Photo Friday - Halloween

Halloween ended up being one of those hectic and dramatic days for me. I think that is probably typical of most moms. I had stayed up late the night before baking some 109 sugar cookies so the boys would have something to share with their classmates at school. Greg, the one whose class actually had a Halloween party, lost his cookies in the mudroom and never got to share them.
I was a bad Mama, because I didn't finish Meara's costume before Halloween, no instead I stressed out all day trying to make it work, swore at my failed ballet slippers and she ended up in a tutu we already had, some leg warmers I quickly made out of a pair of socks and voila, lazy ballerina suit.
I am so glad that that is over, now I get to stress out over Christmas, hooray!

The Trouble with Baby Books

Meara's birth announcement, printed through Snapfish.com (and I still have a few that haven't gotten to their recipient yet, oops)

Well, normally today I would be posting a Photo Friday but I haven't taken a photo in 2 weeks. It seems that now that school is in there aren't as many photo ops for the boys (they seem to be sleeping over with Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents every weekend) so most likely Meara is going to continue dominating the Photo Friday posts for a while. Since I don't have photos to post for you today I have decided to write about a related topic instead, the Baby Book.
We all start our children's baby books with the greatest of intentions, but I think most of us seem to peter out somewhere along the way, and we end up with incomplete books, half the milestones recorded, and lots of blank pages. Oops.
Joseph's baby book is a little sparse, it starts out good, but somewhere around month 8 it just stops. When I had Greg, I swore to myself I would do better, My sister in-law had given me a calendar to record his milestones and I thought that would help with the completion of a baby book, but nope, again, towards the end of Greg's first year, the pages are again blank. I had to come up with something different for Meara. No more browsing and searching for the perfect book, and not completing it. I am doing this one right (so far anyhow).
Enter Snapfish.com, I am doing it online, and creating my own entirely unique book just for Meara. There are definitely a few positives to this approach:

• The baby book only contains the info I want it to
• It will not have any blank pages
• If the original is ever lost or destroyed I can order a new copy
• It is easily edited and tailored

This seems to be the ideal approach for me, I scribble on our calendar little notes about her weight and milestones as they happen, and every month I sign in and add the new info and write a little note to her about how she has grown for that month. If I want to add more info it is easy enough for me to go back and do so, and it will always look neat and tidy. I am going to leave a blank page to glue an envelop to for a few keepsakes, and take photo's and scans of some of the other keepsakes so that it is all incorporated into her book. I have all the cards from the shower and the hospital to possibly scan and turn into a collage for the book too.
I am loving this idea so much that when I am done I may just redo the boys baby books for them too.
I chose to use Snapfish for this project partly because I have been using Snapfish for years, and partly because they still seem to be the most versatile yet affordable photo printing site. They do have a Canadian version of their site, but I prefer the American site, the shipping is higher but the options are greater.
How do/did you handle keeping your baby book(s) up?

Blogging Resolutions

Last week I came across a blog while searching for a pattern to make a sheet for my change table. When I had a little more time this weekend I read through many of the posts and I must say I did get inspired. Jennis Just Trying to "Make It" is a mommy blog, she is the type of mom that I must admit I am envious of, the kind of mom I try to emulate. She is crafty, her blog is full of posts of creative gifts she makes, recipes she loves, tips on being frugal and how to be more environmentally responsible.

The inspiration I took from this blog is the idea to post a regular project and ideally I would like to do this every week but knowing myself that is shooting pretty high. I am the type of blogger who only randomly remembers she has a blog to post on. So instead of saying that every Tuesday is Craft-tastic I will aim for every other Tuesday but I do intend to have Photo Fridays.

Craft-tastic Tuesdays will be variations between quick projects with a photo tutorial, to updates on the projects I am working on to those little crafting afternoons with the boys where we just play with pipe cleaners and construction paper. I am going to try my hardest to keep up with a biweekly post, even if that means making a few in advance and saving them as drafts.

Photo Fridays will be me posting a few photos every week of the kids and brief family updates. The idea is that between all the random bigger posts there will always be a little something posted on a regular basis.

The final change I intend to make is with the recipes that I have posted. Instead of having a tab with recipes galore I think I will make the recipes a regular blog post and the Recipes tab will have links to the original blog post. Also look forward to the addition of a Crafts and Projects tab.

Now, before I end this post I am going to share with you a photo of tomorrows Craft-tastic Tuesday project.