Christmas Eve 2008

My aunt and parents went to Christmas Eve service with us. We spent the remainder of the evening hanging out at our house with a movie. house.

The boys *hung out* more than the rest of us.

Our dog's name is Joy - how appropriate for the Christmas layouts.

Thanksgiving 2008

My brother and his wife came down for the holiday weekend. Along with my parents, and grandparents, we enjoyed our first family feast in our new home.

On Christmas Day my brother and his wife called, and over speakerphone they announced to us all that they are expecting their first baby! I'm so happy for them, and I'm way excited to have a baby in the family again.

I labeled this layout as our "Family Portait, AKA: the Many Faces of J." Out of about 10 shots, J had a different look in each photo.

Wow - the camera really shows the imperfections in my layouts! Just after Thanksgiving, I made a goal for myself to stay current with my scrapping. I knew this meant that I could no longer make sure every page is *perfect*. Like other things in life, perfectionism keeps us from moving forward. The true test is actually sharing this with family and friends.

Hopefully there is a learning curve in taking photos of my layouts, though. I am noticing haze and blur that is not present in the layout. I'm thinking this could be from adhesive that got on my photos which is clear to my naked eye, yet shows up on the camera? It is also really hard to get a straight camera angle, making it difficult to get an even photo of the layout, especially with the papers that don't have a single-color edge.

I cringe looking at my own handwriting; however I was recently inspired by a celebrity scrapper article that talked about the importance of sentiment and using our own imperfect handwriting in our layouts. It really made sense to me - I love when I come across handwriting from loved ones who have passed away. I don't care whether or not it was neat; besides, the more I use my own script for display, the neater it is becoming.

And as far as my scrapping mistakes go, I resisted the temptation to go back and "fix". I must move forward.~

P's Art Project for Scouts

This was a project P completed this week to fulfill an Art achievement for Scouts. The assignment was to create a computer design, using 3 or more shapes. P decided to embed his name in the design (self-taught encryption!), too.

P traced his name with a highlighter over the printed design; but I'll just show it as he saved it, and you can have fun trying to find his name!

(Bragging Mom Alert: P completed this in 10 minutes.)