Project Life Progress

Last week I got caught up--3 months in 6 days, only 1-2 hours each day. Grand total? 74 pages...there were only 50 pages for the first almost 5 months of the year. I don't know if I need to be more discriminating or what! I'm a packrat by nature, so I tend to save mementos. :) After I got everything in, I went back and rounded corners from January-April, and it makes a huge difference! The last piece of this binder is journaling, and I plan to do that when I go to camp with Kayci next week. My goal is to be done with this book before I start teaching...fingers crossed, I'm still on track!

Sweet Lynn surprised me with a Michael's gift card, so I stopped in after work yesterday. I lucked OUT--our Michael's had JUST gotten Project Life!




So I spent Lynn's gift and my blow money...what fun!!




I got a honey core kit and binder for August-December, a Wedding mini kit for my next project, a big pack of pages, and some odds and ends I've been wanting/needing. It was like Christmas!




I took the core kit apart and stored it in the binder so I can see all of the cards...I'm curious how that's going to work. :)

I'm curious what August will bring with busy kids and lots of work to do, but I hope I can keep on track and keep cleaning out my clutter and getting it into books!

Scraptastic

Summer has been great so far...but it's been a LOT different than I imagined.  I really hoped to be a lot further (farther?) along with my Project Life books by now, but I just haven't had time to work.  Well, next week I've got a 3-day workshop, and the week after that Kayci is at music camp for 3 days and I'll be chaperoning and work pretty well hasn't stopped and it'll be time for meetings and staff development before I know it...I'm tired thinking about all of it, frankly.

Sunday, I got out my stuff--the dreaded stacks of pictures and STUFF, things that have been waiting to go into a scrapbook.  You know, the scrapbook I haven't touched since STAAR testing back in April.  Yup, I have 3 months to catch up on.  (And then there's the wedding album I want to finish and my whole lifetime of photos I want to get in books...guessing I'm not going to get to one or both of those anytime soon!)  Back to Sunday...I got it out and sat it on the dining room table.  Monday morning I got up early and I got it all arranged by date (no small feat when it's 3 months of my packratting to go through).  I also cleaned house and got a lot of work done Monday...not sure how all that happened.  We've had company since Monday afternoon (Uncle Adam has been visiting!), so I felt guilty for taking up the dining room table and I brought it all into our bedroom yesterday morning early and put the tablecloth back on the table so it would look nicer.  Clutter bugs me...ironic, no?

Anyway...so yesterday morning after I dragged it all back into our room, I decided to see what I could get done before the kids woke up.  So I got started.  Noble woke up a couple of hours later, and I kept working while he sat on the bed with me.  When I stacked it all up and put it on my desk, it seemed like I still had a big ol' stack of stuff to go through.  But I was encouraged, because I was making progress.

This morning after quiet time, I pulled it out again.  After I worked for a while, I counted...I've filled 14 sheet protectors since yesterday morning--that's 28 pages.  And, I'm in the first week of June!  It's hard to whittle stuff down to fit a week into 1 page, so I haven't worried about that so much as keeping stuff chronological.  Some pages are just ONE DAY (like their last days of school), and I'm okay with that.  If I get all legalistic, I won't enjoy it as much.

Here's where I am now...I obviously need to clean my phone case.  Sorry about the bad picture!


OH!  Here's what's making it go so quickly...my 3x4 punch arrived last week!  That's what really pushed me to get going and get caught up.  Well, that and the rapidly-approaching end to summer.  Sigh.

But I am LOVING the punch--it makes a huge difference, and I love how professional the pictures look with the rounded edges.  I also bought a corner rounder a couple of months ago, but I haven't actually used it until today.  I figure I'll go back and round corners once I get this giant stack of stuff IN the binder...and I'll also backtrack and do the journaling.  Right now my goal is to get stuff IN the book, get up to date, and I'll take it with me to Kayci's music camp to work on when I have some time.  It'll be so much easier to transport a binder than a box of stuff and punches and cards...I don't see me ever being the type to carry scrapbooking supplies around, but I figure I can take a binder and a marker!

Around here...

For some reason, the Counting Crows song has been in my head this morning.  I realized that I haven't updated the blog with anything real in forever...so here are a few pics from my phone.  This is what's been going on around here the past few weeks:

The kids have been wanting to rearrange their room.  So, the week after vacation, we did.  It ended up being a lot more work than they bargained for (I made them clean out every nook and cranny--we took 2 carloads of STUFF out of the room and the office, all together) and I cleaned it, top to bottom.  Won't even tell you about the dust on the curtains--just gross.  Wait, I just did.  Oops.

These are panoramic pics from my phone--making them bigger makes them look pixelated.  You can probably click on them and see them better.  Or, just come visit!  I loved, loved the last incarnation of their room because it accomplished the goal of giving each of them their own space.

http://adventuresofmommygirl.blogspot.com/2012/01/little-space-please_09.html

BUT, it felt forced, somehow...never quite right for them or for our house.  This configuration came after lots of measuring and moving and moving again and talking and compromising...but they love it.  And that's enough for me!  Kayci's goals were to NOT have his side/her side and to have lots of space in the middle.  Accomplished!  We did not accomplish her goal of putting the beds closer together, but it was a good learning experience for her...even after all of her thinking, planning, drawing, the room didn't look quite as good in real life as it did in her head.  We didn't spend any money this time, but I updated their "Always kiss me goodnight" over the window by spraypainting it yellow and did the same thing to Noble's N hook where he hangs his clothes every night.  The sign was my LEAST favorite part of their room after I painted it last time...it was just blah.  Now I love it again!


The only money spent was Kayci's money, on this mirror.  She loves having a space to get ready...and we love having her in the bathroom less each morning.  Keepin' it real, friends--we've only got the one, it gets crowded!  And it was a good lesson for her...she ended up spending ALL of her wallet money on this, down to the change.


We worked hard and got the room done by the day of Kayci's birthday party (Thursday, July 11)...and Noble finally, finally got to do his volcano eruption that afternoon.  It was a project he started on Monday when Kayci started Drama Camp, and it just kept getting moved to the back burner.  He was a little disappointed that the baking soda and vinegar didn't ACTUALLY turn into lava, but he was amazed at how "clear" vinegar made the "lava" red.  A little red food coloring in a red cup makes for lots of magic--even the big girls were wondering.  :)


And the big party...it was actually a small party this year, postponed almost a month after Kayci's birthday to make sure all 3 of her bff's could attend and planned on a Thursday so we could take them to karaoke at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  We had so. much. fun.

I'm not sure how this happened...I think it started when Kayci set up a "photo booth" for the party and I got out our stash of 'staches.  They were everywhere!


The girls hogged the stage...good thing it was a slow night for karaoke.


DaddyBoy got up there a few times, too...here he is singing my favorite song from "Hope Floats."  I love that Boy!  And that cute thing beside him, too.


After all these years, finally!  Kayci's friends told the waiter we were there for her birthday--she loved every second of this!


Oh, back to drama camp--Kayci and Jenna made the front page of the paper the day of the party!  Kayci's a pink cow...nope, no clue.


Last week Kayci went on vacation with Jenna's family.  She's back safe and sound, and she had a blast!


I got caught up on t-shirt orders.


Noble and I had a date night and went to the Circus in Houston--it was awesome this year!


We celebrated Jackson's 2nd birthday...such a sweet boy, such a fun party!


And last night, the soundtrack around here was the kids giggling.  They missed each other!  Noble even slept in Kayci's bed last night because they wanted to spend more time together.  Man, I hope that feeling lasts!

day 9: toy

We're working on the kids' room...time to decide which toys head to storage. Why does it bother me more than it bothers the knuckleheads? :(

days 1 & 2: out my window & reflection

So it wasn't MY window... :)
Anyone know where this window is? Hint: we added to our cup collection last night.



My reflection...have seen a lot of this for the past week. Enjoying the time in the car, and everyone else has been pretty content, too.