Throwback Thursday

I've been going back through my old draft posts and found a few cute ones that I don't want to lose. So even though they're old, I'm going to add them in here as Throwback Thursday posts! Funny thing is, back when these photos were taken (circa 2010), there was no such thing as Throwback Thursday!
These photos are from around spring of 2010, back when the girls were still in dance. They switched to gymnastics a few years later. One of the things I love about this photo is the silly face that Alicia is making! Her dance teacher was very strict, though - a little too strict, I think - and it squashed her spirit to the point that she really stopped enjoying dance. It's too bad for experiences like that, but it's part of making these young ladies who they are today.

Alberta Adventures

Back in this post about our trip to Edmonton, I mentioned that I had so many more pictures to share about our travels throughout Alberta. Here is a little look at all the fun we had.

The kids and I went to Banff with my brother Chris and visited the beautiful Banff Springs Hotel.

The lobby was stunning. The kids thought it looked spectacular and posed for this shot!

While we were there we took a trip to the hot springs. Chris had been there before, but it was a first for me and for the kids.

One of the most fun things for the kids about visiting with Grannie is telling her stories, bringing her pizza, ice tea and cookies and just having fun!  Grannie sure loves seeing the kids, as you can see in her face here!

We took a couple of trips to West Edmonton Mall, including a trip to Galaxyland for rides, games and junk food, another for waterpark fun and - of course - shopping!

We were lucky enough to spend a day with Chris' in-laws in Calgary and enjoyed some time at the beach near their home.

The next day we drove to Drumheller to spend the day at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.  Once again, it was a first for me as well as for the kids, and we absolutely loved it.

The kids each poured a fossil cast and they spent some time learning about fossils.

Here we are with the badlands in the background.  Notice something in the lower left corner of this photo?  The kids thought it was adorable that he popped into the photo with them! :-}

My brother Howard, his wife Trish and their two boys met us in Drumheller and we had dinner together at a local restaurant before heading back to Edmonton.  Here, the kids have fun together posing outside the restaurant with a dinosaur friend. It was definitely a whirlwind trip.  We packed a lot of fun into the week.  Although the sights and shopping were fun, visiting with family was definitely the highlight of the trip.

After our week in Edmonton, we almost needed a rest!  But a few weeks later we took a trip to Montreal to drop the kids off at camp and to visit with my Mom's side of the family on the South Shore.


I'll share a few photos of that visit sometime soon!

December Daily Album Christmas 2011

I previously showed a little peek into my very first December Daily album, which I gave to Stephen this past Christmas. The album celebrates the Christmas of 2011, so by now the photos in it are almost two years old, but I finished this album just in time for Christmas 2012. The whole family LOVES this album, and I'm so happy to be sharing highlights of it here.

 I first heard about the concept of documenting each December through daily photos in a mini scrapbook album through Ali Edwards December Daily project.  Even though I have been taking daily December photos since 2008, this is the first year that I actually have created an album around the photos.

My first December Daily album is a 6 x 6 mixed media album containing a combination of clear acrylic, chipboard and page protector pages.  The image above shows the front cover, an acrylic page with a transparency layered over it.  You can see below that the pages alternate randomly between page protectors, chipboard pages and clear acrylic sheets.

 I used a tag on the inside cover.  Part of the challenge of using clear acrylic pages is that you must plan both the front and back of each page, since the page is clear and the back of one page shows right through to the next.

 Before starting each of the calendar pages, I added an introduction page.  The image is of the Christmas wreath on our front door.

 The page for December 1st shows the bus stop with a little layer snow that fell just in time for December to begin.  The pages I've shown so far have been acrylic.

 Back then, our cat Smokey was a new arrival and such a sweet tiny kitten.  On this chipboard page for December 5th, Stephen is helping Merlin get to know Smokey.  Aren't the cute??

Below is a double page spread with a page protector on the left and a chipboard page on the right.  I've documented our every day life in December, not just Christmas-related activities.  On the December 7th page, Evan celebrates his first Black Friday haul.  On the right, I took photos at Parents' Day at the girls' dance class.

Decorating our home for Christmas is one of my favourite parts of the holiday season.  I journaled digitally directly on some of the photos for this album.  On the right, the kids visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

One of our traditions during the holidays is making Christmas cookies.  The kids are increasingly taking over the design and creation of our culinary masterpieces.

Even though I included just one page for the days leading up to Christmas, I included more than one page for December 24th and 25th, which were quite rich with activities.  And below is the back cover of the album, which displays our family Christmas photo from that Christmas.  I hope you've enjoyed this little (belated) look at my December Daily project.  Maybe it will give you some ideas for the 2013 Christmas season! 

A (very) Overdue Peek at December 2012

One of the practices I have diligently kept up with since 2008 is taking (at least) one daily photo during the month of December to document the Christmas Season at our house. I've posted at least a few photos, giving you a peek at our December, if not the entire set of photos, every year on my blog.

December 2012 was no exception, and not only did I take a photo every day, I also went back and completed a December Daily album for the previous year and gave it to Stephen for Christmas. The concept of a December Daily album, which I first hear about through the amazing Ali Edwards, is in part what I (eventually) plan to do for each of the years' photos I've taken in December.

This picture is one of my favourites from December 2012. The kids are just about ready for bed on Christmas Eve, and have laid out a giant Santa cookie (which they made and decorated themselves) with chocolate milk for Santa. I will post more about our December, as well as a look at the December Daily album I gave Stephen for Christmas, over the next little while.

9/11 Memorial

While my brother Chris and I were in New York last month, we were fortunate enough to visit the 9/11 memorial site. It was a very moving experience. I can't imagine how emotional a visit to the site would be for families who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this tragic event.

Like so many of us today, I am very conscious of and grateful for all of the wonderful things I have in my life.

I hope you are able to take a moment today to reflect on how truly fortunate we are to live in the abundant, safe and prosperous country we call home.

Here's Lookin' at You, New York!

It's long overdue, I know, but here is a quick peek at my trip to NY in August.  It was a wonderful whirlwind few days filled with sightseeing, scrap shopping, a Broadway (and a drum corps) show, celebrity sightings, tons of walking, VERY little sleep and of course, being in the audience to see Brene Brown on the Katie Couric show.

My brother Chris met me in New York and while he got his fill of about a hundred (OK, maybe just four) Broadway shows, I hit the Manhattan must-see scrapbook shops, The Ink Pad and Tinsel Trading Company.  I would have LOVED a chance to attend some of the classes at The Ink Pad - they have quite the fantastic line up.

Our celebrity sightings included Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Kristin Davis, James Earl Jones and (best for last....) John Stamos.  Chris and I took in the musical Once together.  I also managed to see DCI quarter finals in the theatre near Union Square, which was a great, nostalgic experience.

Of course, the real reason for the trip was being in the audience for Brene Brown's appearance on the Katie show, which should be airing sometime in the next few weeks.  Chris took a shot of me in the lineup to get in.  A few ladies and I were interviewed on camera before the show, but I'm not sure what they will end up using.

Look for me if you're watching Katie in September.

In other news:

• Back to school went very smoothly at our house, and since I'm still at my Project 365 - I've never made it this far into the year so woo hoo - I have back to school photos of the kids to post sometime soon. They are still on the camera and I haven't uploaded them yet, but I hope I can get to them soon.
• I'm really excited about Scrapfest Oshawa coming in less than a month! 
• Here's to Sue's cookie dough recipe, which I'm sure will leave us feeling like we don't need any dinner! :} 
• I'm also lucky enough to be heading out on a photo walk with Lee Currie in October.  Hooray!
• I have a layout coming out in Canadian Scrapbooker's winter 2012 issue - toot! :-}
• Scrapping Nook's 100 Photos of Summer deadline is fast approaching and I still have a TON of photos to upload. 
• And, believe it or not, I have at least a dozen scrapbook pages and part of my New York trip Smash album scrapped that I haven't had a chance to post yet.   I'm hoping to get something photographed and posted soon.  Stay tuned!

I hope the back to school transition went as smoothly at your house as it did at ours.  Fall weather is here reminding us that summer is truly over, much to our chagrin.

Thanks for checking in and have a fantastic fall!

100 Photos of Summer

The weather here has been incredibly hot and sunny, and we have managed to take full advantage of the warmth with busy days and restful nights (or the occasional nap on our pup Merlin!) The kids and I have managed to visit many of our loved ones, and I even took them to their first drum corps show, which they LOVED! :-}

The kids all did piano exams towards the end of the school year, and all of them did well. In keeping with the drum corps theme mentioned above, Evan has started drum lessons and is enjoying them a lot. He is looking forward to playing drums in the band at school next year. The rest of the family - we've been (mostly) taking the drumming practice in stride!

I haven't managed to do very much scrapbooking, but I did spend one short night of chatting and hanging out with my sweet pal Sue, the night before this scary event happened. I'm glad I was able to help her out at during such a rough patch, and I'm thrilled that Gary is now improving more and more each day.

We've managed to spend quite a bit of time outdoors - yes, some of it has even been spent riding bikes in our pyjamas! :-} I'm taking part in the second annual 100 photos of Summer challenge at Scrapping Nook once again, and the photos in this post will be part of my entry. I posted about last year's entry here.  I'm hoping to be able to add more as the season moves along.

Soccer has been a big part of our summer this year. I'm sure I'll have more soccer photos to post, as I've literally taken hundreds of them!  I'm looking for a variety of shots to fulfill the photo challenges, so I hope you'll enjoy this little peek into what we've been up to. I also hope your summer is turning out to be as much fun as ours!

Getting to Know You

I can't say they're best of friends yet, but they do seem to enjoy checking each other out! Merlin is almost a year old now, and he's tolerated the addition of our little Smokey quite well.

I've been having fun doing Project 365 this year. So far so good - I'll post more here whenever I can.

I still plan to post photos of my scrappy weekends in the next few days, so check back soon!

Simplifying Stamp Organization

I'm celebrating my 2012 One Little Word, which is simplify, in a different way every month in 2012. For January I'm focusing on simplifying all of my documentation.

My intent this month is to simplify my workflow in all areas of my life: my office daytimer and filing, the home organizing systems for everything from our taxes to permission slips and homework, as well as my memory keeping activities - from photo printing to journaling more on my pages.

One related project I took on at home over the holidays was simplifying the way I organize and store of all of my stamps. Pictured here are a few of the many wood mount stamps I have, along with my clear acrylic, red rubber, etc, etc... I've created an inventory list of these, sorted by category, making it so much easier to find what's there.

I'm no where near done, but at least it's started, and I have a system to help me locate that particular stamp I want for a particular project. It's already made me feel more organized and helped me to re-discover stamps I own that I had almost forgotten about! In the long run, this will definitely help get more memories documented more quickly.

Speaking of forgotten - yes, as part of my documentation goals, I still want to get my postal address list updated and get my Christmas cards into the mail. So if you were wondering - no, I didn't forget you!

I will update more details of what I simplify throughout the rest of 2012.

I also have details to post about the fun I've had on the past two weekends - I was lucky enough to have been scrapbooking during both of them, and I have plenty of pages to photograph and get posted. Stay tuned! :-}

Documenting December

Often when I'm documenting December in pictures, the photos I take don't have anything to do with Christmas.

I'm so much more conscious of the simple, everyday moments the kids experience when I'm watching them with my camera in hand. In 2010, I hoped to take a photo every day, and while I won't have 365 daily pics at the end of the year, I will have captured so many details of our life, like Alicia's love for Bear.

Documenting our family's life via words here and works of art through scrapbooking helps me to believe that what I see through the lens today will be remembered joyfully in the future by so many people who are important to us - most of all, our kids. The mistakes I make in capturing (ahem, or rather, not quite capturing) one day's shot adds knowledge that allows me to capture the next shot with more accuracy and aliveness. I am still learning, but I'm a better photographer today because of so much practice.

I loved Karen Grunberg's recent guest post on Shutter Sisters, entitled The Daily Practice. In it, she speaks about the value of daily photography practice. Take a moment and read it; it rings so true to me.

This is my third year of making daily December photos happen, and so far, so good - I'm 7 for 7! I love the feeling of daily photography as a habit. Hopefully 2011 will be the year that I make Project 365 a reality!

The View from Here

One thing I love about taking daily photos is how it forces you to really notice your surroundings. I drive down this road almost every day and have to admit, I often don't absorb how striking and unique the badlands are. Yesterday the sky looked so big and bright, the snow so brilliant as the sun's rays bounced off the hills. I just had to stop and grab my camera!
Speaking of brilliance, I was lucky enough to hang with my talented cousin Allison this weekend at her One of A Kind booth. Allison hates getting her photo taken, and I can't understand why - even exhausted on the final day of this show, doesn't she look amazing? Her soaps are wonderful; the smell in her booth is simply divine!

It seems like - along with a horrible sense of direction - we cousins definitely also inherited our grandmother's sense of creativity. See a page about our grandmother here.

In addition to Christmas shopping - the show rocked; I shopped 'til I dropped - I finished off another layout for Scrapalicious with WRMK's Be My Valentine line this weekend, and hope to have more to post later in the week. Yes, I had a very productive weekend.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too! What did you do? Feel free to leave a comment; I love to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by!

More Project 365

Don't you just love summer?

It's my favourite season, and I'm so glad it's here. The kids seem to agree with me too. They are much more willing to head outside and spend time there when the weather is nice. Alicia is a huge nature lover, and our new lifestyle in the country gives her lots to do.
I'm doing my best to keep up with my Project 365 this year. I love capturing our family's memories in photos, both the everyday and special occasions.
Evan is being such a little monkey in this photo. It was wonderful to have our home filled with family members who love him on his birthday. The girls helped me to make one of Evan's favourite - carrot cake with buttercream icing - and he couldn't wait to blow out the candles. 10 of them! Double digits for him this year! So Evan, knowing I wanted to capture him blowing them out, teased me by saying "1....2...." and then blowing the candles out before saying "3"! This shot is seconds later!
The kids are thoroughly enjoying having a pool. Even when it's (what I consider) too cold outside for the water, they are ready to jump in. And I'm totally a sucker for a gap-tooth smile! Doesn't Vanessa rock the toothless look?

I hope you are enjoying your first day of summer!

Happy Father's Day!

I think the photo says it all!