Adventure

The layout I am sharing today was made using the October 2013 Cocoa Daisy Kit“Sweater Weather”. 

I started out with the April Sketch seen here and it kind of took off from there. I love sketches; they just make scrapping easier for me, because I don’t have to think about the design. Instead I get to focus more on the story I want to tell and the pictures I want to include. Cocoa Daisy puts out great sketches each month for their sketch challenge  and I also print off the monthly Page Maps sketches and keep those in a binder that it always close at hand.

This layout includes 9 pictures that I took over a twenty-four hour time period at my parent’s house. It was a quick trip and actually may have been less than twenty-four hours. My parents live two hours away and this particular weekend Jess’ basketball girls were playing in our High School Basketball District Tournament, which was taking place about 45 minutes from my home town. So after the finals Saturday evening, which we won, the boys and I drove to my parents for the night.  

I grew up on 90 acres of open land with lots of trees, ponds, and creeks. I know every inch of those 90 acres from constant exploring as a child.  The way Mom kept an eye on my brother and me was to yell across the pastures every once in a while as we were out exploring.  As long as we answered her yell, we were good to go. I do the same thing with the big boys when we visit. I love that this tradition continues for my boys.

When we are home visiting the boys feel a great sense of freedom and they take full advantage of every minute of daylight. It helps that they have cousins right across the pasture to play with and that my Mom has a no technology policy at her house when the kids are all together.  They literally wear themselves ragged playing.

Jude hasn’t figured out how much freedom he has quite yet. He loves to explore Mom and Dad’s large yard, lounging dogs, and have the attention of his grandparent’s and older cousins. He has also taken a ride or two on the go-cart while riding in Mama’s lap and loved it.

This layout captures the busy and the worn out.  I think it still lacks a little embellishing, but I still love it. Right now it is still sitting on my scrap desk. It may get a little more embellishing or it may just go into an album.  I have yet to decide. 

Happy Scrapping! 

Aspire and Dream

Yesterday I shared my love for Ronda Palazzari's monthly One Little Word's. Today I want to share two more layouts, one for January 2014 word #79 Aspire & one for March 2014 word #81 Dream.

For Aspire, I wanted to share how proud I am of my big boys and the amazing people they are becoming. I am the first to admonish them when they make mistakes, but I am also their biggest champion. My mother heard a speaker on American Family Radio speak about raising children and shared some of the wisdom with me. The biggest thing I took away from our conversation is that many parents spend their time trying to raise great children, when in fact parents should be trying to raise their children to be great adults.

That really resonated with me & it is exactly what Jess and I try to do on a daily basis. We want our boys to be able to leave our home and be responsible, Christian young men. I don't always feel like we are accomplishing it, but I am always willing to get up the next day and try it all over again.

Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse that we use often in our house to remind our boys that God has even bigger plans for them than we do & that his plans are more important than any we can make for them or that they can make for themselves. They just have to be willing to be patient and listen to the Lord.

This verse was my jumping off point for my Aspire layout, along with sharing with the boys what I hope they aspire to do in their lives now & in the future. 

For this layout I used the January 2014 Cocoa Daisy Kit- Blueprint along with stamps from Technique Tuesday and some labels from My Mind's Eye. 

My second layout was for the word Dream and I knew immediately that I wanted to scrap pictures of all three boys sleeping. The biggest obstacle for this layout was picking a single picture of each boy to use from the 4,580 sleeping boy images I have saved. That number might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much, because I love catching the innocence of them as they are sleeping. 

There are not enough words to describe how much I love this layout. I am thinking that this one may end up hanging in a shadow box in the house somewhere. Such a calming layout and beautiful pictures of my little boys. Such a brutally, sweet reminder at how quickly time passes. 

For this layout I used the January 2013 Cocoa Daisy Kit- Pemberley, some older Heidi Swapp ghost shape stars covered in Slate and Silver Alcohol Inks, a Technique Tuesday stamp, and some small wood veneer stars from Studio Calico.

Magic & Calm

Hello All,
It's been a while! February and the first part of March are always super busy with all the high school basketball that we watch. We won our State Basketball Championship again this year. It so amazing and a stressful journey to win in back to back years. I feel this journey deserves a post all its own, so I will leave the details to another day with maybe a layout or two :).

Today I want to share a couple of layouts I have made based on Ronda Palazzari's One Little Word. Ronda puts up a new word each month on the fifteenth and I have been playing along here and there for the past few month's. She has the uncanny ability to pick words that touch a cord in me and usually makes me immediately think of a photo and story I want to tell. I can honestly say that many of the words she has picked have led to really heartfelt journaling on my pages. It is amazing how a simple word can pull such emotions from within you, such as this one I did in September 2012 based on her word Unlock.

The two words/layouts I want to share were from December 2013 #78 Magic & from March 2014 #80 Calm.

When I saw the word Magic I knew immediately that I wanted to right about the Magic of the Christmas Season as seen through the eyes of Jude, who had just turned a year old. There is nothing better than watching a young child taking in all the wonder and sparkle of Christmas.

I love this picture of Jude, you can definitely see how magical this Christmas season was for him. These are the moments I treasure and I am so glad I scrapbook them for the boys when the are older. They may not remember these times, but they will have the memories from my thoughts and stories. 

I made this layout using a Page Maps sketch & the February 2013 Cocoa Daisy Kit Double Feature. Calm is so very overrated at our house. The boys are very busy, all the time, and unless they are sleeping or entranced by technology there is always some sort of activity going on. Luckily all three of them get along really well & I usually find them playing altogether or at least playing in the same room. I am also very glad that we have a basement playroom that houses the video game systems, a pool table, and the majority of their toys. It is great to send rowdy, big boys downstairs to play on days that it is too cold or wet to play outside. 

I have two more layouts to share using some of Ronda's wonderful words, so please check back tomorrow to see Aspire and Dream.

Until tomorrow!

One Little Word Layout

My friend, Ronda has brought back her One Little Word challenge on a smaller scale and I have chosen to take part in its reintroduction. I hope to keep up with each new word she posts.

This month's word is UNLOCK. This word really spoke to me this month because it has been a difficult month for Carter. He is only 9, but he has not ever experienced the disappointment of not being able to do something he truly wanted to do until now. Last year he was nominated for the Gifted and Talented program at school and we found out a couple of weeks ago that he did not make it for this current school year. He was so very upset and as a parent it was difficult to watch him doubt himself and his intelligence. This past week he tried out for the 3rd and 4th grade select choir and did not make it either. Again I had to watch him doubt his abilities and himself. It was so painful to see him so hurt and so difficult to find the right words to encourage and lift his spirits.

For someone who thrives on competition not only athletically, but also academically, it is especially hard for him to feel like he has failed. I know that there are many disappointments that he will face in the future, but I sure hope we don't have to face any in the near future... It is so hard, this parenting thing. All I can do is try to support, encourage, and love him. At such a young age it is hard to explain to him that your self-worth comes from inside and not from what group you are part of. Hard, hard stuff for him and for us, too.

So I used that as my jumping off point for my layout. I also chose to combine Ronda's OLW challenge with Cocoa Daisy's September Sketch Challenge and here is my resulting layout entitled: Unlock Your Potential.

Thanks for stopping by!