Updates.

So I was doing really good at posting several times a week and then I stopped.

It happens.

Last time I really did an update, I posted about Ben's 1st day of preschool.  He is LOVING it.  He is not pleased to see me when I come to pick him up after lunch.  I'm so glad we made the choice to send him, I think it's working very well for him.

They did an assessment on him and he did very well.  According to their worksheet, by the end of 36 months (3 years) he should be able to recognize:

• shapes: circle, oval, square, triangle, rectangle, diamond, star & heart.  According to them, he's mastered all but circle, triangle, rectangle & diamond (which, I don't agree with - Ben knows circle, triangle and diamond.  I'm not sure how the assessment is performed, so I don't know why he didn't get it correct when they asked him)
• colors: brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black.  He is still working on purple (he often calls it pink) and black (which he often calls brown)

They also say by the end of 36 months he should be able to:

• count out loud to 10
• sing the ABC's
• walk up stairs with alternating feet
• put on shoes
• open door by twisting knob
• turn pages in a book one page at a time
• play with other children for a few minutes
• repeat common rhymes
• use 3-5 word sentences
• use the toilet
• express affection openly
• express a wide range of emotions
• jump up
• name 6 body parts
• build a tower of 4 blocks
• wash & dry hands
• sit for a story
• sing songs and participate in finger play
• put together simple puzzles
• hold a crayon and make marks

The only one of those that he can't do is put on his shoes... and to be fair - what shoes? ;) He can put on his boots just fine.  His sneakers he can't.  So those are things we'll work on, help him nail down those shapes, figure out what colors purple & black are and start practicing with shoes.

Hannah & Emma stayed the night - they had fun covering themselves in every available burp rag they could find...

Other than that, things are mostly the same around here.  Nick hasn't been asked to travel again, so my fingers are crossed that he doesn't.  I really dislike it when he's gone (and I know he does, too).  It's hard on Ben - before he was clueless but now he knows and he doesn't like it.  I got an opportunity to make some money from home that I'm really excited by.  A mom in my mommy group has an Etsy business and since the birth of her 2nd baby, she hasn't been able to keep up with her shop.  She hired me and another mama to help her with some sewing prep work.  I'm really excited and kind of nervous - excited for the extra cash but nervous that she'll think I suck and not want to use me any more.  Hopefully that doesn't happen!  I'm going over tomorrow to talk about the work and get started.  Wahoo!

I finished Ben's little 1st year scrapbook and I heart it a bunch.  :)  Now I'm working on a regular sized (12x12) book for his 2nd year but I'm slightly stumped.  Before I started the mini book, I had already scrapped his first birthday on to 12x12 layouts.... obviously I didn't include those in his 8.5x8.5 book but I'm not sure what to do with those pages.  Stick them at the beginning of his 2011 book?

why, yes, those are bat jammie pants... Ben's new thing is insisting on jammie pants at nap time

I'm still struggling to find that balance between the "job" and then "fun" - if I make time to do the "fun" (like scrap or read or whatever) it seems the "job" (or... house work ha ha) suffers.  If I spend my time doing the job, the fun stuff doesn't happen.  With Ben in school, I'm starting to find a routine a little bit but mostly my mornings go by in a blur.  Especially Monday's - Monday is grocery shopping day, so I take Ben to school, go shopping, come home, feed Matthew, put away the groceries and it's about time to go pick up Ben from school again.

So there you go.  An  update.  Of sorts.

Scrappin' Saturday.

Here's another layout from the mini book I'm making for Ben.  This book is 8.5" by 8.5" which is some times a challenge to fill up each page - there's often more I want to do but I don't have space for.

Some times, though, it works out just perfect.  I had a few pictures from fall that I wanted to share - I only ended up taking one photo of Ben's first Thanksgiving and I wish I'd had more - I didn't realize at the time it would be the only Thanksgiving Ben would get to celebrate with my mom (she passed the following January).

I love those pictures of Ben crawling through the leaves in our front yard.  I remember that day - he soon lost interest in the leaves and started to try to crawl away.  He made it all the way down the driveway 3 times (after being picked up and set back on the grass) before we finally went back inside.  :)

I had the basket of leaves forEVER without knowing what to do with it.  I found it online last year (here) and pretty much copied it, step by step as a card.  I didn't want to part with it because I put so much work into it and I loved the way it turned out.  When I was searching for some way to make that one Thanksgiving photo pop out, I remembered that card.  I separated the pieces making it a card and just mounted the photo on front (I actually hand cut the photo into that shape - I just traced the shape onto the back of the photo and then cut with scissors).

Looking at this page in the book makes me incredibly happy every time.  And makes me wish for fall!

(Cartridges used in this layout: Designers Calendar for the "give thanks" cut on the left side and Doodlecharms for the basket & leaves on the right side)

Scrappin' Saturday

I'm nearly finished with the mini album I'm making of Ben's first year.  Mainly I'm doing one 2-page layout per month of his first year.  There are a few extra pages for specials events.

Here's one of my very favorite pages from this book - it's one showing a few images of spring and I just adore it.

I  made the "spring" banner from my April Showers cartridge and the flowers on each side are from Cindy Loo.  I love Cindy Loo but I find I don't use it that much - it's a tad feminine for my all boy.

I love how different he looks in that picture on the bottom right - he looks like a completely different kid than the rest - he looks like a tiny tubbo even though he totally wasn't!

Scrappin' Saturday.

Here's a layout I made recently. I actually made eight copies of this layout; I'm attending a scrap-swap at the end of the month. As you can see, I haven't added photos yet, but I have quite a few picked out. Some of Ben's favorite things that I'll be documenting are: trucks, dip (like ranch for his nuggets), grapes, his sand & water table, and Elmo.


Aside from the ribbon and the accent pieces, I used my Cricut entirely for this craft. Using my SCAL2 software, I cut the bracket frame journaling tags (free .svg file found here). I also used SCAL2 for the lettering, using sf Natalie font (found free here ).

I did a three part layer on the ribbon. The base ribbon is a stretchy blue gingham ruffle ribbon that I centered a plain green grosgrain ribbon on top of and then a sunny yellow rickrack ribbon on top of that. I glue dotted each layer together and cross stapled at the ends.

I found these fun ribbon embellished paperclips in the scrapbook accessories aisle at Hobby Lobby. I loved how they picked up on the polka dot theme of the background paper and tied in to the whole color scheme.

The paper mats are actually from way outside the scrapbook aisles. As I was making my layouts, I realized I didn't have enough of any one color card stock to make all the mats for eight layouts. I started doing multi color - I had enough card stock to do each of the five mats per layout a different color.... I just didn't like the way it looked. By the time I changed my mind, Hobby Lobby was closed but I was too impatient to wait. I went to Target and wasn't impressed with their card stock options. I was inspired to match the mats to the lettering background - which happened to look like kraft paper (it's actually card stock). Well, Target ended up being sold out of their rolls of kraft paper. I thought "lunch bags!" and off I went only to discover Target's lunch bags are not, in fact, brown - they're blue & red. As I was headed dejectedly away, a stack of yard leaf bags caught my eye....

I brought them home, trimmed 'em to size and they look perfect.

*updated with pictures: