the moments in between

spencer's sneaks

i'm done working with the april studio calico kits, aside from a PL spread that i need to finish when some product comes tomorrow. and my desk looks like this. 

which isn't all that bad, considering that's 4 pages and 4 PL spreads since clean. ;) here's a peek at what i made this month : 

spencer's scrapbook kit : 

spencer's scrapbook kit + daily grind + front porch blend + americano + today noted stamp add-on

spencer's scrapbook kit + front porch blend + daily grind + americano + latte + today noted stamp add-on

spencer's scrapbook kit + front porch blend + daily grind + americano + latte + today noted stamp add-on

spencer's PL kit : 

spencer's scrapbook kit + front porch blend + daily grind + americano + latte :

spencer's scrapbook kit + front porch blend +  latte + today noted stamp add-on :

InLinkz.com

happy monday! we ended spring break number one (A&B's schools) with snow. hmph. not much, but it's been gray and damp and just plain ICK today. but since all three were in school today and i got a little quiet, i'll take it. spring break number two (S's school) starts thursday, and i'm hoping that one comes with some sunshine. i am SO ready for spring.

flashback friday

i posted a couple of weeks ago about the two-ish years worth of pages that i was sorting and putting into albums. i finished it that night - what.a.job. it's definitely one that i'm glad to have behind me. now i need to pick up some more albums so i can KEEP putting pages into them. i'm pondering a color switch for ben - i'm not sure what shade of blue i used for him, and i'm not in love with it anyways. i might move him into the green and sam into yellow. or maybe i should spray paint them all black and be done with it - ha!

pages IN albums means more time looking through them - and it lead me to another old layout that i wanted to share. this was made in september 2009, when i guest designed for studio calico. it's still one of my favorite photos of ben, and i love that he is still the same decisive kid.

that same boy, now a few years older, scared his mama last night. after three + hours with a headache that wouldn't let up and got to the point where he was going between sleeping and crying, he and i headed to the children's ER. he was starting to feel better when we got there, but the fear of an oh-dark-thirty relapse was enough to make me decide to go in. i'm so glad we did - turns out he has strep. they gave him a shot of a painkiller and a rx for antibiotics, and he is feeling totally fine today. who knew you could get strep throat w/ no sore throat? this is the first time in our almost 12 years of parenting that we've had a boy with strep, so it's new to us. and i'm hoping it will be an isolated case.

happy friday! it is gray today. gray and blah and sleepy. i had told sam's teachers not to expect him today (the bigs are on spring break, sam is not), and i'm glad i decided to let him play hooky, because it means i didn't have to get up and out this morning after a late night last night. today is all about laying low.

wordless wednesday : the endless job of feeding three boys

(alternate title : weren't we just here?)

OLW // make

i don't know that i've ever committed to my one little word before the year started. i usually start thinking about it in late december, and ponder until something fits. some years, i find a word that really pushes me..  and some years, i never choose one. 

this year, it started with a screenprint transparency from life.love.paper - after a rather stress filled month of making things, somehow this little transparency reminded me just how much i really love making things.

the more i thought about what i want out of this year - to keep a focus on paper + glue despite working more, to finish projects around the house, to create a firmer boundary between work and home, to hang out more on my four favorite boys. and it all fell into place.

in 2013, i will make something. i will make a home. i will make it a priority. i will make time.

in 2013, i will make my unknown known. and i will make it an awesome year.

the bean

i haven't had a chance to really play with the studio calico CHA releases since before the show, so i took a little time to do just that this morning. i'm still in love. =) for this page, i just grabbed my favorite products and went to down. they're don't really "match" - but i adore how they look together, so it's all good. i plan on doing some PL-ing this weekend, so i'm leaving these lines out on my desk so i can use them some more! i mixed in a bit of the this is me class kit - that gold triangle washi is a new favorite! 

i printed this photo a while back, but it kept not making it on to a page. i finally decided it was time to scrap it so i didn't have to keep finding a new safe place to put it! the boys had so much fun horsing around at the bean, and i loved how this photo captured both them and their reflections. the army of feet in the background makes me happy - too. i love how they're in a little pocket of calm in the middle of a crazy tourist attraction.

InLinkz.com

happy friday! it's spring break eve for my bigs, so i think we're going to kick it off with pizza and a movie. thank you all for the birthday wishes - i had an amazing day. all of the comments, texts, emails and calls made it a little easier to stomach being a year older. ;)

studio calico sneaks // spencer's

studio calico's april kits are bright, funky, and a little bit hipster. and i am digging the combination. =) having that box come was a good motivation to finish up the last remaining piles from doing some cleaning and reorganizing in my workspace, and i've already got two layouts finished and two PL spreads printed and half together. i am typically a last minute scrapper, so this is huge for me. ;)

these sneaks were in the slide show, but here are some views that show a little more : 

(spencer's scrapbook kit)

(daily grind add-on)

(spencer's PL kit)

happy thursday! it's my birthday (yay) and it's going to be a busy one. i started the day with sam's parent teacher conferences, and later i get to meet up with marcy and becky. not a bad way to spend my day. =)

wordless wednesday : this makes me happy

(clean desk, new monitor, sunshine. oh happy day)

one for the minecraft addicts

alex has been hard at work cutting and folding a gluing an army of little minecraft dudes, thanks to pixelpapercraft.com. there seems to be no end to the little blocky things you can print out and fold into your own little minecraft universe.

cool, huh? i'm all for anything that lets the boys indulge their minecraft obsessions in a more tactile form.

happy tuesday! we started the week with a snow day, thanks to an unexpectedly strong storm that started with rain, then ice and left us with 6+ inches of snow. sunshine and mid 30s temps during the afternoon put a good start to the melting and i'm hoping it will all be gone soon. it is march, and i am over it. 

flashback friday

so. it's been.. well, awhile.. since i've managed to get pages into albums.

actually, it's been at least two years. ACK. some of these were in paper holders, some were in boxes, and some were stacked here and there.

i ordered albums about a year ago to start getting this under control, but never did. oops. i guess it's time. i've got them sorted out and am working on putting them away. if i don't finish by dinner tonight, we may have to go out... ;)

i've had a few questions on instagram about how i sort my pages. i have a few album categories, but don't worry about chronological order - and the albums of pages that i did before i started sorting are just totally random. i figure getting them all in better order is a "someday" project.

i have an album for each boy, for pages that are just about them. i have family albums, where anything involving 2 or more boys + the rest of us go. i have a matthew and me album. i have a travel album and a holiday album. and that's it. 

sorting has been a slow process - i am too drawn in to reading these old pages! it's really made me realize that while styles and products have changed a lot in two years, i still love what i've made. 

here's an old favorite - made with studio calico's first wholesale release, homefront. i made this page on 12.30.2009 - that is over 3 years ago. crazy. i wouldn't remember this little nightly exchange if it weren't for this page.

happy friday! i started the day with breakfast with my out of school for conferences middlest... and now i guess i'd better get back to those pages. ;)

one year later

last year at this time, we were doing a lot of thinking, talking and researching on one topic - whether or not we'd send sam to kindy, and where we'd send him if we didn't. he is a late summer baby, and his birthday falls 2 days before our districts cut off. oy. so much to think about.

once we fell firmly into the "not sending" camp, the question of where to send him came together rather quickly. three families from our old preschool were moving to the same one, and once we visited, we registered sam there as well. it's a 5 morning a week program, the classrooms are structured like they will be in kindergarten, and we thought it would be the perfect transition from preschool to full day K.

so we find ourselves here, a year later. the omaha symphony came to his school to give a concert / education program with the kids. they had spent  the last part of february learning about music and instruments, and this pulled it all together. it was an awesome experience, and par for the course with what we've seen at his school.

and here HE is, a year later. he got to play these bongo drums with the symphony. he's a leader in his classroom. he is more confident and engaged with what he's learning - to the point where he's up and started reading just about everything. i love that we gave him this year, and i love what it's given him.