New Year Housekeeping

Happy New Year! I hope your 2010 is off to a great start.

A couple of quick things! I have started a new blog! It's to keep track of my Project 365 pictures and you can get to it by clicking on that button over there----------->

I am totally committed to Project 365 again this year but HAVE to simplify it from what I did last year. I'm still not sure what format I will end up with for my 2010 project but I am planning to keep the 365 blog up-to-date. Feel free to check it out but I will still be posting lots here.

Also, I decided to choose a word for 2010. My word of the year is:

A few weeks ago I was thinking about how I take thousands of pictures every year but do not take the time to document our lives very well. That's all going to change this year as I get back on track with my journaling, blogging and scrapbooking. I'm hoping to accomplish big things this year!

Allen is off this week with a mandatory work furlough (i.e. a week of unpaid vacation) and we have an enormous to do list to accomplish but I promise to be back soon!

Project 365: Weeks 21 & 22

Back in the saddle: 365 weeks 19 & 20

I'm so so so far behind on my Project 365 layouts. Luckily, I have been taking my pictures every day but I am going to have to work hard to get them all scrapped. My goal is to do three weeks per week for the next month and get caught up.

Week 19:

Week 20:

I am also very behind on my blogging. I haven't even finished up our Denver trip, let alone our week in California. Sheesh. School starts in 1 week and until then, I fear I won't be playing catch up at all! Anyway, layouts are clickable and thanks for looking!

Project 365: Week 16 & 17

Finally getting around to posting these. Life is insanely busy getting ready for our move. Three weeks from yesterday we will be driving out of town. I cannot believe it. I'm meeting Allen in Albuquerque for a few days this week to tie up some loose ends. We have already found a house and it seems to be a pretty great situation - about the same size as our home here but for half the cost of our mortgage payment. Love that! It is only a couple years old, has a good sized yard and we are upgrading to a three car garage - happy day. The only downside is that it is very WHITE. White walls, light carpet and tile. Ugh. So not me. We will have to see what we can finagle with the owner. So this week will be more like a mini vacation for us as the kids will be staying here with friends, but we still have a few things we have to get done there! Otherwise things for the move are going smoothly and I'm having a grand time dejunking and getting rid of stuff (today I opened a box that hadn't been opened since we moved here to AZ. Yikes.)

Anyway, enjoy, and as usual, the layouts are clickable.

Thinking about 365?

Hi!

I know lots and lots of people are considering Project 365 for next year. I've had tons of questions in person and via the blog about it. I mentioned in my last post that I'm planning to keep it up indefinitely, probably tweaking it here and there, depending on what works for me that year.

Anyway, I just found the biggest SCORE if you're considering the project. One of the digi stores I get some of my stuff from is having a design team competition. People are designing kits and then are eliminated based off of the votes their kits get. The best news? These kits are available for FREE {as long as you register - for free - on the site}. Guess what their assignment was a couple weeks ago? Yep, to design a kit to be used for project 365!!

So, I'm suggesting that if you *think* you might want to do this project in the future, this is a great opportunity to get some products. Here's the link to the kits: Project 365 Kits

Again, you do have to sign up for their site, but it is free. And there are 59 Project 365 kits to choose from! That's a lot of options!

I'm a huge advocate of digital scrapbooking, even though I'm pretty new to it. There are so many designers out there trying to get started that offer their stuff for free so that I've had to purchase very little product. Once in awhile I find something that I *have* to have (DISNEY kits) so I buy it. The main cost for me has been Photoshop Elements (about $75), a basic digiscrap class online (about $50) and I've needed to upgrade the memory on my computer (twice now!) because the files are enormous.

Anyway, I'd love to answer any questions anyone has about digi scrapping. Like I said, I'm pretty new to it but I can help get you started!

Mother's Day

Mother's day was great this year. Allen really went above and beyond and I so appreciated it. The kids fixed me a yummy breakfast, I got homemade cards and roses and a camera bag (even though I insisted on no gifts since I just got my camera). I didn't lift a finger all day - dreamy. Allen even made my favorite dinner - cafe rio pork salads. YUM!

I really, really wanted to get some pictures of me and the kids so we took a few minutes before we left for church to take some pics. I posted them on my facebook account so this is mostly for the benefit of the grandparents!

I am truly so grateful to be a mother to these three wonderful people. It is a big and sometimes scary job, but it is all I've ever wanted to be. They have enriched and blessed my life in a way I never could have imagined. I've learned some tough lessons in there too but they have all been worth it.

Of course I can't post about Mother's Day without acknowledging my own angel mother! I was so blessed to be raised by an amazing, intelligent, strong, opinionated, charitable, selfless woman. I am grateful for her every single day of my life. I owe all that I am to her! My MIL is a pretty great woman herself and raised some amazing children and blesses all of our lives! Allen's mom even sent a Mother's Day card to my mom to thank her for raising me. Isn't that the sweetest thing? We all cried over it. Thank you Mom Frost!

Hope you had a great day too!

{A couple other things on my mind not relating to MD: Several of you have asked my feelings on project 365 and if I'll do it again and the answer is YES!!! I already love reading through previous weeks and I think it will be true treasure for my family. I don't know that I'll do it in this exact format next year (and subsequent years) but I think the journaling is a HUGE part of what makes it so special so I definitely plan to do that in future years as well.

Also, LOVE x a million my new camera. I ended up with the Nikon D90. The above pictures are SOOC (straight out of the camera), no editing at all! Amazing. Taken with a 50mm/1.4 lens. That means nothing to me at this point except that it takes great photos. I'm pretty much shooting in auto at this point but will have lots of time to play once we are settled in NM.}

Project 365: Weeks 15 & 16

I've had these done for awhile but am just getting around to posting. More about Mother's Day coming soon! Hope you had a wonderful and relaxing day, I know I did {thank you Allen!}




{You know the drill, everything is clickable!}

Project 365: Weeks 13 & 14

Still a month behind. Still plugging away. Stomach flu has hit us hard this weekend so we are stuck at home. Hoping to get a couple more weeks done this weekend.


Finally a spring break recap. I am missing one picture for April 2 that I'll have to add once I get it from my sister. It is from the Easter Pageant at the temple.



Thanks for looking!

Project 365: Weeks 11 & 12

Still a few weeks behind but I'm making a valiant effort to catch up! Hopefully by the end of the weekend! For the first time in WEEKS we have nothing serious on our agenda. I am thrilled! As usual, all images are clickable!

Project 365: Weeks 8, 9 & 10

Ugh. I swore I wouldn't let myself get behind on my 365 layouts. But I was 5 weeks behind and have been scrambling to get caught up. I got home from my trip, spent Monday unpacking, spent Tuesday cleaning and having Activity Days. Tuesday night Allen's mom, sister and our BIL came to spend the night. On Wednesday Al's youngest brother returned from his mission in Peru. We spent the day together on Wednesday and Thursday. My sister comes to AZ with her 5 kids on Sunday night. I'm trying desperately to get caught up. I HAVE to finish my taxes tonight before the Turbo Tax price goes up tomorrow {it is taking forever this year since I'm trying to squeeze every penny out of our medical expenses}. Fun times.

ANYWAY... here are the layouts. Everything is clickable for all who care to read the journaling!

Week 8:





Week 9:





Week 10:

Project 365: Week 7

I'm late doing and posting last weeks pages because I was gone on a girls trip all weekend. I came home severely sleep deprived and was asleep before 9:00 p.m. last night. {More on my fun and fabulous weekend to come!} So here are the week 7 pages {click to enlarge/read journaling}:


I realized this week that Carter is getting the shaft in the project 365 picture department. I suck. I obviously spend most of my daytime hours with the two girls, which must be when I take most of my pictures. I'm for sure making a better effort to get his daily activities in my pictures from now on. Sigh. I hope he forgives me!

Project 365: Week 6

Another week down! This week was very Addison heavy with the pictures because it was her birthday. Some of the pictures aren't that great. I'm chalking it up to part of the whole experience. So forgive some of my bad pictures! Layouts should be clickable :) Oh, and I have noticed quite a few typos in my journaling the last couple weeks. As far as I can tell there is no spell check in Photoshop. I've gone back and fixed my journaling and am being more careful about proofing everything!

Project 365: Week 5

Here's last weeks layouts. I'll be honest, I was not feeling the love for this project while scrapbooking this tonight. My goal is to have the previous weeks layout done by Sunday night. In the end, I KNOW I'll be so happy that I did this project so I'll keep plugging away.

Project 365: Week 3-4

More layouts for Project 365. Sorry, some of the pictures are repeats. I'll be posting my layouts not because I think they're interesting, but because I know my mom wants to see them and it motivates me to get them done.


Week 3:



Week 4:

(All images are clickable, just in case you want to read my fascinating journaling!)

My mom called me on Friday to see if I was ok. I told her I was and asked why she was wondering and she mentioned that I hadn't blogged in a week. Hmmm... I have no excuse. Just busy doing stuff. Working hard on "The List." Having a super fun weekend that included a date on Friday night, a double date with Adam and LJ to see the Lion King on Saturday night and tons of Superbowl partying on Sunday. More about all that on last week's layout coming up!

I'll be back tomorrow with some Valentine-y goodness!

Project 365

Yep, I've jumped on the project 365 wagon. I'm still not sure what I've gotten myself into but I'm planning to maintain it for a year. In case you don't know, Project 365 challenges you to take a picture every day for a year and document it in some way. I've chosen to use the Two Peas kit A Day in the Life for my layouts. At first I thought about trying to really make my layouts fancy but then realized I would get burned out of the project if I tried to overthink it. So I'm keeping it really simple and doing lots of journaling. 3 weeks into the project, I am having fun learning new things with my camera and I know we'll love looking back on the little everyday things I've documented. Here are my first 2 weeks layouts. If anyone can help me figure out how to make my pictures clickable to expand larger, I would love it. For the life of me I can't figure it out!

Week 1:

Week 2:

(PS - when I have the book printed and bound, the layouts will be side by side and you'll read left to right, which is why the days look really screwy on my layouts in this format!)