Year in Review

LOTS of changes around here in the last year!  First, of all, we are no longer homeschooling.  This was a very hard decision for us, since we had homeschooled our daughter in grades K-5.  However, we decided that she would benefit from having a greater diversity of teachers, strong academic programs, and the chance to be more independent.  We found an awesome school for her and she is already thriving there.  Here is a photo of her from our summer vacation, ready to take on the waves!

Another BIG and AMAZING and AWESOME change is that my husband and I now both work during the day!  For years he worked at night to acccommodate homeschooling and keep our daughter out of child care. It was great for her - she got tons of time with each parent.  However for the parents, it was the worst!  I am really crazy about my husband and for 8 long years I only saw him two evenings a week plus summers.  It was SO HARD.  I cannot emphasize enough how hard it was.  I felt near cracking point. But this past Spring he got a job offer within the organization and is now home with me and our daughter every evening!  It's wonderful and relaxing and the best thing that every happened.  And great timing - we celebrated out 15th wedding anniversary this summer by renewing our vows at the spot we had our first kiss. 

We have an amazing new family member - my second nephew. He is one of the sweetest, happiest babies I have ever met.  We hadn't had a new baby in the family in 5 years so you can imagine how much kissing and squishing he got immediately!  I've been extra lucky to get to spend lots of time with him.  Hard to believe he is almost 10 months old.  

My one-year anniversary of my "new" job is tomorrow and I still love it as much as I did on day one.  I really feel like I am where I belong, sharing art with kids and helping them interpret the museum, as well as helping young adults gain experience and find their next steps.  I have also been very forturnate in the last year to have the opportunity to go back to school and I have been taking one class a semester, choosing things that relate to my job.  Last semester I took Arts of China and this semester I'm taking Printmaking 1. 

I will say I find the homework for printmaking much less stressful than writing papers.  I am not sure why - I've always been a strong writer - but wow college is a lot of work.  I can't believe I ever took 5 classes and worked full time!  

Since last year there has been another major change in my life. I have entered an adult weight management program.  Technically, I was in it last year, but I was only doing the counseling portion of the program.  I was getting ready to jump in and really get moving. I'm doing great in it and I'm really happy!  I will have a whole separate post on that soon!

2013 and What's New

I'm beating the post-Christmas blues by spending lots of time with my family and working hard with my Girl Scouts!  Here's what's new around here:

• My sweet husband is our city's Girl Scout Cookie Sale Manager for the first time ever.  It's pretty awesome to see him working this way, but stressful to see him get stressed when people are unresponsive.
• I feel so lucky to have a job that I love, working at the museum.  I haven't been working as much as I'd like lately, but hoping now that Winter vacation has passed things will pick up.
• I started a Girl Scout troop at our local Boys & Girls club.  I have girls ages 9 through 13 and we've only had one meeting so far, but it was fun and it will be a different experience for me to be with older girls who have not had a previous Girl Scout experience.
• I haven't been scrapping a ton, but I have made good progress on my new mini album made entirely of my Instagram photos.  (I got a tablet for Christmas and was so excited to finally join the world of mobile devices!)  Esme has been scrapping with me a lot and I love it.  I gave her my extra Instagram prints and this is what she made:

• This week we start Robotics!  I attended training on how to coach a FIRST Lego League competitive team but I still feel a little unprepared.  The trainers assure me that soon the girls will be teaching me what to do.  Definitely happy to be offering more STEM activities for Girl Scouts.
• I love having an instrument that I can play.  I haven't quite gotten to it every day, but my autoharp has definitely been getting use since its purchase in late October.  At the moment I have a touch of laryngitis, but I hope to get back to it full force once this wears off.  
• I can't wait to get back to the beach this summer.  On these cold days when it gets dark so early, I think even more about the night we had a fire on the beach and how late it stayed light.  That's my favorite time of year!

Loving Grid Layouts

I have been working harder to give weight to certain pages in my albums. It can be hard to balance having 100 adorable photos when they are of a not-particularly-significant event in our lives, or when I have similar photos year after year of the same activities. I have been turning more and more to grid-style layouts, where I can get lots of photos on a page.

For this page I wanted to include lots of photos because I am looking back at a time that my daughter and my entire Girl Scout troop was so much littler! Half the layouts I've pinned on Pinterest seem to be grids as well.

Girl Scout Camp Layout

We are so happy that our daughter has had such positive experiences at Girl Scout summer camp these last two summers. The photos from last year were so special to me I had a hard time scrapping them. I wanted the feel and look of the page to be bright and expressive. I finally took the plunge and did the layout today:

I am pleased with the result - I used products from a wide range of companies including Jilibean Soup, K & Company, Echo Park, Colorbok, Doodlebug, and American Crafts.

Make Something Every Day: Day Ten

Esme and I have been hankering to try making our own hair accessories.  She made the blue headband, we made the flowered clip together, and I made the purple headband.  This was our first attempt and I expect our future work will get much more complicated!  It was a fun start though, and we're thinking about making some cute flower clips for our Girl Scouts to wear to the fundraiser.

Make Something Every Day: Day Five

Between work, Math tests, and swim practice, Esme and I didn't have much time at home together today, so we decided on a nice easy project tonight.  We played around with our crafty supplies to make tags that could either be used for scrapbooking or Christmas projects.  Esme decided to make hers ornaments.

I've used things I've been into lately for scrapbooking: doilies, aluminum duct tape, felt, other fabrics, and twine.  Esme used punches, which are one of her favorite scrapbook tools.  She also used colored pencils and ink pads quite a bit.

Make Something Every Day: Day Four

Today's project is rock candy.  We did a rocks and minerals lessons at Esme's 4H Science Club last week, so we are following up by talking about crystals.  We thought rock candy would be the perfect demonstration.  Esme and I made the syrup, but pouring it into the jar got pretty messy.  Now we have to let it sit for a week and watch what happens!

By the way, I finally got to try the banana bread today and it was moist and delicious.  I will definitely make that again.  I used this recipe.

Also, 2012 Fashion 4 U tickets went on sale today.  If you would like to purchase via Paypal, please email me.

Make Something Every Day - Day Two

Esme and I kept busy this morning and let Ethan sleep in.  We went shopping for a former member of our Girl Scout troop.  Her family had a house fire and she and her sister lost almost all of their belongings to smoke damage.  We decided to get them each a dress and a toy for Christmas, and the girls are making all kinds of little handicrafts to include in their gift bags.

I am fighting my second cold of the season so I wasn't feeling super ambitious, but we really wanted to use up the older bananas, so I washed my hands thoroughly and kept going.  Esme and I have never made banana bread so I'm not sure exactly how it will turn out.  We just made a mini loaf as a test and it's baking now.  I'm going to take some cough syrup and cuddle up with my husband and hope to feel ambitious tomorrow.

Make Something Every Day - Day One

Esme and I have decided to make or bake something every day from now til Christmas.  We have so many projects in the works, we want to get some done.  We want to make some Christmas presents and decorations too!  We decided to make my mother-in-law a book for Christmas.  Here is the title:

My mother-in-law is hard to find the perfect present for, so we wanted to give her something really special.  She got two new kittens this year that Esme adores so we thought this would work.  We've been talking about it for a few days and filling out our ideas, so tonight we sat down together and wrote the text.  I printed it with spacing so that over the next few days Esme will be able to complete the illustrations.  It's a lot of drawing for her - there are ten pages.  

We also started reading this advent book my mom sent to Esme.  We will have a Bible quote and little reading every day.  Today's is Luke 2:8 - "In that region there were shepherds."

Some Recent Esme-isms

"I want to do more poetry.  Can we get some clay?"

"Heidi Klum was a model for Victoria's Secret.  They sell literature."

"That is a cool contest!  I am going to compute!"

UPDATE: "I know what you should do.  Some recent Daddy-ums."

Museum of Science Trip

Getting Back in the Homeschooling Game

1. Finishing the essay - Esme has been working on an essay about our Brownie trip to New York for what seems like forever. She has a writing folder to help her stay organized, but this morning she couldn't find a couple pages of the rough draft. O..M..G. I did not kill her though, I just insisted she find it, which she eventually did.

2. I have to mail our assessment/intention letter today - I combined them into one long letter this year, and it makes more sense to me that way.

3. Staying organized is a challenge for ALL of the members of our family - I have to sort a huge pile of independent work for her into categories, folders, etc.

4. We are going to our first 4H meeting today - not an official meeting, but a picnic to meet the other people she'll be working with this year. The theme of this group is Science, which is her very favorite subject.

5. We are going to give her a year to really challenge herself and grow this year - if she was in public school she would be in *third grade,* which is the first really challenging year for many kids.

One Day, Two Layouts

My brother and his daughter came to visit us on his birthday. I am doing scrapbooks for each of my biological nieces and nephew, in addition to MANY albums for my own daughter. Since I went to a crop Friday night, I decided to make packing easier and plan some of the same photos for each album, so I could pack the same colors, embellishments, etc. Here are the layouts I made for each girls' album.

trying to get my scanner to work....

I really, really want to post more pages in 2011 but I am facing some challenges. First of all, my scanner seems to be producing inconsistent images. Parts seem overexposed and I'm not sure what to do about it. Secondly, I have yet to find a great stitching program that works with Windows 7 and and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I used to use a program that came with my scanner - well, two or three scanners ago. That definitely isn't going to work now. Third, I really, really stink at photographing layouts. Even when I use a tripod I can't seem to get a good image. If anyone has any good tips I'd love to hear them - this is how my layouts are coming out right now:



BTW as bad as that image is, I LOVE those photos. That's my niece last summer grabbing onto my daughter in the kiddie pool. Plus I love those bright Doodlebug papers, and the simplicity of the whole thing. Thanks to Jennifer for giving me the Bazzill border.

Our awesome friend, Matt Wilga, has just released his first single, There I Go. In celebration of his accomplishment and getting to see him play live in Amherst, we stamped these shirts to wear to the show. Being a crafter is extra handy for things like these - I already had these huge Heidi Swapp stamps (which I love) and some black Crafter's ink by Colorbox. I'm not sure the show was strictly appropriate for our daughter, given the other acts and the lateness of the hour, but she is a big fan so we didn't want her to have to miss it. He dedicated a song to her and gave her the set list.

I'm so glad the cold weather is almost behind us for another year. Esme and I like to sit outside with paints or colored pencils, at home or at the park, and let Ethan serenade us while we create. This is one of my last winter-inspired pictures for this year, and it's a typical scene from my life! It's just a quick sketch with oil pastels and acrylic paints, where I made some swirls on paper and saw what kind of people would emerge. Now I'm looking forward to Friday, when I hear we might hit 72 degrees here in the Pioneer Valley, and hoping that soon pictures of little girls in flowered dresses will emerge from those swirls.

Yesterday was my Esme's birthday - I can't believe she is 7 years old! We had quite a nice day together. We are still waiting for her first two wiggly teeth to come out though.

I made this scrapbook page the night before while scrapping with my friend, Lisa, via Skype. Skype is one of my favorite inventions ever - we live many miles apart but can get together pretty much every week to scrap together!

A couple months ago I tried the Northampton Arts Night Out with my family and few friends, but didn't find much going on. Esme and I went out last night and were very pleased to find LOTS of things happening! We started at the Smith College Art Museum. On second Fridays admission is free and they have lots of activities for families. Esme got to get her face painted, have some snacks, and do some beading. The best part was a coloring book with different images throughout the museum in it - she loved tracking each of the paintings down.


Next we headed over to Pinch, to see this show by one of my favorite local artists, Sarah Ahearn. I got to meet her at Paradise City last Fall and I love her collages/paintings. Her new work is wonderful and I was glad Esme and I got a chance to talk to her for a few minutes.

The last thing we did downtown was stop by A.P.E. Esme was fascinated because there was a man in the window doing a bit of a performance piece. He was painted himself and he would slowly move to pretend to be painting color onto a real flower. Esme has been to several animatronic science shows lately, and would not believe that the man was not a robot, no matter how many times I insisted otherwise. We went inside and watched for a bit, and even then back outside on the sidewalk it was hard to tear her away.

It was a very nice evening out with my baby! I love sharing these things with her!

Since her dad and I are both sick and have been laying around listlessly most of the day, Esme needed a little Mommy time. I decided to sit up for a while and scrap with her, and wanted to do a new layout of us together, just to remind her how much I love her. Some girls over from the peaboard have a new challenge blog, so I thought I would give their first one a go. Esme and I had a nice afternoon together and now I'm back to bed!