Project Life Monthly, January thru March

Are you familiar with Project Life? It's a popular method of memory-keeping among scrapbookers and bloggers, and I did it faithfully throughout 2010 in its purest form, which is a "photo a day" sort of format. I took a step back during 2011, and didn't blog much at all. Now in 2012, the trend with many Project Lifers (like The Mom Creative, who I'm linking this post up with—welcome Mom Creative readers!) seems to be to capture a "week in the life" as opposed to one photo per day. I must be way ahead of the trend, then, because my Project Life this year is more of a "month in the life" format :0)

I'm still scrapbooking big events and treasured moments on their own special pages, but as for the photo-montage style of memory-keeping, I've been painting a broader picture by using my cool Becky Higgins Project Life page protectors for monthly spreads. (If you're familiar with the yearly Project Life kits, you'll notice that my cards are still from 2010's kit, since I've just used them sporadically!)

In January, the big events were Claire's baptism and Kate's birthday, both of which got their own pages in the scrapbook. But with these monthly spreads taking a more "behind the scenes" approach, I documented the other memories of the month, including the planning of those fun parties.

I'm saving each month's Sticky Belly sticker as Claire grows, to show alongside a photo or two of her on her monthday, the first of each month.

Party-planning dork that I am, I did a 6x12 page all about how much I enjoyed planning the big parties of January, including a page ripped from the back of my planner, where I make notes about upcoming events. I had made notes about color schemes and menu ideas for weeks if not months before the baptism and birthday parties. (Seriously, I even have a note in my current planner about a gift to make for Claire and my nephew in 2014, when they turn three. And I'll copy it over from planner to planner until we get to the 2013-14 one. I'm THAT big of a planner.)

The other side of the 6x12 is all about Kate's new favorite book, Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, which we first discovered on my mom's Nook. I sketched out an illustration from the book and mimicked the book's text in my design.

 The final page of my January spreads features a few fun pics and some fingerprint art Kate and I made.

For February, I featured the girls around Valentine's Day, and the story of my Valentine's surprise for Matt. I booked a hotel room for us across the street from where we would be having dinner, and surprised him at dessert with the room key-card in a pink envelope. (I had arranged with his parents, our babysitters, for it to be an overnight stay :0)

The opposite page showed the melted crayon hearts Kate and I made for her valentines to her classmates, as well as the heart-shaped pancakes we had for dinner, and two little pockets with the valentines Kate received from her classmates (in addition to candy and other trinkets).

The final page for February included Claire's 3-month milestones, a little pic of Kate's gymnastics (more to come—it's a full-fledged obsession now!), a treasured pic of me painting with my girls, and a "bit of life" documenting our love of Downton Abbey.

March featured more of Claire getting bigger and more active, as well as fun family times like St. Patrick's Day.

I took the girls to Louisville early in the month, so I have a whole page with pics of my parents and my childhood best friend, whom we spent time with on that brief visit.

St. Pat's got most of the next page, along with Claire's first zoo trip and a snippet of my March Madness NCAA bracket.

Kate and I had a fun Mommy-Daughter-Date on St. Pat's, so that is half the page, with the green milk, her haircut and our lunch date, plus our annual green family portrait.

 We ended March with  a fun birthday party for one of Kate's classmates and a couple sick days. I also captured a bit about Kate's current obsession with opposites. When she notices an opposite, like sitting up high with Claire down low, she shouts, "high and low! OPPOSITES!"

Kate burned her arm sliding down one of the inflatables at the party and was kind of a party pooper for 45 minutes after that, but she perked up in time for cake, and we had fun with her little school friends.

That page brought some more color to my otherwise all green March pages! I'm glad to be creating a montage of daily life at least on a monthly basis, if not weekly or daily. Life is so busy right now, we're too busy living it to document it, and that's probably the way it should be. Sometimes I'm struck with joy in a moment and my instinct is to grab the camera. There's a place for that (a place I love!) but I also need to remind myself to just enjoy the moment. Capture it in my heart, rather than in a photo.