November and a Birthday Party

I am TRYING to put something new on here twice a week or so. I know some family members have this blog as their home page and they need something new to look every so often.

So here I am, posting something new.

I vowed back in January 2010 that I would do Project 12 along with Scrapbook and Cards Magazine each and every month. I used the prescribed sketch ALMOST every month, but in November I had too many pics for the November sketch. So, I chose a different Becky Fleck sketch and put this together over the Christmas holidays.:


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(KI Memories and Echo Park Paper)

My two boys have birthdays just over 2 weeks apart. They were both due to be born on December 9th (weird, eh?) but Bryn came 10 days early and Camden had to be forced out 5 days after his duedate.

Instead of trying to organize and invite everyone to 2 birthday parties, I had one big one in honour of both boys. I think I will try to do this every year, as long as they let me.



(Imaginisce)

I managed to cram A LOT of pics into this layout. I think I included every guest in at least photo!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sketchy Thursdays and A Family Photo Shoot

Recently an old friend from high school spent an afternoon with my extended family in order to shoot some amazing pics of all of us together. The photos included me, my hubby, our 3 kids, my 2 sisters and my parents.

As with so many families, my father's recent health diagnosis has brought us together more often. We cherish our time as a group and we all come home to Exeter far more often.



My mother, sisters and I are all keen on making as many memories as we can during 2011. My father LOVES it when we are all home and seems almost giddy when we are around.

To capture some of this happiness that occurs between "specialist appointments" and "bad-news phone calls" we all posed happily in a beautiful park, one cold day in November.

There couldn't be better evidence of a family holding together through thick and thin. These pictures speak, as the old saying goes, a million words.

This is one of my favourites:



And the journalling reads:




Amen to that.

(Love you forever, Daddy!)

My Big Boy is 6!!

It seems like only yesterday I found myself in labour at Square One Shopping Centre that cold day in November 2004. There was no way the baby was coming already- he wasn't due for 2 weeks. And man- my Xmas shopping wasn't done!! But then he arrived after a long and drawn out delivery - Bryn Douglas James.




And now he is 6!! Where does the time go?

Love you, Brynner!

Is This Thing ON?

Yikes. I have been such a bad blogger lately. Sorry Mom, sisters and fellow scrapbookers who try to keep up with my family with this webpage. Now that today is the last day of Xmas holidays (Boo!) I am sure I will quickly get back into some semblance of a schedule and I will find more time to post on a regular basis.

I promised myself I would sit down with a cup of tea and a magazine sometime this afternoon while the baby napped. I think I am running out of time, so I'd better post quickly and get the kettle on to boil!

How about some Christmas layouts? I love this "new" Christmas-y colour combo -all of my favourites are there - pink, red, turquoise, blue & green. Doodlebug created this colourful line this season and I absolutely love it! (I will take any excuse to use fuchsia!)

This layout features a picture of my 3 little guys playing in the box our artificial Christmas tree comes out of. On decoration day, the kids frolicked in it while Kevin and I did the tree decor.



I decided this year I would try to capture Christmas in a different way. It seems like I take the same old pics at the same old events every year and my scrapbook pages look the same every time. Instead, I am trying to find the ideas that set this particular Christmas apart from all the others.

This tree-box picture captures just that.

As well as decorating the big tree in the Family room, this year Bryn and Afton each had smaller trees in their own bedrooms. As a child I had always wished a small tree of my own, but never had it. Now my children will get this experience every year.

Afton's tree is a pink, glimmery one we found at Walmart. Bryn's is a traditional green fir tree. Bryn chose green and cream ornaments for his tree and Afton picked pink and purple (of course!)

Next year, I think Camden will be old enough for a small tree of his own. I wonder what kind of tree he'll pick? Hmmmm.....I guess we'll find out 11 months from now!