My Beautiful Family

Photos of the Week

7. someone that inspires me

8. a smell you adore

Memory Books

Over the years I've wondered how to turn my blog into something physical.  I hope blogger doesn't disappear anytime soon but it worries me that all of these memories I've recorded online could somehow disappear!  This blog has been almost the only records I've kept of my children's childhood, so somehow turning them into baby books/photo albums/memory books has been a priority for me.  There have been several options I've considered, but I think these books have worked out.  I've created photo book from several websites- usually whichever website has a free book promo, sale, or a Groupon- and given each book a theme.  Initially I intended to just repost my blog word-for-word into these books, but after spending too much time editing I decided to go with the theme route and fill in text boxes with details from my blog.  I love them!

In the photo above, starting at the top, the books are: Beth's pregnancy and birth, our trip to St. Louis last summer, our family's 2011 birthdays, Christmas 2010, Jack's birth and baptism, our beach trip 2007, beach 2009, Luke's 2nd birthday, and our Punta Cana trip from last summer.

While these books are very important to me, the kids love to read them too.  Usually once a week they get them all out and sit looking at the photos.  I do worry that pages will get bent or torn but I know if one book ever gets completely destroyed, I can always order another one since they're all saved online.  (I don't want to, but it's nice knowing the option is there!)  It's made me think that I should create one or two for each of them to keep in their bedrooms, each book filled with special memories and photos of people we don't get to see very often.

I love the alternative to traditional photo albums because this way I don't have to print out photos and somehow add the text.  It's just very simple, convenient, and a fun way to relive some of our most special moments!

Photos of the Week

day 1: peace

day 2: skyline

day 3: something i wore

day 4: bird. no birds around here so... day 4: cat

day 5: fun!

day 6: me

Part one of my May photo-a-day challenge!

Photos in May

I've chosen to follow this May challange:



I've missed taking photos lately with my DSLR and have been relying on my phone to grab quick pics here and there.  Some of my favorite blog posts I've done in the past are random photo posts, documenting a day or things I love about our home, so when I saw this challenge I thought it'd be fun and would get me using my camera more often.  I have some photo ideas in mind for a few of them but for the most part I'm going to try to make them as organic and random as possible, without setting them up, so to speak.  My photo from yesterday was perfect, I love it!  I think I'll post a week's worth of photos at one time since there's no way I'll be able to upload them every day, but we'll see what happens.  My goal is just to take one pic a day! 

No time!

Jack is moving into the next phase of life where he spends a lot of time in the evenings awake, sometime unhappy. This is usually when I do my blogging, so needless to say I haven't had much time to type! A couple of notable things since my last post (which I realize I still need to add text too- I'm sure you noticed he was baptized!).

My sister and one of my brothers stayed at our house through Tuesday evening, so we had an easy couple of days. On Tuesday, we all headed out of the house to meet Ryan for lunch then to brave the aisles of Wal-Mart. Jack had a big moment- a huge diaper blowout to rival Beth's Blowout of 2007. It was so gross- all inside his carseat, up his back, down to his toes. Luckily I had refilled my diaper wipes because he basically had to have a sponge bath in the Wal-Mart parking lot!

Tuesday afternoon I tried to take some professional-looking photos of Jack since it didn't work out with the real photographer. I've been scouring the internet, reading up on how to photograph newborns, looking at sample photos and watching youtube tutorials on how to edit photos in Photoshop Elements 8, my other toy. I've developed a new hobby, methinks. Here are three pictures, the only three I've managed to edit so far:




Yesterday and today I've been by myself, and it's going much better than I could have expected. I think I psyched myself out, imagining that three kids at home would be too hard for me to handle. Luckily, Jack's still sleeping quite a bit, but he's starting to show a huge preference for mommy's arms instead of the swing. That's posing a bit of a problem. ;-) I'm eating him up though, relishing in every single sigh and coo. He's even starting to smile! I'm finding that I'm not in a hurry for him to grow up, like I was with Beth and Luke. I *know* what's coming next developmentally, and I'm not in a rush for him to roll over or sit up. And I'm pretty sure he's already as big as a 3 month old!