Back To School

My babies went back to school 2 weeks ago and I am not quite sure what to do with myself.  I am one of those crying mommas and yet I held myself together until both girls were out of the van.  Our school district has a separate kindergarten building so while my oldest attends the elementary school right in our neighborhood I have to drive across town to drop off the youngest, so holding back tears was tough until she was delivered to school.  I didn’t want to cry in front of them and leave them feeling stressed or sad.  They were so excited to go to school. 

I did well keeping tears at bay but there was a day last week when I looked into the back seat to tell my youngest something and I remembered I had already dropped her off and I cried all the way home.  I still need some time to adjust to our new normal around here. 

On a crafty note, I used my Silhouette Cameo to make the cute apples with their grades.  Of course I needed cute props! 

That was a mistake!

Over the past couple of years we have made pinecone bird feeders for our feathered friends.  We were a little late getting to it this winter but we do have a regular bird feeder that is stocked all year round so it wasn’t a big deal. 

Since the girlies like to help make these feeders we took a few minutes this afternoon and spread lots of peanut butter into the pinecones and then rolled it in some bird seed.  We tied on some pretty pieces of yarn and I put them in the tree outside of my office window. I snapped a photo and came in. 

No sooner than I had shut the front door my girls yelled that we already had a visitor in the tree!  Awesome!  That was so fast.  I came into the office and lo and behold there is a squirrel attempting to reach our newly hung feeders.  The sneaky little rodent made off with one of the feeders in less than 2 minutes!  I caught him on the roof before he bolted away.

My oldest said “That’s okay.  I wanted the squirrel to have mine.  I wanted to be kind.”  Bless her little heart.  In the moments like this, where she chooses to be positive and thoughtful, I feel like I may just be doing an okay job as a mommy after all. 

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Project Life Weeks 5 & 6

I really, really have the hardest time photographing the weeks through the page protectors. This week I tried my point and shoot rather than the DSLR and ended up with worse shots.  I really struggle to get good light in this house.

Week 5:

I didn’t get a clean image when I stamped the date but I just left it.  It doesn’t bother me too much.  A photo of some of my girls dress up clothes and some of our crazy weather.  The ice on the pool cover started to melt in an pretty cool way so I took a photo of it (bottom left).  I used some Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type stickers on the last card to spell out “Favorite Songs” and listed a few songs my girls are loving right now.

Aubrey celebrated 100 days of school this week and we had to make a shirt with 100 things.  She brought home the 100th Day sticker so I just added it.  I found a drawing the girls made from one of Aubrey’s school projects so I reduced it and printed it out.  The bottom right is my grandma’s writing on the back of a quilt she made.  My family had saved me some of her things after she passed away so this is extra special to me. 

Week 6:

Last week I shampooed our living room carpet, it was a mess!  It looks so much better and the photo is before I moved the furniture back in.  The Daisy girls made Valentines cards for the elderly and Josh Groban’s album “All That Echoes” was finally released.  I love it so much I dedicate a few pockets to music this week.  I found the photo of Josh Groban on his website and added my journaling right to the photo.  I cut the heart music note on the Cameo and then found a music quote I liked, typed it and left a spot for me to write in a word.  P.S. – The CD is AMAZING!

The Fraizer History Museum in Louisville has a temporary exhibit, “Spirits of the Passage: The Story of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”, so we went to check it out.  It was a great exhibit.  The museum usually has some kind of interactive element in front and this time it was a long blackboard where you completed the phrase “Freedom is…”.  Aubrey wrote helpful, Lolo just wrote her name. 

The weather was mild this week so we spent some time playing outside.  I used a brush from Ali Edwards for the <3 Today and just stamped it off the edge of the photo before I printed it.  I used Cathy Zielski’s Tiny Templates for the 3x4 cards this week.  I love these little templates so much!  I can add a little bit of journaling and have extra photos.  By the way, you can find both Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielski’s stuff at Designer Digitals (the quarterly sale is still going on until tomorrow 2/15). 

I love this project more and more every week.  I cannot wait to have our entire year documented! 

Winter Weather

The weather has been an extreme roller coaster of temperatures so far this winter and I think it has some of the wildlife confused!  I have had a ton of robins visiting my yard lately and the freezing rain didn’t keep them away this morning.

Now if only the cardinal and his lady bird would not fly away when I try to take their photos I would be a happy photographer!