Father's Day...

Father's Day caught me a bit off guard this year. Not in the sense that I didn't know it was coming, but in how much I really missed my dad. I've thought about him every day since his passing and Father's Day, frankly, was never such a big day for us. But knowing that he isn't there to make a card for really hurt.
I liked to pull old pictures of the two of us to include in my cards, so I thought I'd pull some together here:

All of these photos are (obviously!) quite old. I was three days, about 18 months and about five. I'm forever grateful for the lessons my dad taught me and what he brought into my life and into my son's life.

I have to remember another very special father in my life, though. My wonderful and understanding husband. I couldn't leave him out of the photo fun:

Photos of my husband Mark with our sweet kid, Alex. On the day he was born, at four and about five. I know how lucky I am to have a husband who's totally involved and happy to have the role of dad.

But that's not all! I have one more amazing dad to celebrate in my life! I was adopted, brought home from the hospital when I was three days old. When I was 20, I was lucky to meet my birth parents and even luckier to have them become part of our lives. My birth father, Keith, is just awesome:

Here's to celebrating all of the dads in our lives!

A video share...

Well, the May edition of LOAD turned out to be a bust. First I got sick; I mean SICK. Whatever it was knocked me out for a week and then some. No energy, no scrapbooking mojo. Just in bed, TV on misery. Then we were on vacation down on the Oregon coast. I knew all along we'd be taking this vacation,I just didn't know we wouldn't have cell phone reception. No way to send a photo anywhere. I did end up with 13 layouts in May, which is 13 more than I would have done left to my own devices, so I can't really be too disappointed.

I did manage to put together a little video memory from our trip to Oregon. This was Alex's first time out on his quad in the sand dunes. He had a wonderful time. Please enjoy...

Work in Progress...

So, I'm still working on this blog. I hope that a few of you have come back a time or two. I am big time posting my LOAD layouts, but promise to be more diversified than that! I just updated my comment section (I hope!) This is my test post to see if it works. If you stop by, you can check it out for yourself!

Real Life

RealLife, originally uploaded by jashepler.

This is one of those photos that I have LOVED since the moment I shot it. Alex has the worst look on his face but what I really love is the look on my dad's face! I shared in my journaling on this page how special their relationship was from day one and that really is so true. Those two are best buds.

It seems as though I've seen the question on a couple of different message boards, as well as discussed on a recent episode of The Paperclipping Roundtable, about how you deal with scrapbooking challenging times. I've been working through this process over the last six months or so and this layout is a part of that process. I thought I'd share my take on the subject.

My dad passed away a little over six months ago. His death was a shock; completely unexpected to anyone who knew him. At the time, I couldn't imagine ever feeling right again. It was the worst feeling I've ever experienced.

But something happened as I was going through decades worth of photos in preparation for my dad's memorial service. I realized that all of these photos that have been part of my life for as long as I can remember had taken on a new meaning. I started to get a different sense of what it is we do as 'memory keepers'.

Shortly after, I stumbled across a website called Good Grief. This website was the brainchild of Amanda Probst and hosts challenges related to scrapping memories of loved ones who have passed. I honestly hadn't thought about scrapbooking anything, let alone my dad's passing, until I came across this site. So I took the plunge. I think the first challenge had to do with documenting your loved one's handwriting. It felt like a release. It didn't make me feel sad the way I thought it would; I felt more connected to my dad and realized that in preserving our stories, I could keep those small pieces of him with us always.

Now, I never shy away from scrapbooking with pictures of my dad. It doesn't soften the blow of our loss, but it is a gift to be able to share our most precious memories in a beautiful and heartfelt way.

Love My Boys

Love My Boys, originally uploaded by jashepler.

I really do just love these boys so much! Don't know how I got so lucky.

Righty or Lefty?

Righty or Lefty?, originally uploaded by jashepler.

Today's prompt for LOAD was "Holiday"; specifically to use holiday product in an untypical way. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired today, but I went through a stack of 'stories' that I had pulled prior to starting LOAD that I wanted to tell. When I came across these two photos, I knew that I would use them and I had the design pretty clear in my head. The little pieces of patterned paper were an afterthought to stick with the challenge.
Do love this page though and those cute pictures of my boy!

Mother's Day

MothersDay, originally uploaded by jashepler.

We spent a beautiful and fun weekend down in Portland for Mother's Day. We really lucked out with the beautiful weather and totally took advantage of it. Since I had these fresh photos to use, they became my inspiration for my layout today!

While I was working on this layout, I decided to try creating a layered template as well. I've wanted to do this for a while to save some of my favorite designs so that I might use them again (hey, stick with what works, right?). Anyway, I think that I was successful and wanted to share! Here is what the template looks like:

and here is the link to download it:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntzficmcntd
Disclaimer: I've never done this before! The way I think this should work is you click the link above which will take you to a page where you can download a zipped file of the template. If it doesn't work for you, let me know! Or, if you know an easier way for me to do this, I'd love to know that as well!