Smile Brother | Yearbook 2013

I've been working on this one on and off for some time now. I basically scraplifted the LO with inspiration from here and here, but I had to make the digital template from scratch. I'm a little proud of myself for figuring it out and putting all the chevron pieces together. I would love to know how to make the ends of the papers curl in Photoshop Elements, but I'm not even sure it's possible. Probably, but I just don't know how yet.

I love these two boys. They are such a joy. And I love how Otto always calls Atlas, "Brother".  I never encouraged it, but that's just what Otto calls him. It's cute.

Looking forward to working more on our family Yearbook.

So Thankful | In Pictures

I have so much to be thankful for. My most thankful thing last weekend was getting out into the wide-open space with my family. It was beautiful seeing the cousins together, and the love they show one another.

 

 

Frank Lake | Yearbook 2013

 

 

Three more for our 2013 book.

Absolutely LOVE the minimalistic look of the top page. It could almost be an album cover! This is, I think, the best photo yet this year! These were taken the day before Easter, in March.

Atlas Sunshine | Yearbook 2013

Here's my little sunshine!

I mostly used a Facebook Hop freebie from Sweet Shoppe Designs for this one. All their designers pitched in and there were some amazing kits!

From You Are My Happy Collaboration: Paper: Melissa Bennett, Studio Basic Designs, Sugarplum Paperie; Elements: Jady Day Studio, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Zoe Pearn, Meghan Mullens, Melissa Bennett, Llilla Designs; Journaling Card, Word Labels : Meghan Mullens, Jenn Barrett, Julie Billingsley, Juliana Kneipp, Misty Cato, Mari Keogetenberg
Other: Background Paper: Miss Tiina; Hexagon Cutting Mask: Robyn Meierotto; Woodgrain Brush: Just Jaimee; Actions/Styles: Shadows: Gennifer Bursett; Folded Paper: Mommyish

Getting Crafty | Easter

I like to think that the boys love to craft, but I've finally allowed myself to admit the truth. Only one loves to craft. The other gets excited about it, but it doesn't last long. Otto loves to manipulate things with his hands - he enjoyed piling the cotton balls shown on this project into a mountain, gluing some in the process, but then decided he was done - not even a quarter of the way into the project! Atlas, on the other hand, completed his entire project then wanted to finish Otto's for him! Then he got excited as he watched me stapling the ears on, wanting to staple something himself. That started another project of stapling a book (a few folded pieces of paper together) and drawing in it. Also completed. The whole time Atlas was crafting, Otto kept himself busy cutting pieces of paper into tinier pieces of paper. A boy's fascination with scissors...

The bottom picture shows the few Spring/Easter crafts we've done so far: painting on cardboard (the hands belong to Atlas), coffee filter butterflies (Otto: one. Atlas: three.), and the cotton ball bunnies we made today.

I can't wait to do this craft with the boys for Easter FHE:

(click on the picture for the link. Includes a Free Printable)

Seriously Happy|Digital LO

Template(modified slightly): Nini Goes Digi; Arrows with stiching: Pink Trike Design; Paper: Echo Park, This&That Charming; Frames, Washi Tape: Gennifer Bursett; Yellow Alpha: Design By Dani  

Journaling reads: Atlas has 2 different faces when he's playing: serious or happy. Whichever face he's making he doesn't go halfway. Serious and contemplative or happy and smiling. At the playground Sept 2, 2012.

Critical Stage of Development... Who knew?!

 The other day, a friend and I were discussing some critical stages of development in our children. He mentioned how they have discovered that their son had missed some stages of development in his young life, and they are now trying to implement learning those stages now that he is older. One of these stages is crawling. I don't even know the half of what good crawling can be for left brain right brain development and on and on. Then my friend started to talk about how some mothers would cringe to find out that throwing their children high in the air (like some Dads do) is actually a very important stage of development as well. And I thought....

 

I think we've got that one covered.

 

In fact, I believe the boys are pretty darn brilliant in this area.

  

No worries here.

{excuse the messy bedroom. can you tell these pictures weren't planned?!}

Pom Pom War

A little while ago I let the boys have at 'er with all the mini pom poms I've been hoarding saving. If I remember correctly, I just wanted them to be doing something so that I could be doing my something. Totally worked.  At first, they had fun filling and dumping and refilling the five or six empty containers I had given them (ideally for sorting, but I'm a Mama to two very active boys. Who am I kidding?!) Then it became all-out pom pom war, then rolling in the pom poms, filling dump trucks, and so forth. Our family room looked like a pom pom bomb had exploded! Then the boys very diligently helped me pick up every.single.mini. pom pom. 

I'm still finding random pom poms to this day.

My Brother My Friend Subway Art

Last week I was in some kind of funk and just couldn't motivate myself to do much of anything. But I was feeling bad for my boys. We just weren't doing all the usual stuff. I decided that we needed to do something creative. I've been seeing some cool subway art around the internet lately and thought maybe we could make our own. I got so excited that I skipped a step I should have done, then payed for it later on.  I will tell you how I made this and include the step I should have done!

1. I used a plain old 16x20 stretched canvas from Michaels. This had been sitting in my basement forever, with grand plans in my head of what I might do with it. But, plans are better carried out and I decided that my brain was taking too long for those other plans!

2. PREP YOUR CANVAS. Okay, so I didn't do this and had to go back later to touch up the letters because the paint bled under the vinyl letters! So. Very important to prep - use white paint, gesso, whatever. Just don't skip this step!

3. Cut vinyl letters (or get them cut). The bold letters I printed off my computer, then cut them into the vinyl with an exacto, the fun font I cut with my cricut. Stick the letters on your canvas how you want them. Make sure they are well sealed.

4. This is the fun part. Let your kids have free reign with paint, brushes, fingers, and hands! If they are littles like mine are, point out all the "white parts" to cover.

 This is what it looked like when the boys were finished.

 Atlas: "My work here is done."

5. Allow to dry. When paint is dry, you can spray the whole thing with a lacquer spray for more of a sheen. I used acrylic paint, and I thought it ended up looking a little dull, but the lacquer gives it just enough of a shine. 

6. Carefully peel off your vinyl letters. You can do this before step 5 if you want to spray everything, letters and all.

 As you can see here, there was a bit of bleeding. I ended up touching up the bold letters, but not the names. The letters would have been much crisper had I only been a little more patient and did #2!

So there you go. Totally easy, Totally do-able, Totally Cool art for your home.

Zoo Fun

I took a template challenge from Sahlin Studio and came up with this. I love how digital can be so fast in completing and then sharing. And I didn't have to wait for weeks to get all my crap together to order (and pick up!) photos from Costco or Walmart. I actually did a traditional LO on the weekend, but I probably won't ever get around to taking a photo of it... because I'm lazy like that. So I'll share this one with you instead.

If you are into digital scrapbooking, go check out Sahlin Studio, where I got the template, papers, and most of the elements I used here in her new freebie, Fleetwood. Thank you Sahlin Studio! You can find her August monthly template challenge, with free template here. And while you're there, check her archives for past template challenges.

Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, Monday

 We flew a kite tonight. The wind was perfect and the boys were mesmerized.

This morning, the ground was too wet for my outdoor fitness class, so I pushed up my sleeves and got some housework done. After Atlas woke up from his nap, we had a late lunch of smoothies, which are a hit around here, that's for sure!

Atlas is upset that I won't let him play with his straw, getting smoothie all over my nice clean floor. I'm a mean Mama that way, I guess.

My baby turned 1 today! The time has flown and he has been a wonderful boy. He's been taking steps lately, but today he took several steps on his own initiative, without any help. Way to go, birthday boy! We sure love you!

Mini Album: Atlas Birth Day

I love making acrylic mini albums. I made one for Otto's "Birth" day (here) so I also made one for Atlas. I love the colors- I had decided on them before he was born. I love the mustard yellow and teal and I figured I could add pale pink or white if he was a girl, or brown for boy. Yay for us that I could add brown!

I also added some owls and toadstools here and there. I love the nature-y stuff and it's always a great thing to put on boy pages!

I added some scrap pieces of fabric to the o-ring to finish it all off.

At least 30 reasons to be SO VERY grateful!

About a month ago, I did a stupid thing. Very stupid. And I don't use that word very often. But what I did was colossally stupid. To make a long story short, I deleted ALL my pictures. They hadn't been backed up and I thought they were GONE. I cried for days. I cried for weeks.

Thankfully for me, I had a friend I could turn to. The first time he did a recovery, he came up with around 21000 pictures. Unfortunately, they were all crap. Either files which had been deleted previously or files which were way too small to do anything with (we're talking 8KB or smaller). And there was virtually nothing of what I was so sad to have lost - the first 7 months of Atlas's life!! How could I have been so daft?! So, away went my external hard drive to my friend again, who ran another recovery on it. Came up with nothing. I thought that was it, and I was trying to be resolved to this fate. However, to my great surprise and joy, when I went to pick up the drive, my friend handed me another smaller drive and said, "I was able to recover about 9000 files which I copied to this drive. Take a look and see if they are what you lost." He had gone the extra mile and thought he'd run a completely different recover program. He recovered almost EVERYTHING! I say almost because there are some random pictures I know are missing. But I'm definitely NOT complaining! What was recovered is so very precious to me, as you can understand. So... here are at least 30 reasons I am grateful:

1. Otto laughing with Andy at the zoo.
2. Andy, Otto and I outside out house on a Sunday morning.
3. Otto kissing my pregnant belly.
4. Our first looks at Atlas.
5. Holding Atlas in my arms for the first time.
6. Otto meeting Atlas for the first time.
7. A first photo shoot with Atlas.
8. Atlas asleep and bundled up on the quilt I made for him.
9. Otto hiding and surprising us at his grandparents (in the closet).
10. Otto helping take Atlas' temperature at the midwives' office.
11. Atlas lounging.
12. The cutest picture of Otto ever. Happy to stop jumping on the bed for one second to flash a million dollar smile for Mama.
13. Another million dollar smile. This time from Atlas.
14. Otto and Andy pouring water in the bath. This was too cute!
15. My handsome husband.
16. One of the many pictures I've taken of Otto in his bed with random things around him. This one is classic - he's asleep right in the middle of the hula hoop!
17. Otto blowing bubbles at a family reunion last summer.
18. Oh, my Atlas. What a little sweetheart!
19. Otto playing the harmonica for a ready audience of one.
20. Andy and Atlas having a wee nap together, hand-in-hand.
21. Otto's first pony ride.
22. Otto and Atlas laying on the quilt and playing.
23. Otto and Atlas in the stroller together.
24. Otto having fun with his cousins in our jumping tent.
25. The bandaid on Otto's head. He said that Pappy had got it for him. "Pappy, so nice."
26. A happy little Atlas!
27. The boys and Mama having some fun play time. They love all the bouncy songs and want to do them all together.
28. A quick kiss. (Can it get any better than this?!)
29. A bundled up Atlas.
30. A cute Atlas beside his favorite horse.

These are moments in my life and the lives of my family which I never want to forget and which I want to be able to share for years to come. Great memories, every-day memories. These are so precious.

Introducing Atlas Bao Court

Atlas Bao
June 20, 2011
8 pounds 10 ounces

We are all home and on the mend, enjoying the
first moments of these sweet cheeks and soft toes.
{Bao pronounced Bay-O, comes from Baobab Tree}