Scrapbooking before Kids #TBT

I love to look through my scrapbooks—usually, the more recent ones of our family adventures in the last couple years, seeing how much the kids have grown and changed, etc. But recently I picked an older book off the shelf, and I just marveled at all the fun pages I made back before I had kids!

It's not just that most of our ordinary life and fun events involve the kids now (so of course they feature in most scrapbook pages) but I was also forced to get more creative to even find things to scrapbook. See, it's not just about the events getting documented, but the joy of the craft. When I got/get the urge to scrapbook, I'll find things to scrap about. And, of course, I had more free time to spend hours on a page, cutting out tiny embellishments, stamping out the lettering, etc.

2003: I did a whole two-page spread on the church I went to my last two years of college. (This was my stint in the Episcopal church, discovered through the guy I dated my junior year. I kept going and got even more involved after we broke up—and still went out to lunch with his mom sometimes!)

2007: I used a couple pics of Matt and I enjoying cocktails before a friend's wedding to make a page devoted to a "Friends" quote! (Chandler's boss says "There's no I in team," and Chandler quips, "but there are two in martini, so meet me at the bar!)

and like an elderly shut-in with only the weather to talk about, I did a page about the crazy heat that summer! (I tried to fry an egg on the blacktop. It didn't work.)

2008:  The author of the first book I edited was profiled in the paper (with a sidebar about the book) so i scrapped that, of course. The page protector is cut such that you can actually fold out and read the whole article. Opposite that, I did a page devoted to the beloved rabbit I had my senior year of college.

Actually, I did fancy pages about a lot of the special people and creatures in my life. Here's one all about Charlotte, our "first child," so to speak. She was a gift from Matt for Christmas 2004, so she's almost ten years old now. These pics were from around 2006-7, probably, and they were the most recent I could find when I had to make her "Lost Cat" posters in fall 2011. Sad!

 

I did a lovey-dovey page about Matt in 2007 too. Like the cat, Mommy and Daddy don't get a lot of photo love after kids, either. 

 

My dad got some scrapbook love in 2007 when I did a spread about his stint as Kentucky State Parks Commissioner. 

 Sometimes, scrapping was a way to preserve and highlight old photos I had sitting around. These on a page I titled "Pretty Mommy" were of my mom from 1970-71. Love it.

And I honored my grandmother, whose name was passed on from her mother (in center photo) and great-grandmother and is part of Kate's name as well.

I did pages all about our homes in our first years of marriage: the duplex where we first lived, complete with paint samples to show the color scheme of each room!

 

 And the parsonage we lived in from 2007-2011, including not only a sketch of the floor plan, but a flip book of the floor plans of the duplex and Matt's and my apartments in Nashville during our single days.

Finally, the scrapbook page that changed it all. . . yes, I surprised Matt with the news of our first pregnancy via a scrapbook page. The photos and journaling of Matt's reaction were added later, of course, but I actually did have the sticks there on the page when I opened the book and said, "Check out the scrapbook page I did while you were gone!"

Our lives—and my scrapbooks—would never be the same.

This post is linked up with The Mom Creative's "Throwback Thursday Stories" #TBTstories.

Starting School #TBTstories

Linking up with Throwback Thursday Stories on The Mom Creative.
This week: 1987. I was six.

Kate will start kindergarten two months from tomorrow. That's right—early August. (Last year, I think public schools here started July 31, so at least this is a little closer to "fall.") In any case, I'm super excited about her starting "real school." Field trips, school projects, getting to know her teacher, all that fun stuff. I feel like the dorkiest mom out there to be so excited about this, but maybe I'm not alone. Matt's the one who's feeling misty-eyed about this milestone.

The pictures above were from my first day of first grade. I did preschool and kindergarten at a church preschool, so first grade was the start of my elementary school experience, as kindergarten will be for Kate. I don't know if Kate will pose so adorably on the step of the school bus (or even if we'll have her ride the bus in the mornings) but you can bet I'll be taking pics in front of our house with Kate and her little backpack. She'll be wearing a uniform (public schools here do "standard attire") but otherwise, I don't think the scene will look too much different. Lots of things change, but the excitement and sentimentality over the first day of school is a constant.

Project Life Monthly: April-May

We took a "vacation/staycation" last week, so in addition to a few days away, we enjoyed lots of fun downtime at home—which meant I got to do a lot of scrapbooking, which was so nice. I did my April and May layouts, though our adventures from last week are still forthcoming, of course. (I just uploaded the pics and will share those soon!)

 

 I did several "traditional" layouts in addition to the Project Life divided pages, including the one above I titled "Springtime Sweeties," with those cute coordinating polka-dot and umbrella papers I've had in my stash for a while.

Below, a few pictures of our kitchen remodel, as we went from peeling white thermofoil and blistering formica to wood and granite. My mom (who really needs to get a job at Home Depot, or as a quality-control inspector for a home builder) project-managed the thing for me, so I included a couple pics of the fun we had while she was in town helping out—Chuck-e-Cheese and the Muppet movie!

 For Easter, I used a 3-3x3 page between two bigger pages to accommodate all the pictures

After Easter, I had a couple pages of other fun stuff we did in April. (I tilted the camera to crop BGC's face out, but both those pics are so cute, I wish I could share. She's getting more of a personality all the time!)

 And the girls loved getting their faces painted at the Main Street Festival in Franklin.

 Then there was May—the first Saturday in May, to be specific! That is, Derby Day. One divided page for a few pics and other little scraps—a brunch ticket, the card of the restaurant Matt and I ate at on our Oaks night date, and a page from the racing guide. I embellished the month card with a Derby ticket on one side and a bit about what the girls did that day on the other.

Two of the traditional pages I did were for Derby (above) and Kate's pre-k graduation (below). Like Easter, I added a 3-3x3 page to the graduation stuff, to include more pictures and the text of the little poem the kids read during the ceremony.

One of the page protectors I used has a long vertical strip, so I gave Kate a strip of paper and asked her to write whatever she wanted, so I could have a good sample of what her handwriting was like as she finished pre-K. She chose to write her own name and the names of the other girls in her class.

I hope you have a hobby that gives you a stress release and creative fulfillment. I love how scrapbooking gives me a creative outlet and creates something special for our family to treasure for years to come.
For more Project Life posts, check out the link-up on The Mom Creative.

Scars Fade

It was a year ago (Saturday, but I didn't get around to blogging) that Claire busted her forehead open on the edge of a church pew. I was so worried about how such a front-and-center scar would bother her in years to come, whether she would want to hide it under bangs or whatnot.

A year later, I can say I highly doubt that will be a concern. We kept it well-sunscreened last summer and moisturized throughout the first six months (I used vitamin-E lotion and Mederma, but read that it's really more the moisturization that helps rather than any specific concoction). And it's already barely noticeable. By the time she's old enough to be self-conscious about such things, it will be hard to spot at all (and for those that do, it will make a great story; the PK whose church-related scars are more than just emotional ;0)

The stitches didn't dissolve like they should have, so they were in a few days longer than necessary, and then I worried that would add to the severity of the scar (2 months after, above). But, by the time I was taking some pictures in advance of Claire's second birthday, I noticed that it depended on the angle whether you saw the thing at all. I used some of these pics on her party invitation, and it probably looked like I photoshopped out the scar in a couple of them, but I didn't touch up any of them—it just looks different at different angles!

So now, one year out, it's not that noticeable at all, and what is is just Claire! She's beautiful, and I believe scars are just part of who we are (don't let my concern over how she would feel about it as a teenager belie that point!) I have a scar in my hairline that no one ever notices (from busting my head open at age 2) but I wouldn't mind if they did, and my stomach is a proud array of markings, from stretch marks to the scar left by my belly button ring, which I left in way too long into my pregnancy with Kate!

Claire is an awesome two-and-a-half year old, and from her serious, observational side to her silly, crazy side, I know she'll have some stories to tell . . . most of which will have nothing to do with a church pew.

Big Girl Bed

Claire enjoyed a fun milestone this weekend when we converted her crib to a toddler bed. Kate never experienced that, because by the time she was at the point of refusing to sleep in her crib we were already pregnant with Claire and preparing to move into our new house. So, we just put the crib mattress on the floor for a month or two until we moved and Kate got a twin bed (which she has slept in maybe 30 times since we moved in three years ago—she prefers the floor).

Unlike Kate, who learned to climb out of the crib at 19 months (the video I took of it is reminiscent of a soldier in basic training), Claire never even tried to climb out; she just told me one night at about 28 months that she wanted to sleep on the floor. So, we laid a blanket out next to her crib, with a little pillow and blanket for cover, and she started sleeping there. After a week or so, the girls realized what Claire's nighttime freedom meant: they could stay up late together! So, Kate has been indoctrinating Claire in her night owl habits of coloring pictures, taping them to the bedroom door, changing clothes, and ultimately falling asleep whenever, wherever. Sometimes together, sometimes apart.

Here's how we found them one night:

 That would be the floor of Kate's closet, on a pile of dirty clothes.

Not wanting to encourage Claire in imitating Kate's random sleep habits, and since it's probably a year or so until we'll be needing the crib again (that's all I'll say here about that!) it seemed fitting to convert the crib. We would have done it earlier, but the so-called 4-in-1 convertible crib actually requires an additional $100 piece to convert (the front legs are attached to the front rail, so you have to buy the toddler rail conversion kit to make it work--what a racket.) So, we bit the bullet, bought the thing, and now Claire has a bed she can get in and out of!

 At bedtime, she demonstrated the use of her bed's "door" over and over...
"I can get in . . . I can get out . . . I can get in . . . I can jump!"

 

And look, there's even room for a friend!

She's slept in it happily for the last three nights! The novelty may wear off, but so far I'd say she likes it!

The Kitchen Table #TBTStories

Throwback Thursday Stories, hosted by The Mom Creative.

Today: 1984. I was turning three.

I recently bought a new kitchen table and chairs. We just got all new kitchen cabinets and countertops too, so I definitely wasn't wanting to spend money on new furniture at the same time, but our old table and chairs were kaput. More accurately, just the chairs, which were falling apart underneath us.

You see, that dining set was my parents' first, purchased when they got married in 1973. It was in my house growing up until I was thirteen, when we moved to a new house and my mom upgraded to a new set. This one sat in the basement for a decade (a well-earned sabbatical after 21 years of service), until I had my first little apartment in grad school. It became mine and has graced Matt's and my kitchens in Nashville, Clarksville, and now back to Nashville.

The table itself and the two chairs in less-bad condition now reside in the playroom, where they will host many hours of puzzles, games, and homework in the years to come. I'm glad not to be tossing the thing entirely, because it has such sentimental value. Forty-one years of family dinners just me and my parents, afternoons of homework throwing my math book across it, and birthday celebrations like the one in the photo above, when I turned three, surrounded by my parents, all four grandparents (such a blessing to have them all live close by), and a great-aunt and -uncle who never had children of their own. This was the crowd that gathered every year on my birthday, and it was always so special.

I chose this photo because you can actually see the style of the chair around my little toddler body. I spotted a similar style when watching the movie American Hustle last night. Such a seventies style, and I won't forget it. We're upgrading and getting with the times now, but the memories made around such a simple thing as the kitchen table will continue to grow with my own kids.

Itchy #TBTStories

This week's Throwback Thursday Story:
Approximately 1987. I was probably six or about to turn six.

This was the kids' musical program at the end of Bible Study Fellowship or Mother's Day Out—something like that, at a Baptist church, I believe. Not our home church. I'm the one in the dress with the red smocking and bow.

Three reasons this picture speaks to me:

1. I'm holding my name tag, rather than wearing it. I've never liked tags, stickers, cause-support ribbons, other things in excess of my clothes being put on me (including bows that were part of my clothes, which is why I disliked this dress, I recall). So I declined to have my little piece of paper (shaped like a sheep, I believe, though I can't quite tell from the picture) pinned to me. That's so me.

2. I'm itching my bottom. I don't believe this dress is particularly scratchy. It's hanging in Kate's closet now, along with several other childhood dresses my mom saved, and I can verify it has no crinoline or other stiff lining. So I don't know what the problem was, but something bugged me. Something other than the name tag I was holding instead of wearing. Maybe it was the bow at my neck, psychosomatically itching my bottom.

3. There are three Jessicas in this picture. Such children of the '80s. The girl at the far left and the girl in the shorts and sneakers two kids to my right also have "Jessica" name tags. Amazingly, I don't see any Jennifers. There were four Jennifers in my fourth grade class. Sarah, Beth, and Brittany (the other girls' names I can make out in the picture) were pretty popular 1980s names as well.

I've always prided myself on having a great memory, and I honestly feel like I can remember this day, wearing the red dress that I liked less than my similarly-styled blue dress (also hanging in Kate's closet), and declining to have the paper pinned to me. Or perhaps it just feels that way because this photo captures such a "me" moment. Love it.