the television. The first plane had hit and at that point everyone thought it was a horrible accident.

I set up my computer and went back to see if there was any news. I witnessed the second plane hit and was shaken to my core. Once everyone got their head around what had happened our partner walked through the group telling everyone to go home. At this point nobody knew how vast the planned attack was and we were sitting in the tallest building in downtown. Shortly thereafter an announcement was made that they were evacuating the building.

While I sat on the packed bus with a co-worker and the masses of people trying to leave downtown I felt for the first time true terror of the unknown. The tollway was packed with those desperate to get home.

Mitch was still at A&M and I didn't have a roommate so I went home and sat in front of the TV crying all day long. In fact, I think this is about all I did the following weeks. He came down that weekend and as many Americans did we hung an American flag in the one window in my apartment.

This is my story. So many of us will be united in this story for the rest of our lives. What has struck me most today is that so many of my generation who were truly oblivious to the truth that evil resides in the world now are raising children of our own.

As parents, what do we take from this anniversary where we find ourselves in such a different place in life than when we experienced this tragic day?

This morning I watched the story of a 10 year old boy on September 11, 2001 that has now lived without his father as long as he lived with him. A boy, who dreams of his father but can't remember his father's voice so his father never speaks. As the mother of a young boy, old enough to hold memories but still so young I was deeply touched by this story.

I walk away from today re-dedicated to husband & children. In order to pay tribute to the lives that were stolen from families, friends, and children I must cherish mine.

This world is unpredicatable and there is still evil lurking. I worry for my children's future.

I pray that we will have individuals concerned more for the future of our children than the longevity of their political careers.

I pray for my children to never have to experience true terror as I did on that day.

I pray that as mothers and fathers we teach our children to live their lives with kindness, compassion, empathy, tolerance and grace. These children will grow shaped by the lessons we teach and will one day impact the world with either love or hatred. I pray for love.

Monica

Wonderwall

2011-09-07T12:38:00.011-05:00

We are four days post surgery and as Mitch lovingly refers to it, frankenknee, is beginning to heal. I am so proud of my husband for not only the recovery he is making but his outlook on what I know is a frustrating situation for such an active guy. The last few days his positive attitude and chin up perspective have overwhelmed me.

Source: christineandacea.blogspot.com via Monica on Pinterest

By all rights he should be the one in our home, if anyone, having mini meltdowns or moments of dispair or concern and I would guess that he has, he is human after all. But you, I, will never see this. Not because he is playing the role of a martyr but because he chooses everyday to have a positive outlook on life.

Source: amytangerine.blogspot.com via Monica on Pinterest

In what may be one of his weakest physical moments, he is at his strongest. I draw strength from the example he sets and for that he is my hero.

Yesterday was a tough day. I believe the children conspired to see who could breakdown Mama the fastest in the short time they had with me in the afternoon/evening. As I rocked Owen to sleep I felt the weight of raising children, balancing the duties of work and championing my husbands recovery. While the inner critic of not good enough was screaming at me I tried my best to be gentle with myself and remember I'm doing the best I can in a less than ideal time of our life.

Source: meggielynne.tumblr.com via Monica on Pinterest

Over the last few days he has expressed his gratitude for all that I do and I am humbled because I don't do it with near the positive energy he exhibits (and I'm not doing it alone my parents have been a huge help). His kind words only make me want to try to be a better person, a more patient mother and a more encouraging wife.

When I came out of Owen's room last night, cheeks wet with fresh tears, Mitch was there waiting to cheer me on & lift me up. He is an amazing man & I am blessed to have him as my husband, my partner in life. I know his recovery will be quick because of the the choices in perspective that he makes everyday.

Source: crazygirljournals.com via Monica on Pinterest

Thank you for stopping by to read and to those who have taken the time to call, drop by or check in on Mitch or have lent a helping hand, encouraged or lifted him up you mean the world to me.

For those wondering, the title of the post was taken from the Oasis song Wonderwall because I heard it the other day driving home it made me think of Mitch. Absolutely random :)

Monica

Signs of a Comeback?

2011-09-02T09:05:00.003-05:00

I've been walking around lately with blog posts rolling around in my head. I've spent days reflecting on why I've stopped blogging and creating. I really don't think I buy the "I'm busy" mantra I've been wearing the last year. Yes, I'm busy, that is fact but I strongly believe that there is always opportunity to create space for what you love. I've asked myself recently, why hasn't this been something important enough to create space for?

I think I'm finding the answers, the authentic but sometimes ugly answers. By owning up I feel strong enough to face my own inner critic. And this all matters why? Because, I made a layout this week. It took three days, it was not about my children, it is not anything that is ready for publication or completely original but it was a story I wanted to tell and it.felt.good.

We are leaving for the hospital in minutes and Mitch is having knee surgery. A few weeks ago he tore his ACL and today they will put it back together. Any good thoughts & prayers are appreciated today for a smooth surgery and a speedy recovery!

I'm planning to take the time work on some embarrasingly overdue projects and to sit and write with any distraction to hopefully, finally sort out everything in my head.

Hope you have a beautiful Friday and a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Monica

Project Life: Week Fifteen & Seventeen

2011-08-30T13:02:00.005-05:00

No time for words today but since it was -ahem- mentioned yesterday at soccer practice that I have become a spotty blogger these days I wanted to make time to finally share weeks fifteen & seventeen!

Week Fifteen

Week Seventeen

Hope you are having a wonderful week! Thanks for stopping by & as usual more pictures can be found here.

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: At My Table

2011-08-24T06:53:00.001-05:00

Project Life: Week 16

2011-08-22T12:51:00.008-05:00

Today Garrett started 1st grade and a few weeks ago Owen started Montessori. To think that it was only a year ago that I was still on maternity leave and Garrett was adjusting to life in Kinder seems surreal.

Life moves so fast. I am grateful to have Project Life, our time capsule of 2011.

While we were on vacation last week, I worked on finishing out Volume 1, the first 120 days. All I have left is the album cover title and I can call it done. When I put it on the shelf with my Library of Memories I felt such accomplishment. I cherish the bits & pieces of life that have been photographed, collected and recalled.

While it is obvious that this project will increase in value and meaning as our family changes and the boys grow older I think the less obvious benefit is that this project nudges you to celebrate your life, while you are living it , and in turn you cultivate a greater depth of gratitude for your blessings.

In this era of status updates, blogs, twitter feeds and instagram it is all too easy to fall into the trap of comparing our lives to others. I find myself falling into this trap all too often. I love that Project Life helps me bring my focus back to my life.

The blessings of Week Sixteen included: means to take an overnight trip to Louisville, free time to appreciate the love and friendship of my soul sisters, the laughter of children, beautiful boys whose God given gifts shine, simple joys of a six year old (new underwear), simple joys of a baby (Cheerios) family Easter traditions, simple joys of a grown man (golf), lunch breaks with friends, fond memories of our first home and the love that surrounds my little family of four captured in a photograph.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back later this week with Week 15, 17 and my opening and closing pages of Volume 1. As usual, you can find more pictures of the week here.

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: Reflection

2011-08-17T21:22:00.006-05:00

lovemon

Crazy, Beautiful, Life

2011-08-11T00:39:00.006-05:00

8/10/11

4:30 AM Alarm goes off, not happening.

5:40 AM Owen starts to cry, lay in bed waiting to see if he goes back down.

5:45 AM Get in the shower.

6:30 AM By now both boys are awake.

6:45 AM Mitch leaves for work.

7:00 AM Tweak a model for work, send some emails.

7:50 AM Breakfast has been served, boys have been clothed, lunches have been made, bags have been packed. Today there was not time for breakfast for Mom or a lunch to be made. However, coffee was consumed, of the decalf variety. We pile into the van.

8:20 AM Both boys have been respectively dropped off.

8:40 AM Buying bagels for my team as they have been working long hours all week.

9:00 AM Arrive at client site and begin the work day.

11:00 AM Realize I forgot to call a partner in the morning.

11:02 AM Receive text from Mitch that the MRI results are ready & I will need to pick up the boys.

11:05 AM Apologize sincerely to said partner.

1:00 PM Full from bagels, I have forgotten to eat. Run to client cafeteria to get lunch before they close at 1:30 PM.

1:15 PM Back to work

2:30 PM 15 minute client meeting runs an hour

3:30 PM Apologize profusely for having to wrap up the meeting so I can meet Garrett's bus on time.

3:45 PM Channeling my inner race car driver as I desperately try not to be late for Garrett.

4:05 PM Turn the corner & see children exiting the bus. Made it just in time.

4:40 PM Receive text from Mitch that his ACL is indeed torn & we are looking at surgery.
Really bummed for my active husband. He's not in the mood to cook, we are ordering Chinese out.

4:45 PM Have successfully cleaned Garrett's closet, now it is his turn to clean the rest of his room. Teamwork in action.

4:46 PM Log back into to work.

5:20 PM Mitch is home we talk about the surgery.

5:30 PM Realize its almost 6PM , must go get Owen. Plauged with guilt that he is still at Montessori.

5:40 PM Receive huge smile from Owen, told once again how sweet he is.

6:00 PM Quickly realize Owen's teeth are really hurting him, nothing is making him happy.

6:30 PM Dinner

7:00 PM Bath & bedtime for Owen. I feel him relax during books and I even get a kiss from him before he goes down. Magic.

7:30 PM Just a few more emails for work on the iPad while I sit in the rocker waiting for him to go to sleep.

8:00 PM Bedtime for Garrett. He reads me a book about a raccoon and a badger bully. Feel myself completely relax during our 5 minutes of snuggles.

8:45 PM Oops fell asleep with Garrett

8:46 PM Visit with Mitch and chit chat about nonsense. Did you know Colorado's high's were in the 70's. Hmph.

9:00 PM Back to work

10:00 PM Bedtime for Mitch. Follow him to ask him if he knew the stock market was tanking. I really do have my head stuck in the sand.

11:00 PM Owen is crying. Knowing that his teeth are hurting I rock him back to sleep.

11:30 PM Back to work, again.

12: 45 AM Time to go to bed

12:46 AM While exhausted by my crazy life it is a beautiful life & I am happier now than I have ever been. Must document this full day where I felt just a little like an imperfectly perfect superwoman.

1:03 AM Decide this post needs a picture. Pull one from our impromptu play in the sprinkler yesterday.

1:17 AM Really time to go to bed before I rinse, wash & repeat in a few hours.

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: Inspiration

2011-08-10T13:17:00.000-05:00

Project Life: Week Twenty Seven

2011-08-05T14:56:00.004-05:00

This week was about cooking at home, family nights & outings, night time routines, adventure and taking the time to notice the precious moments in our life.

This week sat on my desk for weeks and was complete all but for the Cowboys Stadium layout. I struggled with the idea of doing a "layout" and then this week I gently reminded myself to not make it more complicated that it needs to be.

I applied that same theory to the 5x7 picture of Owen. I loved this shot & decided I didn't want to do anything but include it so I backed it with some of my favorite patterned paper and called it done.

Funny story about the Lake Texoma journal spot. I had just finished my 8x8 insert and was showing Mitch (after a few pina colada's) and he said, what is Lake Eisenhower? I confidently answered the lake you guys went to! He chuckled and said no, we went to Eisenhower State Park which has Lake Texoma. Shows you how much of an outdoor girl I am :) Of course, I had to fix it!

The upper right hand picture & journal card underneath are really more about how I came to take the picture rather than the actual picture.

Journaling: Mitch checked on Garrett and found him asleep with a toy in his hand. After Garrett gets his 5 min of snuggles he can read but it looks like he played instead :) I love that Mitch also notices the small moments in life, especially with the boys, that make our life extraordinary.

I love that my husband lives with his heart open that and he notices these small, magical moments.

Thanks for stopping by & as usual you can see more pictures here. I have just printed the last two weeks of pictures and am excited to pick them up this afternoon!

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: Overnight

2011-08-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

Wordless Wednesday: Little Flirt

2011-07-27T20:38:00.002-05:00

he's started squinching up his eyes & smiling real big when he's super happy at dinner....

Giveaway Winner

2011-07-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone!! I have to say I really enjoyed reading what is putting a smile on everyone's face. It added a nice bit of sunshine into my week.

Have you guys seen this video?

Just another something that puts a smile on my face. And now Random.org will put a smile on one of your faces. Comment #34 is the winner of my box of Studio Calico kit pieces.

Anonymous said...

Fun! How nice to find a fellow "accountant by day" scrapbooker by night"! I am a recovering big 6 manager - scaled it down a bit post children.
What made me laugh this week was the Murdoch hearings in England - the pie in the face was an unexpected development!

July 19, 2011 7:16 PM

I smiled when this comment was the random pick since I have a very special place in my heart for CPAs who have a creative streak :) Send me an email at withoutfilters(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll try to get your box in the mail by Friday!

In other but somewhat related news work has seen an upswing in urgency, pressure & deadlines the last few weeks. I must make time for something creative tonight......

lovemon

Week In The Life, My Plan

2011-07-21T20:21:00.005-05:00

Many of you are probably already aware that Ali Edwards has invited us to join her this summer in documenting a week in our lives.

Over the years I have watched others join Ali in her Week in the Life & have wished I jumped in. Even though I'm doing Project Life this year, I still wanted to jump in but was afraid though that the projects would be too closely related. So, I took some time to think about how I could really make this mine and have the two projects have their own unique voice.

I've been watching Elise Blaha's journey of documenting her summer in her fantastic mini album and love the natural mixture of pictures, memorabilia & her handwriting. So, the first thing I did without any other plan was purchase a mini album of hers for my Week In The Life.

And then I asked myself was "What has been missing from Project Life?" The kids are definitely in there and while I may not always be pictured it is my voice editing, narrating our story. The presence that is the quietest is Mitch's. I want to see our life through his viewfinder.

I approached him with my crazy idea of having him take pictures for Week in the Life and having this project be from his perspective. God Bless the man, he agreed. I love my husband and am so very excited about this.

This Sunday, when Garrett heard us talking about Week in the Life coming up soon he said "No more picture projects Mom, we already have Project Life and you are a billion behind." We both laughed so very hard.

Despite Garrett's concerns next week Mitch will be capturing his week through photos & words and then the next week I'll be putting it all together. What great fun!

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: My Sunshines

2011-07-20T07:38:00.002-05:00

p.s. giveaway still open below

lovemon

Project Life, Week Twenty Six

2011-07-19T08:19:00.002-05:00

I really love this week. I think it is one of my favorites by far because it is simple pictures & words. I managed to only collect one piece of memorabilia this week & it turned out fine.

Week Twenty Seven is on my craft table but I know myself better to promise it will be up on the blog this week. But there is no harm in a girl hoping right?

For more of my Project Life click on the link under the blog banner & thanks for stopping by! Oh by the way, the giveaway below is open until Friday.

lovemon

Hello Friday & a Studio Calico Giveaway

2011-07-15T07:56:00.004-05:00

Last night I decided to break apart several of my 2010 & my January 2011 Studio Calico kits. I was keeping a dozen past kits + the current one on my desk. But in my effort to better use what I decided to only keep together 5 past kits + the current one on my desk together. This gives me enough selection of ready to go, easy to scrap with kits and let's me sprinkle the Studio Calico goodness into my supplies.

What this means for you is that I have a box of bits of Studio Calico kits (that have never been used) to giveaway.

There are embellishments.....

A little bit of trim......

Some rubons & stickers......

Great chipboard & a smidge of tape.....

A few sticker sheets.....

And of course, paper.....

the "A" side....

the "B" side....

I've been very focused on joy in the little moments this week so for a chance of this yummy box of goodies just share your little thing that has put a smile on your face or touched your heart this week. I'll leave the giveaway open until Friday, July 22nd.

Thanks for stopping by the blog despite my sporadic posting!

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: Peek a Boo

2011-07-13T08:15:00.001-05:00

Project Life, Week Twenty Five

2011-07-12T07:50:00.009-05:00

I've been trying to think of a witty opening for my first "current" post in quite some time & I've got nothing. That coupled with the fact that Owen keeps lunging for the keyboard & I really need to go remind Garrett to bring me his swim gear for camp leaves me with .... here is week twenty five.

Lots of Ali Edwards in this week. I pulled out an old Technique Tuesday stamp that I bought two years ago in Cape Cod. I also bought the Long Journalers Vol. 2 at Designer Digitals this week.

Week twenty five was about buying handmade, a night out without kids, crazy hits on the blog courtesy of Becky Higgins sharing my Wordless Wednesday, and having a low key weekend with Mitch on call for work over the long holiday weekend.

The long journaler is just this post copy & pasted.

I was also inspired by how Ali staples cut labels on top of pictures to layer in journaling.

Week twenty five was also about golf, the first ice cream, laundry, camp, church, mail, new babies and playdates.

It's nice to be starting the second half of the year off on a good note with this week complete. I have week twenty six on my desk right now already half way complete. I'm hoping to finish & share in a few days.

As usual , you can see more detailed pictures by clicking on Project Life under the blog banner. Thanks for stopping by!

lovemon

While I'm At Work

2011-07-06T05:00:00.001-05:00

the boys are up to all kinds of creative goodness. The following is a collaboration of father & son. LOVE it :)

At a Snail's Pace: Project Life Week Twelve & Thirteen

2011-07-05T10:49:00.005-05:00

I find it hard not to laugh when I come to post my Project Life layouts. I'm sure there are some, including a small voice inside me, that wonder, "Really Monica, you are so far behind and yet you continue to post and show how behind you are?"

But then my husband tells me how much he loves how I capture our life and that he enjoys going back to reflect on where we've been, or I have a friend turn the pages of my album and encourage me with her compliments or I watch Garrett pull down my library of albums and thumb through the layouts or I take a step back to look and appreciate the richness of what has been gathered and then I answer the voice, "Yes, I continue to post & show how behind I am because this is a life experience and not a race."

Over the long weekend, I was able to get every bit of memorabilia, pictures and instagram pictures in my album. Since I am not current, I am working in batch processes. The next step for Week Fifteen (April 10th-16th) through Week Twenty Five (June 19th-25th) is adding the small bits of journaling and making my week titles. For Week Twenty Six (June 26th-July 2nd) I have printed my pictures and gathered my memorabilia.

I have realized that I will not be able to fit six months into one album. It looks like four months in an album is going to work for me. Below you see volume 1 which is only three weeks shy of being complete (which means I still need to add my bits of journaling to those weeks but everything is in the album as it will be). That is so exciting & will be a definite sense of accomplishment, like a hitting a mile marker in a race. Not that I would know anything about running a race but I'm imagining.

Week Twelve was all about Garrett's Back to School Night, the school book fair and Owen taking his first steps with a walker.

I probably included too much on the book fair but this was so special for me as a child and it excites me that Garrett has the same love for it.

My favorite part of the week is in the lower right hand corner where I connected two seamingly unrelated photos and highlighted the fact that Owen, Garrett & Patton are always together these days. I will cherish this album for showing me these trends in my life.

Week Thirteen was a great slice of life without any one event or moment standing out.

I use my project life box as a gathering place for my assortment of page protectors and sift through them when I know how many additional slots for pictures that I need for the week. Then I take great liberties in trimming & sewing page protectors to create homes for all the photos I want to include.

All of the journaling spots shown in the above & below layouts are from Studio Calico. I love their weight & use an American Crafts slick writer to journal on them.

My favorite part of the week is the picture on the lower right hand side with the word bubbles. Instead of journaling about Garrett's goofiness I decided to just add it in this way. I think it works, or at least it makes me smile.

Thanks for stopping by to look at my Project Life progress! As usual, you can see more pictures when you click on the link Project Life under the blog banner.

lovemon

Wordless Wednesday: Perspective

2011-06-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

Empty

2011-06-27T12:13:00.006-05:00

This morning I got the kids into the car and saw that I was on empty. It shouldn't have surprised me since I saw it yesterday after church but still, I was caught off guard. As I first drove Owen to the sitter and then Garrett to the bus for camp I prayed I wouldn't run out of gas with the kids. I was feeling pretty thankful when we made it to the bus to only realize I forgot to grab Garrett's camp shirt as they were going on a field trip today. Walking on the wild side I used what precious gas I had left to grab his shirt to meet the bus just as the last kids were getting on.

I drove to the closest gas station on fumes, with the radio & air off, and breathed a little easier with every intersection crossed. Never before did the phrase "Thank Heaven for 7-11" mean so much. As I waited for my tank to fill, I couldn't help but see the irony.

For almost a year I have been running on fumes, mentally & physically empty. The last few months the subtle warning signs have become not so subtle. So, instead of squeezing in just one more committment/task/errand/investment/person while ignoring my fuel light I am stopping to fill up.

The last few weeks Mitch & I have made an investment in each other by dreaming, discussing & designing the life we want to be living next week, next year and for the years beyond that. We are re-evaluating what is most important and taking a look at whether or not our time/energy spent is in alignment with those priorities. I'm excited.

I'm excited that we are looking at what is broken and working together to repair. As one small example, the last few nights we have been doing the Sleep Lady Shuffle with Owen and last night he slept until 2:30 before we had to do the dance. This may still sound terrible but it's an improvement. Typically, I dismiss my struggle with getting the kids to sleep soundly by joking that it is the part of parenting I stink at. If I'm being real, I've recently admitted to myself that this is a symptom of my internal struggle. Most times (unless I'm at the point of exhaustion) those middle of the night feedings/snuggles are precious moments of connection that I want, that I feel I miss with the boys (mainly Owen right now) during the day.

I'm excited/challenged that I'm facing my insecurities related to belonging and connection & questioning the place of social media & blogging in my life.

I'm excited that Mitch & I will take a trip alone for the first time since our honeymoon nine years ago. That we are reclaiming our romance & putting each other first.

I'm excited that serendipitously this weekend we were both given signs that it is time to adopt the sabbath as a true day of worship, family & rest for our household.

I'm excited that we are starting a journey of simplification in order to live the best life for us.

I've always felt as though we try to lead a life where our family & each other come first but the strains & pressures we feel today show me that I haven't been doing this with my whole heart.

The transition will not be easy and I know I will likely be /already am disappointing others by not meeting deadlines, expectations or behaving the way I'm supposed to. I do not dismiss this lightly but strongly believe this is one of those intersections in life. I do not want to look back two years from now with regret that I did not put what was most precious to me first because I was afraid of change, others perceptions or consequences. You can only see in retrospect what was the straw that broke the camel's back and simply I'm not taking any chances. It's time to stop & fill my tank now.

lovemon

Hello Summer

2011-06-12T10:49:00.004-05:00

Owen's Big Day: Part One, The Baptism

2011-06-09T11:27:00.007-05:00

On May 29th we celebrated both Owen's baptism & his birthday. When Owen was around 8 months & we still had not baptized him I decided that since his birthday fell on a Sunday we would just wait for that milestone to have him join God's family. It was such a special way to start his special day.

The church asked us for their not to be photography during the service so all we have are a few shots at the church & then family pictures at home.

Thankfully Owen's baptism was at the beginning of service because we spent the rest of the service in the cry room. He is definitely more use to going to the nursery than being in big church! He finally gave in to his exhaustion the last ten minutes of service.

Once we got home we took a few family shots. We had my brother & his fiancee, my parents & Mitch's parents with us to celebrate this very special day. Looking back I wish I had the tripod out so we could take a big family picture. That would have been cool.

Both of these shots are classic Owen.

Next is my brother & his fiancee (she is FANTASTIC with the boys), excited for their wedding in May. They went home to change after service so they missed the family shots at home but here they are at the church.

Here are my in-laws. So fun that my father-in-law coordinated with the boys.

And my parents. It was really nice to have them there as they were also at Garrett's baptism in Kentucky.

I thought it was so special that Owen was blessed on his first birthday with eternal life. Coming up next, the party at home.

lovemon

Project Life: Week Ten & Eleven

2011-06-08T13:10:00.008-05:00

I offer as proof, Week Ten & Eleven, that I'm still here in some sort of a crafty capacity.

I've continued to make progress in my album by slowly printing/adding pictures/instagram pictures. My next phase is usually cutting down & adding memorabilia. Unfortnately my bad habits got the best of me & I have a pile/mountain of stuff to sort into 3/4 weeks. Once all that is done I get out my journaling tray and fill in the words. Last night while watching the Mavs (GO MAVS!) with the family I put the final touches on these weeks.

Week Ten

A few weeks ago I picked up some Smash Pads at Two Peas. They fit perfectly :)

When I only have two vertical pictures to add to the week I've started using a 6x6 page protector instead of adding a larger vertical divided page protector. It's a great way to use scraps I love.

I ordered some labels & tags from Banana Fish Studio based on Ali's recommendation. They are adorable but a little small for the pockets. So, I backed it with a scrap, I am LOVING using my scraps in this project.

Peeking behind the scrap is a tag that I used in Week 11. To help add a little pop of color I misted (for the first time) the back with Studio Calico Mister Huey's Sunshine. I was really happy with this.

Week Eleven

Here is the front of the tag that was misted in Week Ten. In order for the tag to be pulled out I cut a slit in the page protector since the opening was on the side of Week Ten.

Used a bit of tape, does this qualify as washi tape?, to keep the business cards of my most favorite shops at the Dallas Quilt Market.

Another Smash Pad in use, this one was the travel version.

Thanks so much for stopping by! As usual, there are more pictures for each week under the Project Life link under the banner.

lovemon

Closing a Chapter

2011-06-03T12:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, a note popped into my inbox that read "Today at 2:45pm there will be a lowering of the flag ceremony outside the intermediate building. At the end of the ceremony, Mr. Lemons will dismiss the entire school for summer break." Immediately I heard the melody school's out for summer and just knew I had to be there.

I wanted to be there when this chapter of life came to an end. It feels like my life is a series of closings & openings these days and instead of being overwhelmed by them I am trying my best to honor them.

It feels like only yesterday, but was truly eight months ago, when the boy who made me a Momma became a Kindergartner.

Yesterday he walked home a 1st grader. No longer do I identify him by age but now by grade. When did that happen?

Last night a friend whose daughter will be promoted to the 6th grade today was telling me that she remembers Kindergarten like it was just yesterday and had no idea how they were already at the point of saying goodbye to Elementary. She confirmed my sinking suspicion that if I blink, I just might miss all of this. My quick decision to attend the last minutes of Kindergarten was affirmed in my heart. I am so fortunate that Mitch was able to be there as well.

A few months ago Mitch created an opportunity that has allowed him to pick up Garrett after school everyday. This is an arrangement that will carry into the first grade & I couldn't be more pleased. I wish it was me, but I actually think this is better. I have witnessed their relationship grow even stronger and it makes my heart happy. I truly believe this connection is pivotal in a young boys life.

It is also perfect timing. Over the year we have seen Garrett come into more of an awareness, read obsession, of sports and sadly I am completely worthless in this arena. Mitch on the other hand rocks.

This year I have had many things affirmed & learned quite a few lessons along the way as a mother. I think the most important lesson from the year was summed up by his teacher yesterday "He is such a sweet boy & was so special to me this year." With that, and her hug, I almost lost it.

New experiences brought by Kindergarten revealed many of Garrett's special gifts and as with anything new in life we also had our fair share of growing experiences. Probably, more for me than anyone. Just when I think I am on steady ground in my mothering experience a shift forces me to stretch, grow and evolve.

When I look back, I look back with a happy heart. I adore the boy Garrett continues to grow into. We are so fortunate to have found a small community within this large city that truly does open their arms & embrace your child. It makes this big city that much smaller. My prayer for Garrett is this.

Source: thehappyparade.tumblr.com via Monica on Pinterest

I am so very grateful for the teachers that touched his life this last school year to team with me to give Garrett the best experience possible. He loved every minute and we finished the school year with the same happy heart & thrist for learning that we entered with. That for me, more than his wonderful marks, was the measure of success.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

lovemon

What am I doing wrong???

2011-05-27T12:17:00.003-05:00

***Edited Below

Last night I was fighting with Photoshop Elements 8. I am trying to make these cute labels for Owen's party & the landscape pictures are working but the portraits are a fuzzy mess!!

The objective:

Source: ohdeedoh.com via Monica on Pinterest

My version that is working:

My fuzzy mess:

Here is what I'm doing:

1. My blank new document is at 3.5 x 9, 72 ppi
2. Before I add the picture I resize to 3.5 height and contrain proportions, 72 ppi.
3. In my editor everything looks great but in my organizer & when I print, fuzzy.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that I started with 200 ppi & then also tried 300 ppi. In my desperation last night I went to 72ppi just in case but obviously it didn't work. The pictures were taken "high" on my Canon 60D so I wouldn't think that the pictures were too low resolution.

Can anyone help me trouble shoot?

I am way behind schedule & need your help so I don't continue to bang my head against the wall!! Today is manic with work so I would really, really appreciate any tips you guys can give me.

Monica

A Magical Birthday

2011-05-19T17:55:00.015-05:00

While collecting inspiration on Pinterest for Owen's birthday party (in nine days), I realized I never shared Garrett's December birthday party here!

When Garrett told us he wanted a Harry Potter birthday at home Mitch & I looked at each other with a look of "oh crud!" We knew this could easily get out of control, fast. So, we did what we do best & came up with a plan of attack.

The first and most important question was how were we going to entertain & contain 20 five/six year old boys in our home? This wasn't our first home party but it was the first time we had all boys, big boys, that we guessed wouldn't be satisfied with a play-doh station.

After much online research {see links below} we decided on a sorting hat ceremony, a quidditch match outside (we crossed our fingers for good weather in December), a potions class and face painting for the duration of the party.

Garrett was insistent this not only be a Harry Potter party but also a costume party. I made the mistake of mentioning robes to Mitch while Garrett was in earshot & then there was no going back. Despite my optimism of finding robes on Halloween clearance I had no luck due to the upcoming release of the Deathly Hallows, Part I.

On a wing & a prayer, I made 19 quidditch robes complete with the house crest, kids last names & soccer/random numbers on the back. I owe great thanks to Lovetta, my friend from the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild, who so graciously offered to help me one Saturday Sew. It was a boost to my morale & progress.

The Tom Kat Studio was a great source of inspiration {see links below} for decorations & overall vibe. Since the decorations were the least critical piece I left them to the end. My parents came early to help Mitch with the kids & I was literally sewing garland hours, ok maybe minutes, before the guests were to arrive.

Original painting by Garrett that was done months before & I borrowed for decoration.

After a previous experience of making an elaborate cake to only have the kids want cupcakes I knew I wanted to make a simple cake with lots of cupcakes. I was down to the wire on party time & Heather, my future sister in law, pulled off these great cupcakes.

When the kids arrived we had them standing in line for face painting. I quickly realized this wouldn't work longterm, um we had 18 faces to paint, and gave the kids a number on post it notes. When Angie was ready she would just call the next number. This worked like a charm.

We started the party with the sorting ceremony. To make sure everything went smoothly I had the kids listed in a roster with their name & house. The robes were hung in order of the roster. As I called each child to sit on the stool, according to the roster, we signaled to Mitch. He was in Owen's nursery and would call out the House, according to the roster, through the baby monitor taped under the stool. This was great fun as both parents & kids were trying to figure out how this magic was happening.

With the kids sorted into their houses we split them into two groups. One house went to potions class in the sun room & the other two houses went outside for a Quidditch Match. We did not have the Slytherin House just in case no one wanted to be a bad guy!

Mitch was the Potions master and the kids had three potions to go through {see links below}. This was a huge hit. I adored seeing the wonder on their faces.

Can you tell Garrett's robe was my first with his name & number being so much lower than the others? :)

Meanwhile, the other two houses were outside having a quidditch match which boiled down was an Easter egg hunt for ping pong balls that had points written on them with a Sharpie marker & the golden Snitch. It was a great way to have the boys run off energy. My brother & future sister in law did a wonderful job corralling the boys.

After everyone went through the potions class we came in for the Happy Birthday song & cake. Thanks so much to my friend & fellow soccer Mom, Kristin, for taking my camera from me mid-party so that I could experience it instead of document it!

After the cake it was time to send the kids home with more sugar. I wanted to have Honeydukes in the entrance as both decoration & the parting favor. I expected the kids to go crazy here but there were all very restrained & we ended up having a ton of extra candy!

I used my Studio Calico stamps to create the shop bags.

I had so.much.fun. putting this party together. It brings me great joy to create birthday magic for Garrett (and now Owen) and their guests. My children will only be little for so long & I want to soak in every glorious, magical moment.

I had the help of lots of people along the way to pull it off both before & during the party; huge thanks to all of you. And I have such respect for my husband who lives with me during these creative binges! It's a wonder we stay married sometimes :)

My only regret was that since I was putting the finishing touches on the decorations minutes before everyone arrived I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to photograph all the special details.

If you have questions please ask in the comments & I'll do my best to respond or will have a follow up post if there are several questions. I've tried to post below all my inspiration links that I gathered in Evernote while preparing for the party.

lovemon

Invitations:
Font
Idea
Wording
Wording
Wording

Potions Class:
Pop Rocks Potion
Bubbling Potion
Magic Milk

Sorting Hat:
Idea
Idea
Idea
Hat

Quidditch Match:
Idea
Snitch

Decorations:
Banner
Labels (the saved link to the original source is broken but the image is from Tom Kat Studio & I've linked to the picture)
Tom Kat Studio

Honeydukes:
Idea
Chocolate Frogs
Sweet Shop

Robes:
Crest

Cake

Days Away

2011-05-18T07:17:00.004-05:00

from his first birthday he walks.

It started with one step.

A step that was celebrated & cheered on by Mitch, Garrett & I. We all turned to one another and said "Did you see it?" As the week continued one became two and towards the end of the week his sitter told Mitch he took ten steps.

Over the weekend Owen took enough steps to offically call it, he's walking. It's hard to believe on the 29th he turns a year old but here is yet another reminder.

lovemon

Ahead of Schedule

2011-05-17T16:43:00.008-05:00

If it is socially acceptable to recognize Christmas in July then I vote it's A-OK to share Halloween in May.

Last week I had my machine out to work on some quilt blocks for a friend & decided to finish the quilt that has been haunting me since October. OK that was a really bad play on words; send your sympathy to my husband who gets it all the time. I think I'm pretty funny at home.

This was my first go at machine binding using this Pat Sloan tutorial & I'm pretty pleased. My only complaint is that it takes alot of thread. Also, on my machine I wasn't able to adjust the stitch length for this stitch & I would have liked it to be a little longer.

The quilt was inspired by this one on Flickr & I added my own little twist. I pieced together the binding from my scraps & I think it turned out OK. I'm not crazy about the backing fabric included in the binding. It disappears a little too much for me.

I love that this quilt was started with the intent to finish for Hallween 2010 and is now only completed in May. I did have the piece topped that week & the quilting partially finished but I lost motivation to finish it once Halloween passed.

Several sweet friends have pointed out that I'm ahead of schedule now & I'll take it! This will be the last quilty thing I have to share for awhile because I have challenged myself to be "real time" with Project Life at the halfway mark, June 26th. And, I will be working to meet my deadline of June 3rd for my first ever Big Picture Classes Self Paced Project, which is exciting & scary all at the same time.

Have a great, Tuesday! Is it really only Tuesday?

lovemon

Project Life, Week Nine

2011-05-11T07:19:00.006-05:00

has been ready to share for a very long time but this week has been a bear. I'm just waiting for it to be quitting time to call this week done.

I do want to say Hi! & Welcome to everyone who is new to the blog via Becky Higgins post. It was such a thrill to be mentioned there. Thanks for clicking the link, reading, commenting & sticking around.

OK, so here's what I like about week nine: lots of pictures, lots of memorabilia, two important stories told with words & so many more stories just cataloged. What I love about week nine is that there was no pressure to finish it.

It was living in the album, much like this week was, and I decided to add two 4x6 journaling blocks using Ali Edwards digital elements (here and here) & a few labels on some of the pictures. Then, I walked away & called it done. I didn't even adhere my instax picture! And that my friends, is taking a walk on the wild side for me; yes, I'm that risk adverse.

I printed current pictures last weekend, picked them up this week & have my sights set on project life this weekend. I (hope) look forward to having more to share next week.

As usual, you can see more detailed shots on the link under the blog banner. Thanks so much for stopping by!

lovemon

Learning Curves

2011-05-05T04:44:00.009-05:00

It's been a little over a year since I jumped into the world of quilting and I really am enjoying this new hobby of mine. What first drew me in was the online modern quilting movement (and beautiful fabric) but it has been the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild that has encouraged me to grow as a quilter. This group is beyond talented, inclusive, down to earth, sincere and fun.

At last month's meeting I was super excited to show off Owen's finished quilt! This was started in the Fall & was intended to be a playmat. I was disappointed I finished after the "we've gone mobile" milestone but Owen doesn't seem to mind. He is a nut about this quilt. If he sees it out he dashes to it like a maniac & throws himself on it. Turns out its perfect for peek-a-boo & general rumpus! In fact, Owen was with me when I took this to the guild meeting & everyone thought it was hilarious how he went after his quilt during show and tell.

The quilt was built on the disappearing nine patch block that I learned from a class at Bernina, taught by my friend Michelle. I felt a real sense of accomplishment in finishing this but to be honest was disappointed when I pulled it out of the dryer to find that it didn't lay flat.

Mitch assured me that it wouldn't make a difference in the end & I've come to agree that he's right. Not really a surprise as I've learned in almost nine years of marriage my husband is usually right :)

While I certainly want to improve my technical skills it's important to remember we all start somewhere. It will only be with practice and through my mistakes that I will improve. When I sit with that perspective I am able to see how far I've come from Owen's first quilt and I'm pretty happy.

In the craft room I have a Halloween quilt that is waiting for binding & hope to share that with you soon. Of course, now that I've learned to make sure my quilt is "square" before binding I'll be doing a remeasure before I attempt machine binding for the first time!

I've also learned that more than one quilt in progress overwhelms me so I'm going to be a one woman quilt from now on. At the top of my list is piecing Mitch's quilt top; I'm excited to pull it back out. And until then, I'll keep my eyes open for fabric that I have to add to my stash.

About a month ago I had the best fun hunting these Denyse Schmidt fabrics in town with my girlfriends. You would have thought it was some sort of elusive drug we needed a fix of from our emails.

The alarm has just gone off for me to wake up so it's time to get ready for a day of meetings. I've actually been up for awhile since I don't sleep well without my husband which means I was pretty much awake around 2:30 when I received this text from Mitch "The little guy climbed out of his crib". Seriously? He becomes an escape artist when I'm not at home!

My first question of course was if he was hurt. Nope, just sitting at his door waiting for someone to come get him. Oh, Mr. Mischief.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

lovemon

For My Mental Health

2011-05-04T09:09:00.007-05:00

Lately, I've been crazy busy with all the responsibilities of work, adjusting to a new routine in our house and the never ending athletic schedule of Garrett not to mention Baby Owen who is now loving called Mr. Mischief. On Sunday I decided that it was in the best interest of my mental health to make a layout.

These bits have been sitting on my desk since Valentine's and were originally fated for Project Life. But, I felt there was more of a story to tell so I didn't include them. Now, this will go into my Things We Do Album which is part of my Library of Memories.

The layout is based on Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook 3, Day 2 sketch. There was so much inspiration in class I will probably work off of that class for awhile to get back into the groove of layouts.

Journaling: A meal that wasn't rushed or interrupted by kids. A movie that we almost missed in the theatre. A bit of space where we were able to talk about where we've been & where we are going. A perfect Valentine's Day spent in the company of my husband a day early. February 13, 2011.

All supplies came from the Studio Calico kit Candy Shoppe. Thanks to the sketch & the kit I was able to get this done during Owen's afternoon nap while I ignored the laundry. Just like that my mental health was restored & I could continue on in my day being a happy wife & fun mama.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm off to catch a plane for work, will it ever slow down? Nope :)

lovemon

Project Life Week Fourteen, just keep swimming

2011-05-03T06:22:00.007-05:00

I think the most memorable part of Finding Nemo was Dori's positive attitude of "just keep swimming." I remind myself of this all. the. time.

I am so very happy that I decided to jump into Project Life this year. Seeing the big fat book brings me great joy. I know with certainty that we will cherish this project for years to come.

How do I know? In the last week I have found Garrett turning the pages of my scrapbooks & Mitch has spent time going back through the blog. Both have expressed they appreciate having these moments documented.

The time I take to capture our lives, no matter how complete or not is valued by my family.

You may have guessed it by the lack of project life posts lately but I'm "behind", very behind in pulling together all the bits I've saved, all the pictures I've taken into my book. Today I'm going to share week fourteen, I last showed you week eight and we are currently living week eighteen. Yes, you read that right. I'm all out of order right now. Can you stand it? :)

Today's post is more than a look at my week, it's a peek into how my Library of Memories philosophy is influencing Project Life. But first, a look at Week Fourteen because you deserve a picture at this point.

A few weeks ago I started to panic that I was so behind on my project life because:

1) I was disappointed I was not accomplishing this/following through (what do you mean I'm not Super Woman?)

2) Garrett kept asking me what week were on in my project of life (lay on the self imposed guilt that I was not living up to his excitement)

3) I knew that Mitch was really looking forward to having the year captured in this way (lay on more self imposed guilt that I would be letting him down)

and then I realized all of the above wasn't about the ziploc bags labeled for each week where I was collecting printed pictures, gathering memorabilia & throwing journaling cards. The guilt was really about moving all this into the album because that was the pretty little package I wanted to present our life in.

Once I realized this, I put into practice some self love and let it go.

Lisa had mentioned a while ago that she gathered her little bits in 8.5x11 page protectors and tucked it into the week for when she was ready to work with it.

Absolute brillance, however I am biased because I adore everything Lisa does. She is a mama of three boys, has some mad scrapping/sewing skills and entertains me with her Twitter feed. I pretty much think she rocks. I digress.

Here is what six weeks looks like after I stamped the dates on my lead 4x6 card and emptied my ziploc bags into the 8.5x11 page protectors.

After I did this, I told myself if this is all these six weeks every come to be, that is good enough. I was moving on. To make myself believe it, I started on week fourteen, pictured above. It was very important for me to complete that week, to have that in the pretty little package because it was the week we lost Dexter. I needed, in a bad way, to have that part of life there to provide closure.

After I finished week fourteen, I started slowly, in 10-15 minute increments, emptying the 8.5x11 protectors by slipping pictures into slots & trimming down memorabilia. This is what several of my weeks look like now as a result of a few minutes here, a few minutes there.

If this is all these weeks end up being this is good enough. I have jumped back into the process and am enjoying working on this project instead of feeling the guilt, instead of giving up.

I seriously doubt Mitch or Garrett will ever tell me it's not good enough. I imagine they would just flip through the pages smiling to themselves because what is captured here is enough for them to reflect on this year and that my friends is good enough for me.

The time I take to capture our lives, no matter how complete or not is valued by my family.

If any of this sounds familiar or strikes a chord, I challenge you to jump back in with this week & let go of the weeks you have missed.

The important thing is that if this is still something you want to do but have stopped because you are "behind" don't let that stop you now. There are still 8 months of life just begging to be celebrated. The absence of a few months doesn't cancel out all that you have already captured & what is left to be lived.

If you stopped capturing then pick up with this week and start again. How about inserting a layout between the weeks documenting the gap & how you started again. That is definitely real life.

Or, if you've been taking pictures then slip them in & let that be good enough. As a stash buster you could fill the journaling spots with patterned paper and then let it go.

The time we take to capture our lives, no matter how complete or not is valued by those who love us.

If you are not familiar with Library of Memories I suggest you check out Stacy Julian's workshop, Finding Photo Freedom. I will not be coaching this year but instead participating as an alumni & would love to have you in class with me.

I'll be back tomorrow with a layout. As usual for more pictures of week fourteen click on the link below the banner at top.

lovemon

Impressions on my Heart

2011-05-02T11:02:00.004-05:00

Last night, with the rest of the nation, I rejoiced that there is a little less evil in the world as a result of an operation led by a joint team of military operatives.

This morning I woke up with several impressions on my heart.

My prayer today is for the families of those who have lived with the grief of 9/11 for almost a decade. My hope is that this victory brings them some closure, comfort & peace.

My most sincere & humble thanks is sent to the men & women who have given their life in the pursuit of the evil that brought our country so much pain. My heart goes out to their families and I pray that this victory brings them comfort and perhaps some closure.

My gratitude is for the men & women who protect our nation everyday with their lives. Without their dedication & sacrifice our world would be filled with greater evil.

My hope for our country is that we are able to see that this victory was a team effort a decade in the making and that we use this victory to unify as one people, one nation.

lovemon

Five on Friday

2011-04-28T21:39:00.013-05:00

It's been too long since I blogged & the best way to jump back in seems to be with random post. So here we go.

One

I will be forever grateful for the kindness and compassion our friends showed us in the week following Dexter's death. I simply cannot express the impression this left on my heart. I am thinking of a sweet friend right now who is in need of the same love.

Two

On Sunday we celebrated the risen Lord. I forgot to take a picture of us all dressed up but love this outtake of our family picture my Dad took during our annual egg hunt on Good Friday.

The passage read from Paul's chapter on the resurrection in his letter to the Corinthians on Easter Sunday has stayed with me all week. "Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58)

I keep thinking about how the resurrection of Jesus was a call to action for the people of God to get to work bringing his light to the world. I have been asking myself all week, how do I bring the kingdom of God to our daily life? How can I do more?

I keep hearing the whisper of "love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34)

Three

I was lucky enough to take Owen on an overnight visit to Kentucky to see my best friend last week. Owen's sitter was closed, I was going to be taking PTO & I desperately missed her. So on a whim we booked a flight. It was the best visit & I can't wait to see her again. This girl is more than a bestie, she is a sister to me.

Four

We took a roadtrip with my parents to Texas A&M for the Spring Game. This was Garrett's first visit to Aggieland & Kyle Field. He loved it! During the game Mitch & Garrett texted who they thought would win, Maroon, and later received a reply that they were one of the 100 random fans who got to go home with a jersey from the game.

In the chaos, their jersey was given away but they got to go into the locker room with one of the players to get another. Garrett (and Mitch) were beaming when they came back!

Five

These guys are growing up way too fast. Today Owen is 11 months old & in a short month Garrett will finish Kindergarten. I'm not sure where the time has gone but I'm sitting alot more and just taking it all in.

lovemon

With a Heavy Heart

2011-04-08T12:16:00.007-05:00

This morning my husband & I said goodbye to our loyal companion, Dexter.

He had such an energy with him that has left an empty space in the house this afternoon. We are greiving deeply and will miss him dearly.

When Mitch & I were dating we invited Dexter to join our life and he spent 10 years as my husband's most fierce & loyal friend.

This morning, I found some comfort revisiting the layouts that captured our life with him. I am thankful for these layouts & the details of his life I celebrated in the moment.

Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

However, my heartache is nothing compared to my husbands. We have told Garrett that Dexter has a new home and have spared him the details. In the end, it is true. Dexter has a new home with the Lord where he can have a peaceful existence.

He will always live in our hearts. Goodbye bear dog.

lovemon

Project Life, Week Eight

2011-03-20T09:58:00.003-05:00

Last night I was able to stay up past my bedtime and finish week eight. That feels really good.

The challenge set by my husband was only to use 6 pages. I also decided to not use the computer for any journaling & to not pull my tweets or facebook posts from the week. I was able to complete in a couple of hours instead of the week it usually sits on my table.

It was also key that I was able to keep my eyes open more than 30 minutes after the boys went down.

This was a busy week for us with almost something every day after school & these calendar journal cards were perfect!

I'm not crazy in love with this week but it is done & that counts for alot!

Jeannette asked if I print at home or somewhere else. I have a HP Photosmart Pro B8350 at home and when I first started Project Life I printed exclusively at home. I would only print the pictures that I knew I was going to use. After one week where I fought with the printer to get to color right on a black & white I started printing at Walgreens. I do print all my iPhone pictures at home.

Since I've been behind I've been printing a few weeks at a time. From my last batch printing last weekend I have the pictures from week nine left. What I love about Walgreens is that they are ready in an hour. So, today I will send to print weeks ten & eleven and then on my way home from the grocery pick them up.

When I print my batches I tend to print more than what will be included in the week. I've been putting the leftover pictures in a bin and will file them away in my 2011 Q1 Storage Binder so they are available to scrapbook later.

If you would like to see more pictures from this week just click on Project Life under the banner. Thanks for stopping by!

lovemon

Project Life, Week Seven

2011-03-19T20:34:00.003-05:00

I had hoped to get caught up with Project Life this week since I was home with Garrett for part of Spring Break week. Unfortunately, work needed more of my time & the rest was spent hanging out with Garrett. I did get at least another week done!

Week Seven felt like a lot of pictures & a lot of words. Some of my favorite pictures are included in this week & I focused on telling their stories.

I am truly loving the long journalers; the perfect place to add a longer story. This week I included Garrett's acceptance letter to his school district's enrichment program. In order to maintain privacy I kept the letter in the envelope & slid it in the page protector with my thoughts on this accomplishment.

I loved this because I don't feel like the story or the details are on display but they are definitely included in this record of our life.

In order to include some of Garrett's Valentines from school I cut off the top part of Becky Higgins Design B Page Protector and sewed the openings shut.

So far this is what my Project Life Album looks like. At this rate, I will definitely need to fill two albums!

I will be challenging myself the next few weeks to simplify & be selective with what I include. I am four weeks behind, including this week, and I need to get to a place where I can keep up easily. So, that means doing less in the short term in order to sustain until the end.

If you would like to see more pictures or any other weeks, you can click on the Project Life link under the banner. Thanks for stopping by!

lovemon

Fabulous Finds

2011-03-15T06:40:00.002-05:00

Last Friday I scored some fabulous finds at the Dallas Quilt Show. I was off since Garrett had a school holiday but knowing that a quilt show is not the first thing a six year old boy wants to do on his day off I held my breath as I asked Garrett if he would like to go and then have a playdate in the afternoon. I was really surprised at how agreeable he was!

So, first thing Friday morning we met a group of friends from the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild at Mama's Daughters Diner for breakfast before the show. It was delish & it was so good to see these ladies. With the craziness that is my life it had been awhile since I'd really seen them.

Once we got to the show Garrett started tracking the time. Our game for the day, turned math lesson, went something like this:

G: How much longer?
M: What time is it?
G: 11 o clock
M: What time are we leaving?
G: 2 o clock
M: So, how much longer?
G: 3 hours

in 10 minute increments :)

When we weren't telling time, we were navigating the maze of lots of older women. At one point, balancing on the balls of my feet, I told Garrett that he couldn't be practicing his Karate moves because there were older ladies around him that would get hurt if he accidentally hit them. As I stood up he asked, rather loudly, "Why are there so many old ladies here?" Which led to yet another on the balls of my feet discussion about how we don't talk about how old ladies are in public.

One of Garrett's gifts is that he can have a good time in any situation. When my friend asked him later that afternoon if he had a good time he told her it was great. I would like to think it had a little something to do with the one on one time he had with me but I'm guessing it had alot to do with the Aggie fleece panel he walked away with which will soon be a cuddly blanket.

I walked away with some fun fabric purchases & these two fabulous finds! What drew me into the booth were some beautiful handpieced, handquilted quilts hanging on her wall. When I spied her basket of old quilts tops I started digging. This was my first find. I really did gasp when I saw it. By that time a little crowd had entered her booth & another lady asked if I was going to take it, ummmm you bet I am !!

This will eventually be the quilt for our bed. When I brought it home Mitch loved it. I love that they are vintage fabrics including some old feed sacks. I've looked on Flickr & am pretty sure this is a lonestar quilt but really it is nothing like what I've seen. I adore it's scrappiness & clean white space. The white is actually an old bedsheet. I'm still contemplating how I going to finish it as it is covers our bed but isn't large enough to hang over the edge.

Then, I went digging in the bin she had under the table & found this little guy. I think it's perfect for the playroom.

We ended the day with a playdate for Garrett & then a doctor's appointment for Owen (ear infection) and collapsed at night! This weekend I get even more quilting goodness at my guild's Saturday Sew. This is the first time I go alone since Owen's been born & I am giddy!

lovemon

Currents

2011-03-13T21:29:00.004-05:00

listening: Train, Marry Me "forever can never be long enough for me to feel like I've had long enough with you"; this summer we will be married nine years & he still makes my heart flutter, I feel our love growing deeper

eating: slices of watermelon from the fridge; always brings back memories of eating watermelon under the carport with my grandpa in the hot summer sun

drinking: lots of water; poured some in a carafe that I'm keeping on kitchen table which makes something simple beautiful

wearing: navy shorts & a cape cod tshirt; it was 72 when we went to Central Market this afternoon

feeling: still; so much moving around me & I'm just taking it all in

weather: warm, breezy & overcast; reminds me of the coast

wanting: more time at home with my boys; when I am able to focus on just them I am the mother I want to be

needing: a good nights sleep; Owen has had an ear infection, cold & nasty cough the last week which meant little to no sleep for this mama

thinking: about writing; a story, my story, is bubbling up inside of me & my being is urging me to tell it

enjoying: project life; it feels so good to be capturing our life with both words & images

wondering: how my guys are doing sleeping under the stars tonight; this is the first time Garrett has left home overnight without me

this post was inspired by: this new mama

Project Life - Week Six

2011-03-08T12:08:00.003-06:00

Another week done and another on my desk. So very happy about this. Before I jump into the week I have two things.

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who has stopped by to look at my Project Life and double thanks to those of you who have left a comment or sent a tweet letting me know you've enjoyed it. That means alot to me as I jump back into scrapbooking just for me.

Second, the pictures are dark & a little noisy! Sorry for that. I forgot my camera was still set at ISO 3200 from some night pictures I took over the weekend and the sun wasn't at its full glory when I took these pictures before work. I am embracing the imperfection & just happy I'm here to share.

So with that, what I loved about this week is that I added more journaling. Instead of sharing snippets I felt like I told a few good stories. That makes me happy. Also this week felt very back to basics. It felt good to include a little less but tell more. In fact, I'm challenging myself to do more of that in Week Seven.

I was beyond excited that I scrapbooked in Week Six that it got added to Project Life even though the layout is included in the album. This project has really stirred my creative juices. In fact, I'm planning layouts all the time. I need to get better at jotting down these bursts of inspiration.

So a bit of current perspective. The last day of February came and went and I forgot to have us sit for our family picture of the month (inspired by Tara Whitney). I was crushed. Then, I came across this picture. When I took it I loved it. It is a terrible picture when you evaluate it technically but it so perfectly captures where we were in the month of February. Sometimes its not about the pretty picture but about the life that is being lived.

Slipped in a sliver of patterned paper to capture my feelings on Garrett's 100th day of Kindergarten. I didn't want to put on the pages I inserted because I didn't want my thoughts to be the focus.

I had so much fun adding little bits to the class list that we used for Garrett's Valentines. To me this is scrapbooking in its simplest form and it felt good to bring it all together. Even though I didn't add any words I feel like the story has been told.

I had this picture with a lot of dead space (love that it was taken by Garrett) and felt the need to tell more of the story of our snow day & the 100th day of school. This picture (and the one above) isn't related to the moment but they capture bits of his school life that follow him home & relate to the story I wanted to share. I hope he always has this love of school.

Really loving splitting pictures in two in order to fit the space.

Last week Christina asked how I go back and format/print my tweets. I go to my Twitter page and copy/paste all of my tweets from the week into a word document. Then I go to my Facebook page & pull anything from there that wasn't on Twitter. This is not usually alot since I mainly tweet and just have it sent to Facebook. Once in Word, I change the font to Traveling Typewriter and change the font size.

In order to resize to fit the journaling pockets I format my word document into columns. I use two or three columns depending on if I plan on using horizontal or vertical pockets. Once I've printed on an 8.5x11 piece of cardstock I cut and add to my album.

If I use a long journaler like I did last week then I do not use columns and just copy/paste from my Word document into Photoshop Elements. Hope this helps!

Thanks again for stopping by & if you would like to see more pictures just click on Project Life under the blog banner.

lovemon

Project Life, Week Five

2011-03-03T12:05:00.009-06:00

Excited to finally share Week Five of Project Life. Simply put February was exhausting. I am excited to welcome March mainly because I think I may have my feet under me right now.

Once again, I put in a whole lot of extras. My husband so cleverly pointed out that maybe if I just kept it to the two spread layout they would go faster for me. What a wise observation dear husband :)

The good news is that even among the craziness that was February I captured our life through pictures and squirreled away lots of bits of life. Each week has a ziploc that is waiting to be emptied into page protectors.

This week was all about me being away on business & the great snow storm that hit Dallas.

Instead of telling each picture's story I wanted to tell the week's story. So, I used Ali Edwards long journaler for that.

One of my favorite details of this week is that I used another long journaler to gather all of my tweets & facebook posts from the week. Since I've been including these snippets in Project Life , my posts have skyrocketed I'm afraid and I'm sure I've annoyed all friends & followers with a play by play of my life! But it is so easy for me to capture the small moments this way. I am thinking about using Momento so I can capture our life without feeling like I am oversharing.

So very excited to have made a layout!! It was a rare evening I made it to the craft room & I did my best to channel two of my favorites, Lisa & Stephanie. I think I finished it well under an hour and really had a blast during the process. I think my creative juices are finally coming back!!

While I was out of town I left the camera for Mitch to capture life. I unintentionally left the camera on black & white but now LOVE that those pictures really come together as a set due to this happy accident.

I am still loving this project & will be excited to get back on track. I already have week six in page protectors & am adding layers here & there.

As usual, you can click on the Project Life page above to see all of the images from the week. Thanks for looking!

lovemon

Will you be my Valentine?

2011-02-11T06:54:00.007-06:00

At the beginning of the week Garrett brought home an assignment that was due on Thursday. It was a note from the Kindergarten teachers regarding valentine cards which we could start bringing to school on Thursday.

As usual my little guy took the instructions extremely literal and decided that they must be cards & were due on Thursday. So, on our unexpected home day on Wednesday due to hazardous road conditions (read another snow day) we made valentines. It took alot of discussion to get Garrett onboard that valentines did not have to literally be a card :)

Once I showed him his options on my Tumblr he was onboard but only if we did both of the ones he liked :) Of course, I'm a sucker for this kid so we did two valentines this year.

Up first the adorable lips & moustache lollipops.

So glad he got on board because these are fun & they were easy!! I found the idea, printable and templates at Blonde Designs. Garrett's job was sticking the lollipops in the foam and the rest was all Mama.

Second up, found at eighteen25, a candy bar wrapper idea, tutorial & printable. Simple & Garrett was able to help since there was a lot of taping involved.

We were able to finish (pretty much) all this up during Owen's monster morning nap & afternoon nap.

I should have been squeezing in some work while O slept but that is a perspective of priority.

While I'm scrambling the rest of this week as a result of that lost day I truly believe in 10 years I won't be lamenting the lost day of work & I will cherish the day spent with my 6 year old collaborating & creating Valentines.

lovemon

What We Do Matters & Project Life Week 4

2011-02-08T15:28:00.004-06:00

Before I jump into sharing week four I want to share this story.

Last week while sitting in training I was throughly entertained by a particular presenter. He was probably in his mid to late 50s, lively & interjected the best jokes throughout his talk. When asked if there were any questions I couldn't help but ask him where he got his jokes since the laughter of the crowd clearly indictated I wasn't the only one enjoying them. As he went to explain the source of his second joke he choked up and the group fell silent.

With composure regained he said "My mother. I lost her last week & found it in her scrapbook. She was a special lady."

Taking the time to leave bits of our lives from our perspective for our children, spouse, friends, extended family matters. What we do has an impact on the lives around us. We may not see the impression we leave on the hearts of our loved ones but trust me, it is there.

With that, I would like to share Project Life, Week 4.

This week I went overboard on the inserts but our week was so full. Becky Higgins makes it clear that "how you use Project Life is completely up to you." So I let go of the worry of too much & just went with it.

I went on a fairly big shopping spree on Saturday & wanted to capture not only the receipts but also what I bought. So, I tucked a journaling card behind the receipts for my words & then tiered the receipts so I could see the stores which will likely change in years to come.

To unify two pictures that were related to the same tweet I backed them with the same patterned paper. Using my Studio Calico scraps is making me very, very happy! I get to personalize the project to me & I get to use my stash!

I had a little bit of space between the 8x8 page protector & the rings so I slipped in a scrap of paper & adhered my facebook post to it.

I think I've found a good place for bits of work that Garrett brings home from school. I didn't want to add yet another page protector so I cut his paper into fourths in order to fit the spaces I had.

Included a printed recipe I used this week mainly because I wanted to keep the charred bit of paper from my lack of attention to how close the paper was to the stove!

If you would like to see more detailed shots you can visit Week Four on Flickr or click the Project Life link under the banner.

lovemon

Project Life, Week Three

2011-02-08T10:59:00.003-06:00

I'm really loving this project. Garrett calls it our "family album". He is blown away that it is going to have 52 weeks of our life included. Over the weekend he told me "Mom you're doing a good job on the album. Yeah, real good. " LOVE that he loves it.

I am usually not very good with long term projects but with him as my cheerleader I have a good shot at seeing this through!

This week I had an opportunity to include a joke that he told me that had me genuinely laughing. Most times his jokes don't make any sense but this was a good one. I've not successfully captured these little tidbits before so I'm so pleased it is captured here.

Another unique twist to this week was a non-traditional layout. I used an American Crafts divided page protector for my pictures and a 6x12 page protector to hold my long journaling template from Ali Edwards.

Family Game Night was the unofficial theme of week 3 & while it was there, part of ordinary life, it isn't something I'm inspired to traditionally scrapbook right now. This was the perfect place to capture this slice of life.

If you would like to see more detailed shots you can visit Week Three on Flickr or click the Project Life link under the banner. Coming up next, Week 4!

lovemon

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2011-01-30T16:00:00.002-06:00

In a few hours I will put more distance between my family & myself for more days than my heart is ready for.

The thought of this distance has created such strong physical reaction in my being. Before I became a mother I had no idea...

that love is so big

that love is so strong

that love is so consuming

that love is more than a word

that love is a physical reaction

{photos taken last week after the workday when we all came together}

I am counting my blessings that my job doesn't require that I travel from my family often. I just don't think my heart could take it.

lovemon

Project Life Tuesday

2011-01-25T18:18:00.005-06:00

I had great plans to share with you today Week Two and Week Three of Project Life. However, just as I settled in with a nice glass of wine & Week Three last night Baby O woke up only two hours into his nighttime sleep. The poor little guy was sick with a tummy bug. So, instead I spent my night loving on my baby.

Without any further delay because I really need to go finish dinner as soon as Mitch gets back with some Chicken Broth (I swear we had some when I made the grocery list!) here is Week Two.

My favorite piece of Week Two is the middle opening (second picture). The layout really tells two stories. Tucked into the envelope is G's behavior chart from the week along with my thoughts. Since Garrett asks me to read all the journaling he sees in our "Family Album" I wanted to tuck these thoughts away.

I am seriously loving this project......

You can see the detailed shots of Week Two by clicking on the link Project Life 2011 under the banner. Each week I will embed a new slide show for the week with the most current at top.

Hoping to be back later this week with Week Three but in this house you never know!

lovemon