Summer To-Do List

School ended Friday (finally!) so today I made a summer to-do list with my children. After I reigned in their expectations a bit (no out-of-state trips or overnights at Great Wolf Lodge), we had a lot of fun. They came up with a lot of ideas all on their own, but still cheered at some of my simple suggestions. Now that it is hanging on the wall, they like to look at the list and tell each other "Wow, we are going to have a fun summer!"
I'm not original in coming up with this idea, by any means, but here is how I did it. I bought a poster frame at Michaels--with a 40% off coupon it came to around $5. Then I cut five pieces of scrapbook paper into 1.25 inch strips and used scrapbook adhesive to stick the strips directly to the paper that came in the poster frame. Once the entire piece of paper was covered, I trimmed off the excess paper. So simple!

For the "Happy Summer" pennant print that you see at the top of our list, I used this printable that I found at The Rubber Punkin and just cut it down a bit.

I wrote our list directly on the glass/plastic on the front of the frame with a Sharpie. It comes off with Windex and a bit of scrubbing (I tested it).

Here are some other great summer to-do lists:

• whatever ~ this one makes me crave an old-fashioned green chalkboard!
• Laura Winslow ~ this one is done for you--just print it! 101 ideas for summer fun!
  
• eighteen25 ~ these ladies always have something going on, and this is no exception!
• Sunny Side Up ~ Erin's list is on poster board and is cute, colorful, and full of summer fun!

Fathers Day Gifts

I think my husband had a good Father's Day--he smiled a lot, at any rate! The children made him (with my help) a handprint tie and they were so proud when he wore it to Mass. They have also insisted that he wear it to work on Monday. I think this will be the first time he has worn a tie to the office! I found the tie idea on The Littlest Crafter and loved it! Basically you just take a white tie and use fabric markers (mine are Crayola brand and I bought them at Michaels) to trace your children's handprints on the tie. Easy-peasy!
We went to Mass in the morning (and brought Father David cookies and Father's Day cards--he loved them!) and then out to lunch. After lunch my husband finally had time to thoroughly look at more of his gift. I had each child fill out an interview form that I printed out from Big D & Me and they had some great answers. Apparently my husband is 9.5 feet tall and is robbing the cradle because he is 4000 years old!

Happy Dada Day (as we say in our house!) to all the fathers out there!

Digital Project Life Scrapbook

I love to scrapbook, but I am behind. Dreadfully behind. So behind that it feels as though I have a giant snowball rolling along behind me that is going to crush me soon. In fact, I'm not quite sure I still can say that "I love to scrapbook" but rather that I love the idea of scrapbooking. Truth be told, the idea of catching up on all my scrapbooking is overwhelming and daunting! I have the supplies, I have oodles of digital pictures, but I do not have the time!

Enter Project Life by Becky Higgins. Basically it is scrapbooking made simple--putting the focus on the pictures rather than on all the finicky crafting supplies. You can do it in a picture a day format (the 365 projects a lot of people do) or in your own format.

I first heard about Project Life on Erin's blog: Sunny Side Up. Erin has three children and manages to find time to scrapbook using a modified version of Project Life--all of a sudden this scrapbook thing started to seem more doable...so I ordered a Project Life kit. Um, that was over a year ago...and I haven't used it yet. *sigh* THEN, for some crazy reason, I ordered a second kit a couple of months ago. I'm not really sure why because now I have TWO unopened Project Life kits. At least they're different colors...

Then--THEN--I saw a video Becky Higgins posted on her Facebook page. That video is what made me realize I can love scrapbooking again. I can keep up with my pictures and not be years and years behind. I can scrapbook and use doo-dads...or not. It is totally up to me!

I am NOT a digital scrapbooker. Not. However, even I was able to make a digital yearbook (easily!!) for my family and it is beautiful. Seriously, BEAUTIFUL. Now I can make digital yearbooks for each year and save my paper scrapbooking for major family vacations or our Christmas album and not worry about scrapping every family moment.

Look at that beautiful book! I was able to customize pretty much anything I wanted on it--and could have done even more than I did. LOVE it.

(Don't mind my finger...just covering up our last name...) The printing in this book is so lovely. Everything is crisp and the pages have a great weight to them.

Here is the month of January, complete with journaling! I thought it would be difficult to select just seven pictures, but it really wasn't...by the end of this book I really felt as though this gave an excellent picture of our year. I did these monthly pages pretty much using the existing templates, but you can toss the templates and just cover the pages with pictures if that is your choice.

In September we went to Disneyland--here is the regular monthly layout for September. This was the first month where I felt as though I couldn't summarize our month in just seven pictures...so I added some extra pages!

Here are the Disneyland pages I added right after the September monthly pages. I still plan to do another traditional paper scrapbook for our trip, but I like seeing the trip represented in this yearbook, too.

I covered up the last page that was in the album with more of our own pictures--this album is so easy to customize!

Even the back cover has a full color picture of my babies (yes, they're tossing leaves into the air)!

And of course the title is on the spine of the book--I'm already looking forward to having a whole row of these yearbooks lined up on our shelf.

This yearbook is called "Digital Project Life" on Becky Higgins' site and Facebook page. You can make an entire book and preview it before you pay anything--this is what I did...however I loved the end result so much that I ordered three of them. One for each of my children and one for me to keep.

I shared the finished book with my children last night as they were finishing their dinner--I treated it like storytime. It was so fun to see their faces light up as the pictures sparked various memories. This is something that NEVER happened with the digital pictures all closed up in my computer and the bins and bins of unused scrapbooking supplies. It feels SO GOOD to have my family enjoying these memories because that is what scrapbooking truly is about--it isn't about cutting and pasting and fancy fonts.

First Communion

Last month my daughter celebrated her First Holy Communion. She was doubly blessed because she celebrated twice! Of course only one was truly her "first" First Communion, but she wore her white garments for both.
Our parish priest celebrated the First Communion Mass and he is the same one who baptized her, so that made it extra special. She did a good job with the big chalice, too!
The following weekend, her school had their First Communion celebration and she was invited to celebrate again with her classmates in that parish. Although it was still a Catholic Mass, it was a very different sort of celebration (it was a dedicated First Communion Mass rather than having the celebration integrated into the regular Mass the way our parish does it) so it was interesting to see the differences.
My sweet girl looked beautiful on her special day. She wore a silk dupioni dress from Strasburg Children and I had her veil custom made by the woman who made my wedding veil. It is a child-size version of my wedding veil. Perfect for my bow-loving little girl who really really wanted to wear Mama's veil (that was too big and that was the wrong shade of white).
I bought her this beautiful rosary from Etsy...and, my favorite, a beautiful little clay bowl to keep it in.
This bowl is gorgeous and was packaged SO beautifully! It is personalized for my daughter so I can't show the details, but click over to Etsy to look at the shop for Clarey Clayworks. They make beautiful bowls for all sorts of occasions and will personalize them. It is just lovely and perfectly holds her new rosary.

Vacation

Something about this picture resonates with me. I just love it. It is my favorite picture from our Easter vacation week.
That is my little boy walking up the beach and the church in the background is the Catholic church we attended on Easter Sunday. Such a sweet little church (lots of hand carving and nautical theming on the interior) and very nice people there too.
One last picture to remember our time at the beach this spring--winter hats and coats and rubber rainboots. Chilly temps and some liquid sunshine, but we still made it down to the beach!

Easter Vacation

Happy Easter! It is still the Easter season in the Catholic church, so technically I'm not late with my greetings even if Target has moved on and is selling 4th of July decorations already. We were on vacation for Easter and the week following and it was wonderful! We went on our annual beach trip and it was cold but tons of fun! Before leaving for our trip, we went on an Easter egg hunt.
Yes, the egg hunt was inside our local grocery store! It is fun for the children and perfect for our weather conditions. My children LOVE it and for weeks afterward hope they will find a stray egg leftover from the hunt. (It has never happened, but they still hope!)
Next we set out on our long drive to our vacation destination. Once we arrived, we went for a quick (chilly!) walk and then started getting ready for Easter as it was already Saturday afternoon. First we planted these magic seeds that I came across. (Idea found via Meet the Dubiens) The magic seeds enthralled my children as they had never seen seeds this big!
They planted their seeds in little pots and Easter grass (multi-colored crinkled paper) and put them in front of the "lovely" faux fireplace in the vacation condo. I told them I was pretty sure it would take all night for anything magic to happen, but they still kept checking.
Sure enough, by morning, two bunny lollipops had sprouted out of those pots! So cute! The children were thrilled and hope we come across some magic seeds to plant again next year!
We had a little egg hunt in the condo living area and the children were happy with their baskets. We've used the same baskets since my daughter's first Easter. I bought four identical wicker baskets her first Easter in the hope that I would one day have four children. I have been blessed with two children (and love them dearly, so I don't want to say "only" two children) so it looks like the other two baskets are for Mama and Dada.
These glasses make me smile! I think the Easter Bunny knew that Mama likes to take goofy pictures of her babies and this will make a perfect calendar picture!
Our Easter Sunday Mass was spent at a quaint little ocean front Catholic church. In this picture my children are standing in the church parking lot directly in front of our car. Look at that view! Breathtaking! The church was tiny but so sweet and the priest's message was wonderful. We really enjoyed the service.
One of our family traditions on Easter Sunday is to go for a drive after church and then get ice cream. Well, if you know the area, you can look at this family picture and guess where our vacation drive took us. We had a nice tour of this place and then enjoyed some fresh ice cream. Yum!
And, of course, no Easter is complete in our family without Bunny Cake! This one is rather messy and covered in crumbs and little fingerprints because I had lots of "help", but we had fun working on it together. I baked it home and we decorated it on Easter Sunday.

It was a busy day but so fun and so full of family time. Really a perfect Easter for our family.

Tulip Fields

As usual in the spring, life is crazy around here. We took a break from the craziness last weekend though and took a trip to visit the beautiful tulip fields.
Luckily the weather cooperated and we had a break in our cold weather and pouring rain--it was actually sunny and in the 50s for a change! We enjoyed the sunshine and the beautiful blooms.
My daughter wore all her tulip gear--including her tulip sunglasses, sweater, and tulip turtle shirt! We've gone to visit the tulips every year since she was four months old and she has always worn tulip themed clothing from Gymboree. I'm going to be sad when she no longer wants to "dress the part" and match the flowers!
No tulip themed clothing for this little guy! He was happy to wear his froggy boots and look at the flowers. He was not so happy about the port-a-potty though--he's still complaining about that experience!
My last picture of the day is my favorite picture--and it is a genuine one. They adore each other and I adore them. (Yes, they do argue--but they really do love each other SO much.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from my little leprechauns!

Last night we had leprechaun pie for dessert and then this morning those dratted leprechauns tinted our milk green! Pesky little things! My five year old was not amused and next year he is determined to set leprechaun traps all over the refrigerator because he is tired of them doing that to his milk every year. Meanwhile my seven year old had to check all over our doors for leprechauns because she realized we have shiny doorknobs and leprechauns like shiny things. Alas she found no leprechauns hiding behind the doors.

subway art from eighteen-twentyfive

Have a great day--I hope the leprechauns don't play too many tricks on you!

Children's Reading Area

old family room and toy closet/play area

Prior to the spring of 2009, I had a very teeny tiny family room to go along with the teeny tiny bedrooms for my children. At a loss for what to do for extra space for my children's toys, I ended up turning a little used closet under the stairs into a toy closet for them.

old family room and toy closet/play area

They loved the space and it was a wonderful way to expand their play area without the expense of building onto our home. Fortunately in the spring of 2009 we were able to bump out the back wall of our family room and kitchen area. We added approximately 270 square feet to our house. Not only did this give us a larger family room, but it also enabled us to seat our entire family of four (plus a couple of guests!) at our kitchen table. This gave me the chance to move all of the toys OUT of the family room and into the room that had been the dining room. Moving the toys in addition to building the addition really made the first floor of our house feel bigger! (We're still stuck with teeny tiny bedrooms though...but at least they don't have many toys in them!)

After moving all of the toys, the toy closet ended up unused for over a year. Actually, it ended up being the place where I shoved all the stuff I needed to donate to charity. Finally I decided to reclaim it as a reading area for my children.
The little pink chair in the doorway is one I found in my old room at my mom's house. I think she bought it at Ikea fifteen years ago! I tossed a pillow on the floor as well as my children's Pillow Pets. (As an aside, I love having a "home" for these Pillow Pets! I'm big on toys having homes.)
I put Golden Books in a basket on the floor and put picture books in the book sling shelf along the back of the closet. The only item I bought for this reading area is the book sling I purchased from Amazon (it is by KidKraft and I paid around $50) but there are different versions at multiple retailers. Just like the rain gutter book shelves I put up in my son's room, I think it is great to have bookshelves that allow children to see book covers.
My children were so excited when I showed them their new reading area! They call it "The Book Nook" and love reading in there. It is a cozy space that they can make as snug as they wish. I love providing different areas for my children to read and this one definitely is proving to be a favorite of theirs.

Linking to Sanctuary Arts at Home's Refresh Your Room

Family Exploring at the Garden

Saturday was a beautiful but chilly day in our area. We took advantage of the break in the weather to enjoy a beautiful 150 acre nature preserve located fifteen minutes from our house.
It is an amazing place. There is an open meadow area, forested areas, manicured gardens, moss gardens, a Japanese garden, a waterfall, a French Chateau style estate home, a reflecting pool...just an amazing, amazing place to visit. All of this and breathtaking waterviews, too. I'm floored to think this once was a private estate.
My two don't really understand the concept of a Japanese meditation garden (I'm a little fuzzy on it myself) but they do know that they are NOT allowed to run through the carefully raked sand!
It was so nice to get out for a nice long walk as a family and do some exploring in a new area. We've been to this garden before, but we haven't really explored it much until today. Now we know we have to keep coming back to watch the changing of the gardens during the upcoming seasons!
They were fascinated by this little waterfall. I can't wait to come back in the spring and see all those rhodies around it in bloom! We did come across some early blooming flowers on our Saturday visit, but not any rhododendrons.
My favorite picture of the day! So fun!

By the way, for you Silhouette fans (like ME!), The DIY Showoff is giving away one! My Repurposed Life also has a Silhouette to giveaway! Head on over to enter...or stay away...far, far away so that I can win! ;)