Project Life: Spring Break 2015

I'm hopelessly behind in sharing my Project Life pages, an entire year in fact!  Happily, I am not that far behind in actually getting the pages done and in my album.  I'm actually relatively "caught up".  I've decided to share a few of my favorite pages in between where I left off blogging them and where I currently am to date in 2015,

Back in April my family went to Chicago for an overnight visit.  We still managed to pack quite a lot into our time.  Like always, my husband gets us up and out the door so early that we arrived before the Museum of Science and Industry even opened.  This is quite a feat when you consider we still travel with my son's co-sleeper, eat breakfast on the road, and since we have kids - inevitably end up making more bathroom stops than he deems acceptable.

To make this mini trip within my album, I simply placed the museum map inside of a standard office supply sleeve.  Did you know these are usually also acid free and safe for memory keeping + so much more inexpensive than page protectors made by scrapbook companies?  Check the label just in case.

Then I added a bit of an info brochure we picked up at our hotel, that gives a little background about the MSI.  A few embellishments and now I have a easy peasy intro page to this section.  I like how the first page on the trip is peaking out underneath.

My son loves big trucks, vehicles, and especially tractors.  John Deere is well known in our house!  He was super excited, as in almost couldn't contain his happiness, at seeing this one set up for easy access to climb up and into.  There's also a combine that's pretty neat because you can see how the inner parts work.  He liked the Farm Tech exhibit so much we had to visit it twice.

You can see a bit more of the combine on the above left.  On the backside of the 6X8 slot I took advantage of the b side of the farm themed paper and just made a pocket to add our tickets in.  It takes up more room on the spread than I'd like but I didn't have any other focal point pictures I wanted to add there.

I used a post card from the gift shop in the right side.  It provides a nice overview of all the exhibits and I love to incorporate things like this to help document a trip with professional level photography, empty exhibits, and better images than I can get myself.

The next spread is about the Idea Factory, try to go early as they control the number of people allowed in and out.  My kids had a blast.  More of the brochure I cut apart for the map insert is on a filler card.

The right side is about the U-505 Submarine, Henry Crown Space Center, and You! The Experience.  I tried to really focus on just the highlights .

Project Life: A Day Out with Thomas, 2015

Hi Friends!

Oh my, has it been a LOOOOONG time since I've blogged!  I would think about getting on and sharing my latest projects but then it would seem like there had been such a long break...where to pick up the conversation.

Where to begin?

I guess by going back to where we stopped?  That was the end of last summer when I hurt my calf muscle, by tearing it three inches.  That was quite the pickle I got myself into!  It seems like a long time ago, and yet recently enough where the time between seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye.

I've been told that time flies as you get older and I have to say, I'm finding that quite true.  While not blogging, I've managed to get a lot done.  I'm actually current in my Project Life/Scrapbooking. That's in large part, because I got hurt and couldn't do very much of anything but sit around.

Then once I was better, any extra time was spent playing catch up with all the tasks, projects, and work around the house that had gotten neglected while doing physical therapy and recovering.

So without dragging this out too much, I decided to come back into blogging by sharing what I love most...memory keeping.

Last weekend, we took our little guy to see Thomas the Train, he's now four and I was hoping we could get away without going but no.  He definitely want to go see his favorite pal from the island of Sodor again.

Page Details:

I'm so far behind in sharing my Project Life pages that this is actually the page from LAST year's visit, when my little nugget was three.  His sister was sick so she she stayed with a sitter at home while he got to experience a little only child outing.  Needless to say, he loved it and documented it with some Slate Core Kit (printed kit discontinued, digital version available here) and fancied up a couple pictures with Just Add Color Overlays (digital version available here) and a few stickers.  It was an easy peasy page.

Hope you've all been able to make time for creativity and indulging in some me time:)  If not, hopefully soon!  {{Hugs}}

Life Lately, Making Lemonade out of Lemons

Hello Friends!  I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated.  This break was a unexpected, but for now, my online life is on the back burner but I think everyone will understand why.

In early August, I tore my left calf muscle lengthwise.  It's about eight centimeters long so almost a complete tear.  Can't say I was doing anything especially cool or fun, in fact, I just was running down the stairs!  I should probably make up a more exciting story.

This photo was taken at the beginning of the month after I got my boot and was finally able to be out and about for more than just quick trips in and out of the doctors office.  Even with the increased mobility, resorting to the electric scooter was still the best option as my legs get tired easily.  I'm doing better and better though.  In fact, I'm already out of the boot and walking almost normally.  Things are still very, very stiff but I'm working at getting things moving easier at physical therapy.

My doctor told me to expect it to be a total of at least three months for the recovery process.  Looking on the bright side, I didn't need surgery and my husband works close by.  He comes home at lunch and helps me get the kids fed and my little guy down for quiet time.  This was an especially big help during the end of the summer, when both kids were still home.  He's a big help and I'm so lucky to have his support.  My nine year old daughter has also been a big help, I'm more mobile now but at first I couldn't do much at all so I really needed her to go grab things and help her little brother.

One of my best friends has been coming by periodically to help tackle things like the floors and dusting.  Those are two of my biggest pet peeves, I can't stand crumbs everywhere!  I'm really bummed that the last month of summer, we couldn't do more fun stuff with the kids but their friends have been really good about coming over to visit and keep them company.

Everything will be better in time, key word being time.  I just have to wait and be patient while things heal up.