Project Life 2016 {Weeks 15-19}

Maybe I should just turn this blog into a scrapbooking blog, since that seems to be all I have the time to post---or rather find the time to post.

We did just get back from Branson, so I plan on uploading those photos and events. It was a really great time. We went with grandma Rachel and Tom. I think trip memories the kids make with their gps are worth more than gold to all of us--possible more to the GPs than the kids. So stay tuned for that.

Last I wrote was how our lives had come to a stand still until I got caught up on my pages. I don't know why I say dumb stuff like that--as if I could ever truly be caught up. I did get "caught up" about 1 day after I posted the last entry--but can you believe this---LIFE kept going on?! Whoa. How rude!{said in my best Stephanie Tanner voice} ;) 

So I just keep plugging along...

Here is the latest pages for our album.

Have I said how much I love how I am doing it this year yet?! Because I am and it is working for me.

I do this because "Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here." SUE MONK KIDD

Project Life 2016 {Weeks9-14}

At this point the world has come to a stop until I get Project Life 2016 caught up. Lord help my family. We are still eating, and clothed but past that it's a little rough around here. HA! The one thing I love to hate about this project is that I always think "well I am caught up enough" and then bam! A month goes by and I am far from on track. Also, if you don't stay within a month of this project {at least for me} I will just end up quitting and then my first born perfectionist nature will kick in and I will be so disappointed in myself yada yada yada...

So here we are weeks 9-14! In Real Life we are on week 19--so I am within reach of my goal. MUST STAY FOCUSED. Only 7 more pages to go by the end of this week...

My process is to scrap all the insta photos/random weekly photos on to one page and then if a major "event/moment/milestone/etc" happens that gets it's own page. I am loving this process as it keeps me caught up and not all over the place, but it is time consuming. One day I really hope my kids appreciate this. HA! But I wouldn't do it if I didn't find complete enjoyment out of creating these pages.

So without further ado...
















This is one of my favorite pages I have ever done...I just think it turned out so cute.



Also digging how I made that little snowman into a snow bunny by adding ears...I just thought I was so clever. HA!


Week 14


And while I haven't even had time to blog about it Lo's 3rd Gym Meet in Wamego.


Well that's all I have for now...back to Week 15!

Project Life {Weeks 5-8}

Hello.
I promise to post more than just my project life pages, such as Lo 7.0, Easter, MWs first soccer "game" and just general catch-up things. However, my focus is trying to catch-up on my scrapbooking. I have said this 100x but this is just one of my main priorities to stay on top of, so a lot of other things get put on the back burner, while I am on project scrapbook catch-up.

So without further ado PL2016



First gymnastics meet.











Someone turned 7 this week.


I have always wanted to make videos on how I scrapbook and how I get it accomplished quickly, stay on task etc...hopefully I can get that going sometime soon. I know I find myself watching lots of different youtube videos learning tons of great ideas from organization to just daily living.

I am really loving my process this year and after nearly 7 years of digital scrapbooking I feel like I finally found the perfect system and flow. Insert praise hands.

Coming soon scrapbooking videos.

Project Life 2016 {week 1-4}

Project Life 2016 edition has commenced.

This past Christmas I spent weeks making a book called Kids Say the Darnedest Things. It was a dream of my to compile of the funny, crazy, witty things my kids had said over the years into one easy to read place. It was a feature on my blog once upon a time when I blogged routinely. Once I finished that little project to give as gifts to the GPs I found my old project life scrapbook that I had never taken the time to print. Persnickety Prints was running a promo for their little 5x5 books and so I decided to go ahead and print the PL2013 book as a 5x5. I fell in love with it and it inspired me to do PL once again. {Which I will show you sometime in the future}.

And after 7 years of scrapbooking I think I may have come up with the perfect system. PL PLUS detailed and focused pages. Now with Instagram I have so many fun memory photos but they just get lost...now they go in my PL spread and if a more focused event occurs during that week that gets its own spread. I am hoping this new system will keep me caught up and make for a more well-rounded scrapbook of our story...of course it is week 10 and I am way back on week 5.


Here are the pages thus far:

Week 1 and 2




Week 3












Week 4


I am hoping by posting these it will keep me motivated to finish the year strong.

Anyone else love doing PL? What is your system?

Scrapbook {Summer 2014 Vacay}

Slowly, but surely I am getting caught up on my scrapbooks.
Sometimes, I wonder why bother no one but me seems to care and then I come downstairs and find the kids' scrapbooks scattered on the floor and they want to hear their stories. Just the motivation I needed.
This is from our family vacay to Branson last year.

 {Day 3}

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas {2014 Part III}

I came close to getting caught up through Christmas by the New Year. I spent the last 2 days busting out these 10 scrapbook pages to wrap our our Family Christmas trip to KC. I figured that would be easier than loading 100 photos. HA!

This year my side decided we would fore-go the gifts, aside from Thing1 and Thing2 and go on a trip. We have been trying to do this for YEARS. Finally, I took the bull by the horns and started getting the ball rolling early November. I researched, planned and booked/reserved several locations. No flying by the seat of our pants here. :)

Enjoy the pages. I know I do.

Below is a few photos from the Hallmark museum we toured while we waited to get into Kaleidoscope factory. The adults enjoyed this part, but the kids were a tad bored. 

Kaleidoscope is a free area at Crown Center that allows kids to go in for 45 minutes and make crafts/card/ etc with leftover Hallmark card supplies. My little art-tist loved it. MW just loved to run around. That kid is like a border collie. If he doesn't have cattle to herd, he has way too much pent up energy to burn off. HA!

It was a whirlwind 2 day trip. So I packed it in. I made reservation at Legoland at 1p. We easily spent 2.5 hours there taking in all the fun. There were a couple rides and a play place that kept MW and Lo, and maybe mommy and Auntie Meg entertained for quite sometime. 

The kids even got to experience their first 3D/4D movie. They were so funny reaching out and trying to grab the objects that flew toward them. We even got a bit wet in the end, thus making it 4D. 

Us girls had fun at the lego table, with our sorely lacking imagination.

After we finished at LegoLand and had a snack...when you travel with my dad snacks are a must at least every hour. ;) We headed for our hotel. This was the most fun to the kids. HA! We had adjoining rooms, which added to the fun for the kids running between rooms. Of course the kids couldn't be left gift-less...All MW wanted was that How to Train Your Dragon bath toy. His face says it all. Lo was thrilled with AG doll clothes.

We then quickly headed back out to grab dinner and make our 7p reservations with KC carriages. A Carriage ride through the Plaza. Unfortunately, due to early bad weather conditions the cancelled and neglected to make contact with me. Let me say we all were disappointed, especially the kids. I was mostly frustrated because of their refund policy...there isn't one. They like to put the risk on the costumer and if THEY decide not to run you get a gift card {like who is going to use that when they don't live there??!} or re-schedule...which didn't seem like a possibility. Once I finally got in contact with her, instead of fighting about it we decided to extend the trip a bit and re-schedule to the first ride the next night. I am so glad we did, just to do it, but I would NOT recommend them to anyone, mostly because I don't like people who do poor business.

Moving on...we decided to just walk the plaza that first night. Daddy found a Moosejaw store and if you know my husband, you know how much he loves Moosejaw. Not because he is a mountaineer, but because he thrives on the different. 

I was blessed with the gift a of bed to myself. MW slept with grammy and Lo slept with daddy. Bliss.

Day2.

Once we got around we headed to SeaLife aquarium. I wish I would have pre-purchased tickets, just out of savings reasons. But it was amazing. Definitely recommend it.

All mommy wanted to do was see IKEA. It just seems like there is so much hype you have to go in.  I started to feel a little claustrophobic, like I would never get out. I did think it was neat and would have like to actually shop, but when you have 2 kids, 2 dads and a time crunch shopping is a bit out of the question. We also swung by the AG doll store, mostly again to just see it. Lo really loved looking at all the great expensive things there...I mean really it's a doll and you get all that stuff at Target for a 1/3 of the price.

Finally we had an early dinner at Cheesecake Factory on the Plaza and zoomed off to make our 5p reservation for the carriage ride. It was nice to end the trip on the carriage. We then loaded up and drove home. It was a great trip. So much fun and the best present. Sure a sweater is nice, but memories are so much better.

Merry Christmas Family!!

Part 4 will conclude Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

The New P365 2014

Project 365 time.
Last YEAR I talked about how this is a project I love to hate.
It is a LOT of work and organizing...or maybe that is just me. I tend to over organize and analyze. I had an entire note pad full of dates, picture information, events etc to keep me on track when I would finally sit down to do it. Not to mention NEVER organizing my photos because I didn't want to forget something and creating additional photo folders just for P365. Yes, I am sure I made this too hard.
The POINT of this project is to just capture our lives. Plain {emphasis on PLAIN} and simple {probably should emphasize simple too!}. I knew there had to be a better way. Insert BlinkBuggy app/website.

I at first stumbled on it from a blog that was talking about ways to keep all your kids' fantastic artwork that we dare not part with and yet still part with it. ;) So the more I looked at this app the more I realized this is the perfect--plain and simple--P365 app.

Now that I am part of the cool club and have instagram and an iPod to catch all those daily photos, I just simply upload them to Blinkbuggy--add info, dates, tags etc and call it a day. You can record cute quotes from your kids--hello my "kids say the darnedest things" series, milestones and just moments you want to remember.

Now maybe you are thinking that's neat...how is this helping. Blinkbuggy is partnered with MILK books and therefore you can upload your blinkbuggy account straight to this photobook site. Now being the avid digi scrapbooker I am-- I am not really a fan of photo books, but remember we are going for plain and simple; and really for this project that is all I am looking for. I loved last year's pages, but I just don't have time for that AND all the "routine" pages I like to do throughout the year.

So here is just a quick screen shot of my book. So far I am happy with how "easy" this is. It took some playing around to figure it out, but now I am on a roll and I now have week 1-13 done in a matter of an hour vs days!

I know there are a lot of moms out there they may also find this useful and maybe you never take the time to actually create a book, but I do think it is a neat way to capture the memories for the year. Plain and Simple.

P365 {Family Journal}

It.is.finished.
I did it. I am done.
This is one of those projects I love to hate.
I love having a sort of a diary of our year--just capturing the day to day moments that don't always get special digi scrapbook pages or blog posts.
BUT, at times it became a chore to stay caught up on.

Will I start all over?
Most likely. How can I not?! Now that the ground work is laid and I have a system I think I will do better. Also, my awesome hubby got me an iPod touch for Christmas so capturing our day to day will be easier. I don't live in the 21st Century and GASP! I don't have a smart phone. I am just one step up from the Zach Morris phone. :) So for me the iPod is the next best thing I can have.

So let's raise our iPod and/or phones to another year of P365!


{weeks 40-41}


{weeks 42-43}


{weeks 44-45}


{week 46}



{week 47}


{week 48}


{week 49}


{week 50}


{week 51}


{week 52}


2013 has come to a close.
It has been a great year filled with lots of memories, joy and sadness. Our life together is a beautiful and thrilling story. The best parts are yet to come. We trust the author, we know that He has brought us to and through each moment. This year we all have grown and changed. God is changing each of hearts and I can't wait to see what 2014 brings. The Story of Us is still being written and at the end of the day when you stop and look around this life is pretty amazing.