Portraits of my sweet daughter

It was a gorgeous day yesterday and I wanted to get some pictures of my sweet daughter. I always try and have taken (in the old days) or take myself (now-a-days) portraits of my kids around their birthdays. I have been woefully bad at doing that. What has happened the last couple of years is that months after their birthdays I start digging through random snapshots I've taken of my kids to see if there's anything in there that I can print as an 8x10 and put in a frame for their yearly portrait (and print for the grandparents for their grandkid frames). I've had varying degrees of success doing that. Some years I've ended up with good portrait-y like shots, others I haven't gotten the style of photo I've wanted. Not so this year. My darling daughter and I went out to the back yard yesterday and got these shots. I'm really happy with lots of them. Yay! Good thing she was happy to pose for me!

I wonder how much time my son will be willing to give me to pose for shots when his birthday rolls around in a couple of months. I'm guessing not much. Stay tuned! Ha!

 She couldn't pass up swinging on the backyard swing. I wonder how long it's been since my kids have used that swing?

(What I wouldn't give for that hair!)

P365+1: Week 39: September 23 - September 29, 2012 ... and my beautiful teenage daughter

Here's a recap of this week ... 

It was an absolutely beautiful day today. I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went out to the back yard with my darling daughter and took a bunch of photos of her. She looks so beautiful - like a young woman. Wow.

Me

This is weird. I REALLY don't do pages about me very often. I'm a bit uncomfortable posting it, but I think it's important that we scrappers (family story tellers) make sure we show up in our scrapbooks too. At a recent event I attended (SpragueFest for you scrappy people) we had a session on taking and editing headshots, so we took each other's pictures. I'm not sure if my friend Anne Marie or Lisa took this picture, I got a selection of photos from each of them. Either way, if you read this, thanks ladies!

Here's my journaling:

I'm not in a lot of photos. It's my fault, I'm always holding the camera. (I love being the family story teller!) We've been working on taking more photos with me in them, so I've been showing up in the scrapbooks a bit more. Yay! What I don't have though are many individual pictures of me, so I wanted to scrap this photo (taken by friends at SpragueFest). Years down the road, when I'm old and grey(er!), I want the kids to be able to look back, point to this page and say: There's my Mom! She sure loved us!

Supplies for this page:  Dreams of Love kit by Julia Makotinsky.

World's Best Dad

World's Best Dad ... enough said!

I've got some lucky kids. They sure have a great dad!

You can see a full listing of the page here. All products for this page are from Shabby Princess, most for the most part the Gracie kt.

Memories of a Sailing Vacation

My son went on a week long sailing trip on Lake Michigan this summer with some close friends of ours who moved to Chicago about 2 years ago. He had a fabulous time! (Who wouldn't?) Of course I heard from him I think maybe one time once while he was sailing. (He did stay in contact with us when he was flying to and from Chicago so that was good.) I'm very thankful for my friend Kathy who sent me daily photos and texts about what they were doing. I loved that!

For this page I used some of the iPhone photos and a couple of screen shots of the texts Kathy sent me. I thought it was a good way to commemorate his adventure.

As I've stated before ... I love technology!

All the supplies for this page came from Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. You can click here for a link to my Designer Digitals gallery.

For the love of blanket forts!

My daughter has always loved to build blanket forts. She's always so happy when she she grabs a bunch of blankets and hangs them over chairs, bikes, trees - whatever is available at the moment. A lot of times she likes to read in her forts, sometimes she just hangs out. I.LOVE.IT! (I remember liking to build blanket forts when I was a kid too!) ... I was able to find a couple of photos of the forts she's built over the years ... I just wish I'd taken more pictures of her forts. At least I've got a few though!

FYI, I used Design by Dani's adorable Just Stay Little that just came out at Jessica Sprague this week. I love Dani's kits!

You can find a full list of credits here.

P365+1: Week 38: September 16 - September 22, 2012

Happy Monday everyone!

Just wanted to share my photo-a-day page from last week. We had a busy weekend celebrating my daughter's birthday as well as my nephew's birthday. What fun!

Happy 95th birthday Laura!

It's my husband's grandma's 95th birthday tomorrow. She's an awesome lady. Happy birthday Laura!

Superbowl 2012 + Pinterest Love!

A super quick page for me. I went to Pinterest this afternoon and saw a page that I'd pinned the other day and did a quick scraplift. Love it! Have I ever said I love Pinterest?!

That reminds me ... I've got a new "gallery wall" in my newly redecorated family room. I included in my gallery wall an 11"x14" piece of family artwork that I created based on inspiration from something I pinned on Pinterest. I need to get a picture of that and post it here. Soon!

I'm so excited about my new gallery wall that was so largely inspired by Pinterest: I used my "gallery wall" board for ideas on how to lay it out, I used another board for ideas for my husband on how in the heck to get all those frames hung evenly, and I used another Pinterest board to create my piece of art. THANK YOU PINTEREST!

OK, back to Superbowl ...

You can see a list of credits for this page here.

A quick change-up on a page

I'm always quick to post a page the moment I finish it. I guess maybe I feel like it's done when I post it, and I want to move on to the next photos to be scrapped. I love it! Well I guess I was too quick on this one. After taking another look at the page I changed up the journaling a bit and chose a different journaling card and voila, here's my new, slightly better page ...

Friends - this makes me happy

I had a quiet evening tonight sitting at a coffee shop for a hour as I waited to pick up my daughter and her friends. I used that time to scrap a super quick page. What fun!

You can find the credits for this layout at my Jessica Sprague gallery here.

Celebrating Family

We were up north this weekend celebrating family birthdays - with birthdays ranging from 13 years old to 95 years old. How cool is that?

I wanted to commemorate this gathering of wonderful family with a couple of pages in my scrapbook. Check out the photos of Great Grandma - doesn't she look gorgeous! Who'd guess she was 95?!

It was such fun hanging out and celebrating!

Here's the 2 page spread:

Here's the left page:

Here's the right page:

FYI, I used Echo Park Hybrid's Times & Seasons kit for these pages. I loved the warm colors of the papers and elements! I also threw in the awesome Digital Distressing Kit brushes from Nancie Rowe Janitz (a seriously AWESOME set of paint, chalk, sanding, etc. brushes!). And last but certainly not least, the staples are from Splendid Fiins - I pretty much always grab at least a little something from her At the Office Supplies kit for my pages!

If you'd like to see a full listing of credits, click here for my page in the Jessica Sprague gallery.

Go jump in the lake!

We were up north celebrating a bunch of family birthdays this weekend. We were all sitting outside at the hotel enjoying the beautiful fall weather when my father-in-law dared my son to go jump in the lake with his clothes on for $20. (I think he assumed he wouldn't do it.) Without a moment's hesitation, my son IMMEDIATELY began walking to the dock to jump in. My father-in-law proceeded to try and talk him down on the money. Still, my son wanted cash and was going to do it. In the end my niece wanted to see him jump in so she paid him $5, my father-in-law paid him $10 and I paid him $5 (because I wanted to get some fun photos and because I wanted him to make the $20 he was originally offered).

It was quite fun and - as you can see - made for some fun photos! I love it! It was a fun time and my son got cash - a win-win situation!

You can find the credits for this layout here. {FYI, it's primarily product by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals along with postage stamp frames from Pink Paislee at Jessica Sprague.}

Ready for Middle School!

We're ready for middle school!

FYI, this is a page using nearly 100% awesome digi product created by Splendid Fiins (who I got to meet this week at SpragueFest ... YAY!!!) You can find a list of credits at my JessicaSprague gallery here.

P365+1: Week 37: September 9 - September 15, 2012 + Family birthdays + Spraguefest!

Oh so many fun memories! First off, here's a recap of our "regular" week:

And a super quick recap of SpragueFest ... It was such fun to spend a couple of days with a great group of people I've been "chatting" with on-line for a couple of years. Hanging out with people who COMPLETELY understand my love for technology, photography and digiscrapping art was simply AWESOME!

And last but certainly not least (only posted at the end because it occurred later in the week! LOL!) ... a celebration of family birthdays!

My ATC card for SpragueFest 2012

I had such a fabulous time at SpragueFest the last couple of days. It was so fun to have an opportunity to meet so many of the people I've talked to and become friends with over the years at the JessicaSprague website.

Here's the ATC (artist trading card) I created to share at the event:

FYI, I used primarily Nancie Rowe Janitz supplies for my ATC.

... and here's a snapshot of our group at Open Book (an absolutely FANTASTIC place in Minneapolis).

I always want to remember ... my son's 15 year old sense of humor

My son cracks me up sometimes.  I want to remember what he finds particularly entertaining at times, and this page is going to help me. FYI, I took the AARP photo at the MofA last night and my husband took this photo of my son and me this morning.

FYI, all I used on this page was Photoshop and a couple of fonts and photos.

Father/Son bonding weekend in Colorado

This spring Scott and Don flew out to Denver and spent a weekend with Mark. Father/Son bonding time. No wives, no kids ... just the guys hanging out and having fun. How wonderful!

A 15 year old's Bucket List

My son spent a week in Chicago with a friend at the start of summer vacation. My husband had been in Chicago for the week as well and on Friday they met back up for the journey home. On their 7-1/2 hour car ride back home my son compiled this "Bucket List." I absolutely love it! I think it's a great glimpse into the mind of a (BORED) 15 year old boy!

By the way ... this entire page was created using a TON of products by the talented Splendid Fiins (including a "Hot Mess template" that will be coming to Jessica Sprague soon!).

By the way, you can find a full list of credits here.

P365+1: Week 36: September 2 - September 8, 2012

I can't believe summer is over already and the kids are back at school. Summer sure went by quickly. I'm going to miss summer vacation and having the kids at home but it is nice to be getting into a routine again. Although I can't believe how old my kiddos are getting. Seriously, my baby is really in middle school?!

The kids had a great first week back to school, unfortunately though I think the exposure to all the germs in school resulted in my daughter getting sick and coming down with a bug. She felt really pretty lousy when she got home from school on Friday. By Friday night she even had a fever of a little over 102. My poor baby. She was starting to feel a tiny bit better last night when she went to bed (and her fever was gone thankfully). I hope she'll be feeling TONS better when she wakes up this morning!

Hello fall!

P365+1: Week 36: September 2, 2012 - Relaxing at the Beach with Friends

What an awesome way to end the kids' summer vacation ... spending a day at the beach boating with friends, and then to top it off with a BBQ party at our house. Awesome!!

What a great day (and a great summer!)

Smile for the Camera! (Visiting Great Grandma)

We always enjoy visiting Great Grandma whenever we get to town. It's always fun to spend some time together and to visit. She always looks beautiful. Can you believe she's turning 95 in just a week. 95. I sure hope I look that good when I'm her age!

Now for some quick scrappy talk ... I used Pink Paislee's Caught on Camera kit again today. I just absolutely adore the colors! So perfect for a simple page like this!

You can find a full list of credits for this page here.

Ordinary Moments at Home

Pink Paislee is coming out with an awesome new kit called "Caught on Camera." The moment I saw it I loved it. The colors, the cameras, the word tags, all the fun elements --- it's just so fun I knew I had to scrap a page (or more!) with it! It'll be coming out soon at JessicaSprague.com if you want to check it out!!

I have these photos of the kids goofing off at home. The photos were taken a couple of days after my son came back from a 10 day sailing vacation with friends. The house was so quiet without him. I missed him. I loved when he was back home and we were back to normal again!

Aren't ordinary moments at home the absolute best?!

You can find a list of credits here.

Yes, actual date nights with my hubby!

Lets be real. Life is busy. Despite the fact that our kids are getting older and are absolutely thrilled to have evenings at home alone without us, Scott and I still don't seem to have opportunities to go out very often. There's always something going on.

Every summer though the kids look forward to spending some time alone with Grandma and Grandpa. Their big vacation with Gma & Gpa means that Scott and I also have some time to hang out together. It's always a treat (for all of us). This summer our "alone time" was shortened because the darn date for the golf invitational overlapped with the time the kids were away with Gma & Gpa so Scott had to go out of town mid-week. We still had a few days together though. We enjoyed a number of really nice dinners out and just having some time to hang out together. It was nice.

We got ONE photo of the two of us having dinner together (thanks to our waitress at Lola's Lakehouse), so I wanted to get that photo scrapped and in the scrapbook!

Happy Thursday everyone!

You can find the credits for this layout here.

Minnesota State Fair

What a great day at the Fair! I had so many pictures that I just couldn't limit myself to a 2 page spread ... I needed four pages to get a feel for the day. What a fun day!

Pages 1 and 2:

Pages 3 and 4:

And a closer look;

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3:

Page 4:

It was hard to decide what kits to use for these pages. In the end I used Pink Paislee's Hometown Summer and Design by Dani's Hometown Proud. Both super fun, colorful summer kits! You can find both of these kits at JessicaSprague.com!

You can find a list of credits here:

P365+1: Week 35: August 26 - September 1, 2012 (Project Life?)

It was another big week. Lot of time spent with family and friends. We are blessed to have so many wonderful people in our life!

P365+1 (Father/Son Golf Tournament & State Fair) (A busy August week)

What fun this week. Two big events that get their own pages in my photo-a-day book. Hmmm ... I guess we're fitting in as much fun at the end of summer vacation as possible!

Last weekend we were in Cloquet for the Father/Son Golf Tournament that Scott, Mark, Don and my son played in. Usually it's just my husband and father-in-law who play. This year my brother-in-law was in town AND they asked my son to play. The had a great time! (I even got to show up at the 18th hole on the last day to snap these pictures!) I sure hope this becomes a new family tradition for the four of them (or at least the three of them if Mark is not in town) to golf together!

And lastly, the State Fair. The four of us, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law and three nieces and nephews spent an awesome day at the Fair on Thursday. A really great time!