Fly little one, Fly!

My kids
I just like this picture. It was taken without a flash.

Learning to ride

This is our shadows. Mine and my girl's.

So happy with herself as she rides without assistance!

Some very exciting things have been happening in my life! And no, I'm not talking about the Pens winning the Stanley Cup, although that was exciting, too! My little girl learned to ride a bike this very week! It was thrilling to watch her! I started out holding her, slowly switched to hover mode, and soon was running along after her, and now, I just stand on the street and watch for traffic so that I can verbally warn her to get off the street. This was a life lesson. While I wanted her to ride on her own, I was very nervous when she did. When she told me she wanted me to stop holding her, I knew she could do it, and I felt a thrill knowing that she was going to make it! It was very, very exciting.

The other excitement was my little boy trying food for the first time. I first gave him various fruits to gum as I held them. He has really seemed to like this, as well as the cereal he eats right up. I enjoy introducing him to the world. I like watching the fire crackers reflect in his eyes, and hearing him laugh his deep boy-giggle as I tickle his ribs. I love how he tries to catch the bubbles I blow for him, watching them with a serious look on his face. I have to be alert or he'll get his chubby hands into everything I get too close to him. I know that if he swings his pudgy fingers through the hot water as I'm watching dishes, he'll be burnt. But he doesn't know this. The hard part is letting him learn life's painful lessons. I want to protect my kids from everything, even though I know it isn't possible.

I have fallen dreadfully behind on my daughter's album. The other night, I stayed up and laid out all of her pictures onto pages so that I can start working on her album again. Today, I saw that more photos had come in the mail. ( I used York this time (free shipping deal) and wasn't impressed. I will be going back to Snapfish.) So, I said that seeing the pictures in my mailbox made me want to scrapbook all day instead of cleaning the house as I had planned. My daughter said that she knew what I would be doing while she was at her Gramma's! But I told her, " Just because that's what I WANT to do, doesn't mean I'll be doing it." I didn't get to scrapbook, but my house is cleaner :)

I want to take and post pictures of my work in progress as I design and complete album pages. I will start soon!

Scrap Happy!

Time passes by

I'm sitting here with a mug of ice cream, sniffling from a cold. I'm thinking of scrapbooking. Wishing that I had started earlier on my daughter's album. Knowing that there is no way I could catch up so that I could show her album off tomorrow at her birthday party. I only wish I had thought of that several weeks ago. I just went in to Snapfish and ordered 131 photos from March, April and May. These are for my daughter's album, as her brother has the online album. Lately I notice that there are less and less pictures of me. I just hate myself in glasses and these stupid bangs I despised even as I had them cut. I hide behind the baby whenever possible. (I'm sure you are thinking that the ice cream I'm eating isn't helping things. But I am losing the baby weight, and I walked today...so I can eat a mug of ice cream if I want!)

My little girl is turning 7. I don't feel like I missed it all. I have watched her grow up little by little, every day but maybe 15 out of her entire life. I try to store up the moments, little sayings she uses, things she does over and over again for a time. The pictures are where it hits me the hardest. Once she is asleep and I look through the pictures, I see so much feeling and I think she is so perfect. It's hard to remember that she and I fought over cleaning and clipping toenails this very evening! Then I look back at a picture from 3 months ago and I think, "Wow, she was just a baby!" When did she get a little older in just 3 short months?

I hold my baby boy and beam with pride as everyone has to comment on his hair, his adorable expressions, his sweet baby love. Mommas and Daddies that know, they have been there, tell me that if I blink he will be graduating college like their son is, it will seem just like yesterday that he was that tiny and now he's a father. These are the things I hear every time I leave the house. I know this. I know it because I have an older child. I realize how short the months are that I will be able to hold him. I watch mothers of teenage sons, and think that I'll suffocate if he won't let me hug him when he gets to the "cool" age. I already hear him behind me and half expect to see him running through the kitchen when I turn around to look. I still am guilty of hoping he'll nap so that I can do laundry, clean, teach or scrapbook. There are times where I think how nice it will be when he and my daughter can actually play together. But when I find a little touch of heaven in the smell of his silky, curly hair, I don't want anything to change. I am so blessed in my family, my home, my friends, my car. I thank God for His many blessings in my life. I'm glad that I have pictures and notes from the great days, to cheer me up on the down days. I never want to forget this time.

Stripes

I was inspired to take this picture because both of my kids had stripes on. Plus, my girl had pink and my boy had blue. This wasn't planned, but so cute that I had to capture it. You can see from this picture how big my little guy has gotten in 4 months.

I chose to take their picture on the steps of our deck because it was out of the direct sun and because I could easily position them to be on the same level with me.

Unfortunately, I was so concerned with getting them to look at me and smile, that I repeatedly cut the baby's arm out of the picture. I realized my mistake, and was able to get several where his arm is in the shot, but they aren't as good as this one.

I have been too busy to scrap anything traditionally. The baby is caught up in his online album and in his scrapbook, but I have yet to touch my daughter's. I did find out something exciting this week! The online albums can hold up to 100 pages, not only 50 as I originally thought. So, it may be possible to fit his whole first year in this album. I don't know why that makes me so happy, but it does. :)

Scrap Happy!

Memorabilia

I first want to apologize that most of these pictures are sideways. Blame Blogspot! That said, I don't have time to mess with them, so tilt your head sideways a little and you should be fine!
I don't save everything, but there are little things that I want to keep in my daughter's scrapbook, and there are several ways to do this. Above is a page I did of our trip to Disneyland. I wanted to show off our cute little daily passes, so I laid them out on the side of the page. In the mickey punch, I wrote which pass was whose. I also made a neat shaped pocket for our fantasmic passes. We saved our cute driver's licences because that's something you don't get at Disney World. I also included a picture of us since this is the final page in the book.

The pages above show my daughter's birthday invitation (I always save one) and some of the decorations. (part of her pinata and some streamers.) This is the first time I saved decorations in an album. I just added it right to a CM page. With Creative memories, you can add things like this to the page because their pages are buffered and that stops the acid and lingin from traveling to photos that might be on the same page. That said, on the page below, I didn't want to include the actual invitation to my daughter's graduation because they smelled so strongly and also had glitter on them. I don't like mixing glitter with photos. So I scanned and printed the invitation onto scrapbooking paper. It looks just like the original.

On the picture below, I wanted to include a "baseball card" , so I made a little pocket out of a sticker packet. Creative Memories sticker packets are supposedly photo safe, so I use them to keep little things in.

Here is yet another idea on how to make a pocket for brochures and things. I used an alphabet sticker packet and cut it into a large pocket. I put this right on a page and covered it with a page protector. To dress up the sticker packet pocket (try saying that 3 times!) I simply added some stickers to it.

Here is another example of a sticker packet as a pocket. This way, if I need to get this program out to look something up, I can. Before I put the program in this album, I scanned and printed the song title and list of the girls dancing with my daughter onto bright pink, photo safe paper to add to the pages of her dancing. The bright pink was so that it would match the page design I had for her dance pages.

One more way to hold your tickets or other small things, is just to adhere them directly onto the page, as I did with this circus ticket. I can only recommend that if you are using a CM album though.

Creative Memories used to sell big pages (good for certificates and drawings) and also pocket pages (which I liked for birthday cards and brochures.) You still may be able to find them online. Before Ebay, I would check the CM website under clearance or while supplies last. Pictures of portrait pages and pocket pages are shown below.

I hope this has encouraged you to keep those small tokens that will fit into an album. It can be hard to know how to contain them, but with a little thought, you can!

Scrap Happy!

Posed Candids

All of the pictures on today's blog are "posed candids". I just didn't want them to look posed! I have little tricks I use when I want to get a picture of something I just missed or something I think would make a cute shot. I don't mention a picture at all! For the photo above, I said to the kids, "Everyone is supposed to be sitting on the bench unless it's your turn to bat." This made them sit and hold still! For the photo below, I probably said, "Let's count those eggs again."

I think it's good to have a mental goal in mind when you are going into a situation where you plan to take pictures. If you know some pictures that you want to capture, you will be looking for them. I like to get spontaneous pictures, but this can be very hard to do. Just remember, if you are careful with your posed shots, you can make them look like really great candid photos. It just takes some time and thought.

Think along the lines of the person you are photographing. Sometimes it works to say, "Ignore me." or "Don't look at the camera." Sometimes I pretend that I am looking at and reviewing a picture I just took, or I'm messing with the camera, when in actuality, I'm looking at the screen watching for a great shot. The one thing I don't recommend is lying to your kids. They will catch on, and besides it justs sets a bad pattern. Bribing can be used on occasion. (I'll give you candy if you smile nicely for this picture!) But again, it sets you up in starting a bad pattern so that your kids may always need bribed just in order to behave for photos.

Ask questions about an object they are holding if you want them to be focused on it for the picture. Ask them about something that is behind you/beside you/ etc. (Did Uncle Mike get here yet?) if you want them to be looking somewhere else.

People think that their subjects need to be looking right at the camera for pictures to be good. But that isn't true. If they look like they don't even know their picture is being taken, then you have captured life happening! Isn't that what photography is all about?

Scrap Happy!

meet my friend, Mr. Camera

My little guy has certainly gotten used to seeing a camera in front of his face. He's 3 1/2 months old, but he's met Mr. Camera! When you meet someone, you don't know anything about them. The more time you spend with them, the more you know them, right? It's the same way with your camera. You learn to use it by taking pictures. I often take picture after picture, just to see what lighting is best, or trying out different settings on my camera. In the above picture, I thought there was a little too much light from the sky, and the lighting also made my son have too much shade under his hat.

So, I got down a little lower, just a tad, enough to see under that hat. But this time, I used the flash. While it filled in the shadow from the hat, it made his drooly little face quite shiny.

Fast forward several more shots, and now I have turned my subject so that there is a flowering tree and less open sky. The background is crowded, and my boy looks like he's asking, "What is that thing in front of your face, Mommy?" However, it's the lighting I'm playing with today, and now it's how I want it, so I'm happy. I'll never get these pictures printed anyway, they are just teaching me. But it's fun to learn!

Scrap Happy!

Tracking a Work in Progress

March 22nd

March 29th

April 18th

My husband has been building a clubhouse in our yard. It's something my daughter has always wanted, and he was hoping that this was a project that they could do together. She was out there with him when it was still cold enough to wear a coat. She handed him nails and tools, and kept him company. As he hammered, she was nearby building things out of the wood scraps that he leaves behind. Of course, there have been many days where she has run off with her friend and neighbor, leaving a lonely daddy behind to build alone. But this project is taking quite some time after all, and as a 6 year old, there isn't that much she can do to help. The neat thing to see, is that the building process has been fun for both her and for my husband. They don't talk about wanting this to be over and done with. Instead, it's almost like this is part of the "playing". She donned old clothes to help him paint yesterday, and I couldn't help but take a few pictures. Her hideout is still a little ways from completion, but that's OK. As Miley Syrus aka Hannah Montana would say, "It ain't about how fast I get there; ain't about what's waiting on the other side.... it's (about) the climb."

Scrap Happy!

the "I" in team

It's that time of the year again! Time to dust off the ole' bat and glove and focus on springtime sports. Last year was my daughter's first experience playing a sport that wasn't feminine in any way. But she is still very much a girl, and I wanted these page layouts to reflect that. I used soft pinks and lilacs and baseball stickers to do these pages. I also captured my daughter as she is, wearing her pink butterfly shirt to practice, swinging her pink bat and holding her pink baseball mitt, and taking her T ball pictures in front of the tulips that were in bloom.

It can be hard to get pictures during the game. I've noticed this with soccer and dance as well. The kids just seem so far away from you when they are on the field (or on stage). I've found it easier to get closer during practices, when the coaches probably won't mind as much. It's OK to ask for permission, and the coaches will probably appreciate that and try to make it easier for you to get a good shot if you ask. They will let you know the best time to take the picture, so that it won't interfere with practice.

While we are talking about coaches, I'd like to give you my little tip for making coaches feel special. I like to give my favorite coaches a little thank you gift at the end of the season. You can give a framed photo, or if you're willing to spend a little more, get something made with a picture of your child and the coach or the whole team. We gave my daughter's soccer coach a mug with the team picture on it last year. We were even able to personalize it to say thanks to the coach.

Right now, my daughter is just about to start Teeball for the spring season. She is also getting ready for her dance recital which will be at the beginning of next month. Soccer started 2 weeks ago. Whew! I have plenty of opportunities to take pictures; let's just hope I get time to scrap them!

Scrap Happy!

For more Easter page and picture ideas, simply click on my past blogs. I have several past blogs on Easter. Remember, Easter isn't really about eggs and bunnies. It's about a God who loved you so much that he gave his own child to save your life. Happy Easter!

Easter pages

Last year I took so many pictures of my daughter in her Easter dress. It was special because it was the first time she had picked out her own dress. I think she is so beautiful! When it came time to do the pages, I had a lot of fun, using sticker packs from most of the power pallets on the many pages. On this page, I included shots I had taken of her dancing around in the yard. I love it!

For this page, I used my pink pen to do most of the embellishing, framing the photos with it ....

and matching it to this sticker. This was where I got all the inspiration for this page. Since I didn't have any other stickers that would match this one, I made my own flowers.

This page was probably my favorite because it screams "KID!" It's just so colorful! I used the CM primary paper from one of the power pallets and started the word "jellybeans" with one of the everyday ABC stickers. I like how the papers all match in the pallets. It makes it super easy to mat a picture. Notice that I also cut the eggs so that I could have the bottom of the picture slip underneath them. I tossed a couple of jellybean stickers up in the corner and I was all set.

All the embellishments here are Creative Memories, and no, I do not sell it or get paid to mention them. I simply like the quality!

Scrap Happy!

Finding "me" time

I have been scrapbooking my son's album this week and I'm appreciating this desk that I can leave a scrapbooking mess on. In the past, I would scrapbook in the basement or years ago, upstairs! So, having my scrapbooking area set up so close to the action of the house is enabling me to get a lot more accomplished in the short time I have. The page I did last night contains one of my all time favorite pictures of my kids. I had it blown up to an 8x10 since I liked it so much because I wanted it to be a page of it's own. I decorated this page simply, using a quote sticker that I really liked from the Inspirations pack. (CM) I used a black pen to write my title, so that it would match. I drew the hearts freehand and then did something I don't normally do. I colored my finger and used it as a stamper to fill in the hearts. It gave them a soft, imperfect and personal feel.

When looking over all the pages I've done this week in my new son's book, this simple one was my favorite! I feel that most of the pages I've done this week are not that creative, and are pretty plain, as my goal is to get the pages completed. I have done a lot of journaling at this point, because I really wanted to write out the details of how we found out we were expecting him, his birth story and different things like that. I'm blessed to have saved one of the old baby boy kits from CM. It's now retired. I was tickled to find the baby boy sticker pack, still for sale on Creative Memories' website. They also have new baby packs, as well as new kids packs. I placed an order on the website and was pleased with how quickly they shipped it directly to me! Things are going to get accomplished now!

Scrap Happy!

Basketful of Clean Baby

Babies smell so good! I don't know if it's the special baby shampoo, the fact that they eat nothing but milk, or that they are so pure and sweet, but they smell delicious! When I hold my little man, his soft hair is just at the right level for my nose to smell, and for my lips to kiss him on the top of his bobbing little head.

I enjoyed my daughter as a baby. I still do. She's six, but since she has been sick, I am transfixed by her tiny little woman hands. When did they lose their chubbiness? When did her fingers get so long and slender? Since the baby, I find myself amazed by the fact that her legs seem to stretch on and on and her head is gigantic now, compared to my new baby boy. When did this happen? Until he was born 2 months ago, she was my baby! Now, she suddenly seems so grown up! You can see this in pictures where she is proudly holding her brother. I see it in daily life. She no longer calls me when she is going to get sick, she merely reaches for her basin. She answers the phone, doesn't expect me to check on her after I've put her to bed, and only needs help washing her long hair in the shower. I can casually suggest things to wear, but the days of my choosing her outfits are long over, even for family pictures.

I was so excited to get the pictures I ordered in the mail yesterday. Now I have pictures to scrap for my daughter's album. Exciting pictures of her becoming a big sister, and our giant pine trees being chopped down, our super bowl party and Valentine's day. I look forward to making fun pages for her to look at again and again. I love scrapbooking, duh! So I look forward to that aspect of it as well. But all of this is for her to remember how important she is to her daddy and I. I guess a big part of it is also for me to remember her as she was when she was still my baby, my little girl and soon to be a little lady.

Scrap Happy!

Taking Great Zoo Pictures

A lot of the same rules apply at the zoo, as they do in life. I took this picture of the camel, and while it's cute, scroll down and see how much better the camel looks when I took a close up of it. Rule: Close ups are the best!

I took 13 pictures of the lions and from several different angles. Once I was home, I went through and found the one I liked best. Rule: take a lot of pictures! Here is the lion roaring....

and here is my daughter roaring right back! I stuck my camera over the railing to get the picture of my daughter's face. In the picture below, you can't even tell she is roaring, and there is too much "nothing" in the picture. Boring! Rule: point of view is very important!

We move on to my favorite creatures at the zoo, and also the cutest!

This picture was taken right after my little guy had woken up from a nap. He was so happy to see us! The only problem here is the flash on glass. I had to use the flash, because there wasn't enough light inside and because it is very hard to get a good shot of my little guy without flash since he moves almost constantly as he tries to keep his head up, which makes pictures of him blurry! Rule: Make sure your kids are well rested if you want a smile.

This picture is just because we were in the right place at the right time. Rule: Have that camera ready, because you just never know when that photo opportunity will occur at the zoo!

Ok, I just liked this guy's expression! Rule: If the animals are closer than normal, take advantage of it!

And here we have my camel picture that I love so much! This was also another perfect zoo picture day because it was slightly overcast, which makes for good pictures.

Other zoo rules:

Don't take pictures through the fence. If you can see fencing or netting in the picture, it isn't going to work.

Bring extra batteries! We all know why and some of us have had to learn from experience. But if your batteries do run out, you may be able to get at least one more shot by shutting your camera off for a bit and even removing the batteries and then putting them back in.

Don't use a flash when taking pictures through the glass.

Sometimes it's nice to take picture of your kids from behind, looking at the animals. I like to do this but point something out to my daughter that is off to the side and causes her to look that way. Then I get a side view of her face, and it's really cute.

The Pittsburgh zoo has footprints of some animals in the cement, (I particularly like the polar bear) which you can have your kids put their feet next to. This makes an adorable picture.

Scrapbooking zoo pages is fun. Please take pictures of your kids at the zoo, and not just the animals. Then, when you scrapbook, you can put several pictures of animals on a page with at least one picture of your kids.

I like to get a picture of my daughter with the "Kid's Kingdom" sign at the zoo. You can see her grow through the years.

Getting pictures at the monkey house is tricky for me. Usually, I just enjoy the stinky little beasts and give up the idea of taking pictures there. I did get a cute one of my daughter looking at the gibbon this last time. It looks like he is looking back at her and they are both resting their heads. It's funny. To take it, I focused on her and didn't stand too close.

I hope you enjoyed my pictures and maybe learned something, I don't know! Are there any places or events you would like to take pictures, and would like ideas or tips? I'll try to help! Just leave me a comment and let me know. I'll do my best to answer your questions in one of my future blogs.

Scrap Happy!

As if I need another excuse to take pictures!

Last summer, I wrote a princess story specifically for each girl who attended Princess Camp. On the day of the photo shoot, I tried to take pictures that would go with the story I had written them. The last day of camp, I gave each of them photos that I had taken that week, some posed and some random shots and let them scrapbook their personalized books. Are you following me? I have since changed all 15 of the princess stories on my computer, putting my daughter's information in to make them HER stories and have created a collaboration of all of them for her to have. Now I just needed the pictures to go with the stories! The picture above is from the "Candy Princess" and the picture below is from "The Island Princess. " It has taken quite some time to personalize the stories, print them ( I ran out of ink!) and take all of these pictures to go with them! But right now, I'm actually taking a break from putting all of the stories into plastic sleeves and into a folder. So, I'm getting there.

Having just had a new baby, it was harder to find the time to do these things, but it was really nice to have that special time with my daughter, getting her dressed to match the story and having little photo shoots here and there. Today she wrote me a short little note (on toilet paper!) thanking me for making the book for her. I bought her some princess scrapbooking supplies, and intend on letting her have free reign designing pages for the pictures we will insert in the non-photo safe plastic folders. I'm hoping that she can scrapbook at her desk, while I am right nearby, catching up on her album! I'm sure we'll be reading these stories at bedtime for a few years to come!

A Digital Baby Album

I'm caught up on my new son's digital album because I do a few pages every time I have enough pictures. The fuzzy photo above is what the side of the screen looks like. it shows you the pages you have completed, and the page you see blank is left waiting for pictures I want to take of the baby's room.

He already has 38 pages in his album, and this is one that I just did today.

I'm really loving this kind of scrapbooking. My supplies aren't all out everywhere, my pages are so easy to switch around if I decide I want different pages facing one another, and there are so many cool things you can do with the Storybook 2 Creator program! After I took this picture of the above page, I decided I wanted to give the circular photos some shadow, so I did! It changed the page so much. I do miss my stickers, but you can purchase "digital stickers", I'm just being cheap and also, I know that the more toys I have to play with, the longer it will take me to do a page!

For example, I designed the page above, making the picture of the baby after his bath the background (it has a bit of a haze to it as well, to make it soft) and adding the pictures with soft edges to complete the page. This is the second page of his first bath. The first isn't shown here, and I will journal on it, leaving this page journal free. I still do my journaling later, even in my digital scrapbooking! See, uploading photos and creating pages are something I can do while nursing, and I save the journaling for a time when everyone is sleeping.

Scrap Happy!