Four Random Things...

Well, since it's the fourth, and I haven't been doing a super great job of keeping up my minimum posting schedule of once per week, here goes nothing!

1) We went to Seattle last week and visited Harry Potter: The Exhibition. If you have any Harry Potter fans in the house, it's totally worth going. I read all the books as they came out and our seven year old son is a big fan so we really dug it. You get to see all sorts of props from the movies; costumes, wands, the beds from the Gryffindor dorm, Hagrid's hut. Super cool. The only bummer... no photography allowed. WHAT?!

2) The exhibition was at the Science Center which is at the Seattle Center. Photos were allowed outside and it was gorgeous:

3) We spent another New Year's Eve at a good friend's home and this year marked the third since Mark and I've been together that I've seen him awake at midnight on December 31st. Happy New Year to all!

4) I'm participating along with Ali Edwards (and hundreds of others!) in One Little Word at Big Picture Classes. I've got my word chosen and will post about that soon!

Christmas Card 2010

So, after several years going without, I decided to put together a Christmas card. It was all spurred by my friend Amber who every year without fail sends a really nice card and letter, leaving no detail of their year out. I love it and decided I needed to do something, if perhaps on a smaller scale.

This year I found some great (and free!) card templates at Becky Higgins site. Now I just needed a picture. Since I put these together at the last minute, I knew I wouldn't be able to pull together a decent shot of the whole family, but if I got creative, I could convince our son to pose for me.

My idea was to wrap him in lights like a Christmas tree... cute and fun. Well, I couldn't quite get enough light on his face, but got some cute outtakes. Here are some of my favorites:

Pretty cute! Here is the final result:

Aww...
Thanks to Costco for the quick printing job! They're already signed, sealed and delivered!

Another long break...

So, when I decided to start a blog, my intention was to have a place to ramble, organize some thoughts for scrapbooking and to practice writing. You see, I've never really felt like myself when I write. I'm not sure who exactly I feel like, but I have this desire for my writing to sound more authentic, more genuine. In 30 years when Alex is looking back at the scrapbooks, I want him to know that I wrote all those words, not wonder who I got to write them for me.
So anyhow, that was my intention and so far, I'm not off to a great start. I've made a decision that I can post something once a week at least. I'm not putting any kind of restrictions on myself, but even if it's one sentence, I can muster up something once per week! Hopefully it will grow from there.
I did participate in LOAD in October, but it didn't go so great. I just really didn't feel the mojo and let myself slide. I got a few layouts done, though. Here are a couple favorites:

This one I actually completed about an hour after that photo was taken. My husband and I were camping for our anniversary and went for a hike. When we got back to the trailer, I got my layout done. This was early in the month when I was still on track!

My mom recently moved and I inherited all our our family albums. My project for the new year will be to get those photos out of their magnetic albums and scan the ones worth scanning. Makes me tired just thinking about it!

See you next week!

Vacation...

I'm lucky to have worked the same job long enough to have earned five weeks of vacation a year. I tend to forget what a luxury this is until I take a couple of weeks off together. I'm just at the tail end of a two week break and it has been great! My boys took of for a couple of days of water park mayhem leaving me at home to get caught up around the house and, with the help of a friend, get two rooms painted! Then we met up with my side of the family in Leavenworth (WA) for a nice and hot weekend before the three of us headed over to Lake Chelan (WA) for a few more days of fun in the sun!
In Chelan, we met up with some new friends. The wives took the day of from mommy duty and hopped in a limo for a tour of the wineries in the area. This was totally decadent and fun. I've never been to a winery before so I learned a lot and would recommend this to anyone interested at all in wine.
The next day we all spent on the lake. We are lucky that these friends had boats and jet-skis so we really enjoyed the water.
I'm home now feeling a little tired, a little sunburned, but relaxed and so thankful for some wonderful family time!
Some photos from the trip:

1) The boys heading out 2) My mom and her sisters with my cousin and I 3) My son Alex introducing his cousin to bubbles  4) Alex rapping in the pool in Leavenworth 5) Alex at the skate park in Lake Chelan 6) A photo-op during our wine tasting adventure* 7) The ladies of the limo 8) Willow taking Mark out on a jet-ski** 9) Gaye, Barb and me on the 'tube' 10) Alex with the girls on the tube

*I spotted this wine barrel when we were pulling into the third or fourth winery. I said something like "Oh, I have to come get a photo of that!" and two of the ladies I was with asked if I was a scrapbooker! So funny.
**Mark took me on a jet-ski ride in Puerto Vallarta in 2001. It felt like he was trying to rearrange my organs; he was jumping waves, driving super fast. I tried to convince Willow to give him an equally crazy ride, but I'm not sure it happened.

That Time of the Month...

No, not that time of the month! The time of the month to share an awesome monthly project!

I've been using Cathy Zielske's "The Monthly 8.5 x 11 Album Set" from Designer Digitals for the past three months and it is really cool. It's designed in Cathy's signature clean style and makes getting some memories preserved really easy. Here is my creation for May:

This is actually four 8.5 x 11 pages and you can see them (along with some other layouts) by clicking on my Flickr Photostream on the left. I'm printing these to go into an album along with a divided page protector with some memorabilia, notes and additional photos. I am so happy with these! I don't really believe in the notion of being "caught up" with my scrapbooking and only really worry that our most important stories are being told. But, if I was determined to be "caught up" this would be all I needed to feel complete. It's simple, classic and perfect.

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...