Joel's Baby Journal: Week 20

Hello!

To be honest, red is probably my least favorite color.  But I managed to sneak it into Joel's baby journal (which is the first red page of his journal--and probably his last).  Ha!

Week 20:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 19

Hello!

Here is week 19:

Family

Hello!

Yesterday, I was having a moment of frustration, and guess what I wanted to do?  I wanted to scrapbook.  I needed a creative outlet.  And so I sat down and found these pictures.  It felt GOOD to put out that energy to something good.

I am so thankful to be a family of 5!  And here we are all together on our first family photo shoot.

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 18

Hello!

Happy Thursday!  Are you finding time in your "fringe hours" to be creative?  I'm enjoying the little spurts of time to enjoy some hobbies.  It's not much, but it's something and that's important.

Week 18:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 17

Hello!

I'm excited to be making progress again on Joel's baby journal.  Yay!

Week 17:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 16

Hello!

I'm so glad I took this photo of Joel this week because there were seriously no other photos.  Oops!  Sorry Joel!

Week 16:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 15

Hello!

Well, I'm back after being away for about 3 weeks visiting family and friends in Michigan.  I was feeling creative, so I thought I would work on a baby journal page this afternoon.

Week 15:

Project Life 2016: June

Hello!

So today is July 1st...and I'm posting JUNE's Project Life spread!  It's seriously a miracle!  I was so excited to get these photos on the pages.  I even planned to just have fun working on it this evening.  June Project Life?  Check!!

JUNE:

I am so excited about all of the photos I had for this month's spread.   I think I had 22 photos and I had to choose 19.  I'll probably have to do a double spread or added pages for July because I have a feeling there will be lots of photos (visiting with family).

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 14

Hello!

Have you read the book The Fringe Hours?  It's one of my favorite books I've read about managing our time.  It's about using little spurts of time to do the things you enjoy (like scrapbooking or any hobby).  If we look at the whole entire project, we may feel overwhelmed, but if you can break the project down into little parts, you can more easily get things done.  It's 5 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and just breaking a project down into lots of little parts until you've completed it.  I've done that sort of thing for a long time and I've been able to get a lot of stuff done, which I'm very thankful for.  I find it's VERY important for me to be creative or to do something I really enjoy, like reading.  But if I don't find a few minutes here and there, I would never do those things.  I've done this with sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, etc.  Sometimes it means spending 10 minutes transferring photos from my camera, or editing those photos, or searching for my next book, or casting the yarn onto my knitting needles.

Week 14:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 13

Hello!

Can you believe all of the posts?  I know...I can't either!  I'm excited because I've been able to carve out some time to work on Joel's baby journal and Project Life.  I was just talking with a friend about how I used to love staying up late to scrapbook.  Maybe one day I will get to do that again.  Right now it's important to get some good sleep.  Whew!

Here's Week 13:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 12

Hello!

This page has my heart.  I love this color combination.  And I will probably always remember this page because when I was working on it I was trying to breathe (because I had a cold).

Hope you are having a great start to your week!

Week 12:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 11

Hello!

More photos!  Yay!  (see previous post)

Week 11:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 10

Hello!

I'm not impressed that there was only ONE photo of Joel for Week 10, but I am impressed with myself because, look, there's journaling AND the page is actually done.  I don't have a ton of time these days to work on these kinds of things, so I'm happy that at least something was done.  Whew!

And already, I'm seeing how time is flying because as I'm typing this, Joel is 19 weeks + 3 days old.  And wow, he's changed so much!

Week 10:

Project Life 2016: May

Hello!

I thought it was time to take a break from posting Joel's baby journal pages and post a Project Life spread.  There were LOTS of photos to choose from for May, and then I realized that I left some out (oops!), but that will have to be a different layout since the photos are from Jeralyn's ballet performance.

Here is May:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 9

Hello!

I was just telling Quent yesterday that I don't know if I could tell who was who if I had a side by side picture of Joshua and Joel.  There are honestly photos where I am like, "Who is this?" Ha!  Good thing our digital photos are dated, right?  There are differences in them, but it does feel like I had twin boys two years apart.

Here is Week 9:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 8

Hello!

I sort of (okay, I REALLY) cheated on Week 8.  And wow, where are the photos for this page?  Oops!  So how did I cheat?  I totally didn't change much as compared to Joshua's baby journal page.  It is what it is.  Sometimes you just have to pop in the photos and move along.  Right?

Week 8:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 7

Hello!

I just love this little guy!  He's SO sweet!  And he's so calm (for the most part).  The mellow little man of my heart!  I love watching him grow through these photos.

Week 7:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 6

Hello!

Three days of posts in a row!  Whoa!  Let's see if I can keep this going...at least for a few days.

I needed some new inspiration...so I bought a couple of fun new digital kits.   Yay!

And I'm so glad I took pictures with my phone because otherwise there would probably be no photos for this week.  Yikes!

Week 6:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 5

Hello!

One of there reasons why I like doing the weekly baby journal is because there are SO many changes in the first year.  And as the little element says on this page, it really does go by 'in the blink of an eye'.  And it goes by so fast that sometimes I forget to take photos.  And that's why there's only 3 photos on this page.  Oops!

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 4

Hello!

Funny story: when I went to post this page, I realized that one of the photos was actually of Josh, not Joel.  Oops!  I guess that's what happens when your kids look alike and you are using templates.  Ha!

Anyway, here's Week 4:

Project Life 2016: April

Hello!!

I'm baaaack with another Project Life monthly spread.  I can't believe it's already the end of May.  I told Quent that I feel like there was December and then March.  I feel like I was in a fog in January and February (which I blame on being pregnant and having a baby).  And I'm SO glad I'm keeping this a monthly project (at least for the time being) because wow, I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands.

So here it is. 

April:

There were a lot of photos taken in April, which makes me happy!  Yay!

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 3

Hello!

I'm slowly working on the pages for Joel's baby journal.  I'm surprisingly farther along that I would have ever thought, but that's because I am basically using the pages (templates) that I used in Joshua's journal.

Week 3:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 2

Hello!

I had a little bit of time today to work on Week 2 of Joel's Baby Journal.  I didn't have to change much.  In fact, I pretty much left all of the paper and embellishments.  I didn't have as many photos to fill (I was short of 2), so I squeezed the photos together.  I hope the boys don't mind me doing this...which is super fun to think that one day they will look at their books and maybe notice such things.  Ha!

Week 2:

Joel's Baby Journal: Week 1

Hello!

It seems like I just finished Joshua's baby journal and here I am starting another.  *smile*  And like I did for Joshua's baby journal, I basically just switched out the photos, papers, and (some) embellishments to create this layout.  I already have the templates because of Jeralyn and Joshua's journals.

Week 1:

I find myself looking at Joshua's baby journal a lot right now to compare where Joel is with where Joshua was.  It's also helping me to know what may be coming next with Joel and remembering how things happen with a baby (I forget things, I guess!).  For instance, at Week 10, Joshua was starting to wear 6 month clothes, and Joel is just starting to wear 3/6 month clothes. 

And really, it's just fun to look through the journal.  I am SO glad I decided to do it this way.

Project Life 2016: March

Hello!

Yay!  I'm caught up with my monthly Project Life!

Here's March:

Project Life 2016: February

Hello!

I'm back with another Project Life monthly page to share.  I'm currently working on March, and then I'll be all caught up...well, sort of.  There's always something to scrapbook, right?  It's a beautiful, continuous project.  And I love it!

Here's February:

And this is where baby Joel Elias Smith is introduced on my blog!  Yay!  He was born on February 12th!  You can see the information on the first page.

Project Life 2016: January

Hello!

Well, well, well...here I am with (finally) Project Life 2016!  A few weeks ago I had some of my Project Life 2015 pages printed, and as I was putting them into their page protectors, I was just so happy that I stuck with Project Life.  There's no way I can keep up with a weekly Project Life right now with having a little baby, but I can certainly aim to create monthly spreads.  So I will be doing that.  And it just feels so good to be continuing to do this, even if it looks different than what I used to do.  It's all about doing what works best, right?  I really enjoy the whole process of scrapbooking, now it's just making time for it to happen.  Whew!

 I found some Ali Edwards digital stamps for the months.  I thought about creating my own, but my time is limited and it was worth the $4+ to just buy them and have them ready to use.

 I also decided to change up the fonts I'm using (compared to last year).  Unfortunately, I haven't been jotting down funny things the kids have been saying, but I should just try to remember some of them.

Anyway, it feels good to be back to Project Life!  Now I have a few months of catching up to do!

Joshua's 2nd Birthday

Hello!  Whoa!  Two posts in a week! Don't get used to this.  Ha!  I'm hoping to work on some monthly Project Life pages soon.  We shall see.  Life is busy with three kiddos, but I still love this creative outlet and I want to capture as much as I can with my camera and with scrapbooking.

I love birthday parties!  They are a lot of work, but they are fun!  I tried really hard to keep Joshua's party simple, but I did step outside of simple a bit.  It was a month after having baby, so I had a lot of ideas planned about a month before baby was born.  Thank you, Pinterest!

Jeralyn's 4th Birthday

Hello!

Well, it's been a very long time since I have blogged...or scrapbooked for that matter!  I had a baby...more on that later.  Ha!  But I did manage to find some time this week to work on a couple of pages.  This is Jeralyn's 4th birthday.  I had found a really fun mermaid kit on Sweet Shoppe Designs.  I love all of the colors and how it goes so well together with the decorations for her party in the photos.

Project Life 2015: December

Hello!

Well, I'm officially done with scrapping Project Life for 2015.  So I've definitely decided that I will do a monthly Project Life; I should totally be able to handle that.  Yay!

Project Life 2015: November

Hello!

I haven't been so sure about what I should do for Project Life 2016 or if I should even do it at all, but then something happened today that made me realize I should keep doing it, even if it's monthly.  I realized it's worth it, even if it's just monthly, when I saw the kids looking through the albums.  Josh kept on pointing to pictures of me and saying, "Mama!"  Okay, I'm convinced!  Maybe one day I'll go back to weekly pages, but monthly feels right for now.

Project Life 2015: October

Hello!

 

Wow, yes, it's been a loooooong time since I've posted anything.  Wow!  I haven't been on the computer much these days.  I thought I had better finish off my commitment to Project Life 2015 before baby comes.  I have no idea what/how I will be scrapping in this new year, but so far I haven't done a thing and I have no plans.  I will do a weekly baby journal for baby #3 and probably some regular pages...but I'm not sure as far as Project Life goes.  If I do, it will probably be a monthly project.