Catching up...

Sorry. I know I went MIA for a bit there. Call it a mental health break if you will. ;) In any case, some things for today...

ONE. Don't forget to go buy Tiff's awesome Little Apprentice kit!! Rockin' prices and fabulous kits! You have until midnight Friday to make your vote count! (Each purchase is a vote.) Pretty please?

TWO. Here's one of the layouts I started last Saturday and finally finished:

 

Yes, it just happens to also be my take on my March Album in a Year layout sketch. :) Have you finished yours yet?!

THREE. Micah's getting way too smart for me. Yesterday, honest to goodness, he came to me in the kitchen complaining his tummy hurt. With the expected sympathy, I asked him what we could do. His reply (without a moment's hesitation, as if, of course, he'd been planning for this exact moment), "Candy will make me feel better." Really.

FOUR. Not to be left out of the interesting things kids say department, a couple nights ago Asher and Noah were randomly and completely out of the blue discussing things they were grateful for...

Asher: "I'm thankful for gravity. It's good."

Noah: "Yeah. I'm thankful for the earth's magnetic field. That's good, too."

Um, hello? Where do they get this stuff?

FIVE. We got our Painted Lady butterflies last week! I placed a big group order for our homeschool group and even made up 24 of these fun little informational journal type things (a grand excuse to try out my new Bind It All, don't you think?): 

 

Our little caterpillars should be forming chrysalids any day now...very cool. (We've actually done this once before, so the boys aren't quite as excited as before, but we also have a field trip/class planned at Denver's Butterfly Pavilion next week, so that will be fun!) 

SIX. Okay, just some forewarning, but I may go missing for a bit again. Feeling overwhelmed here and trying to get things back in line. Nothing major, so don't worry...just feeling the need to step away from the computer and get things done, kwim? Don't worry, though, I'll be back! :) 

Course, I also reserve the right to not go missing. Who knows? Just wanted to apologize in advance just in case. ;) 

This morning.

Yawn. Still recuperating from the blast I had all day yesterday at a crop here at my local favorite place (The Treasure Box). I'll post more about that (and maybe even a layout or two once I finish them up) later. For the moment, I just had to share this sweet moment I had with Micah this morning.

I brought Micah downstairs after he woke up. His brothers, uncharacteristically, weren't awake yet (they were all pretty darn tuckered after a long Saturday). Micah looked around and said to me, "me sad. Brothers not up." I indicated that they'd probably be awake soon, particularly given how loud he was talking, lol. He brightened up and said, "Asher me best friend!" How cool is that? :) 

Filing a complaint.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I can't seem to help myself. American Idol. Last night's result show. What the heck?! This is the first time we've ever watched a season of American Idol (got hooked back during the writers' strike when there wasn't much else on, lol). Is this normal? My boys were totally pulling for Michael Johns. They loved him. When the announcement was made last night, Noah (7) immediately turned to us and said, "I want to file a complaint!" Really.

Overwhelmed.

Oh my gosh. I waded into our basement earlier today and have to tell you that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I so need to sort and purge down there (have been working my way through the house slowly but surely since January). In particular, though, what overwhelms me is that this isn't a project where simply taking the coats that not longer fit to Goodwill or something will suffice. The stuff that's in the basement needs to be purged, yes. But what will remain is boxes (and boxes) of stuff that I know I want to scrapbook...ticket stubs and love letters and maps and brochures and programs from our lives before kids. On the one hand, I'm so glad that even before I scrapbooked I had the mentality of saving and documenting things...so I do have all sorts of stuff down there to work with. On the other hand, I have all sorts of stuff down there to work with. ;)

So, though I'm not feeling quite up to tackling the basement quite yet, here's a question for you. When going back to document stuff from before you scrapbooked, do you use the photos you have (the 4x6 prints from a film camera) and just make things work...maybe even with a general design that you just follow throughout a themed album?

Or do you take the time to go back to the negatives and reprint some of the photos that deserve a bit bigger treatment and maybe resize some of the others to make smaller prints so that you can scrapbook the layouts more like you actually scrapbook now? (Fortunately, I do actually have all my negatives organized chronologically in nice negative sleeves.) 

Any and all thoughts welcome & appreciated!!

Oh! And, I'm going to an all day crop on Saturday (HOORAY!) but haven't even begun to prep anything for it. Ack!! Wish me luck! :) 

Unrelated.

Two unrelated things today. First, just so you know, Micah's at that lovely "saying 'okay' after the things I say isn't sufficient any more...you must now repeat after me 17 times or until I believe that you really mean it" stage. Fun. In fact, he's taken to telling me what to say. For example...

He coughs (on purpose).

I (as I am expected to do, though I know he's faking it) ask, "Are you okay?"

He replies, "Me okay."

I say, "Good."

He looks indignant and shakes his head. Then he proceeds to tell me, "You say, 'glad you okay'!"

To which, of course, I must respond, "I'm glad you're okay, Micah."

Don't even get me started on how he then corrects me on what I call him. "Micah" is not his name of choice of late. He insists on being called "Little Mike Brother." Yes, really. This kid stinkin' cracks me up and is definitely going to be one who keeps us on our toes. :)

The second thing is a bit of bragging on my part. I'm pretty proud of myself for my stamp storage solution and wanted to share. (Don't listen to Nathan, who will try to tell you that if I spent half as much time *using* my stamps as I do *organizing* them lately, I'd be getting a lot more done.) Anyhow. First there's my cool find for storing wood mounted stamps:

 

Isn't it cute? I found it at a local gently used kids' clothing and toy store! It originally held a mountain of blocks of all different sorts. I totally did not need the blocks but loved the container so much I had to buy it! It was only $19 and, with my store credit after selling back the blocks and a few other things, was basically free!! Can't beat that. Now, don't pay any attention to the fact that it is currently pretty much full. ;) Actually, I should probably try to stick with the space I have and just purge old stamps as I get new ones. We'll see. :) 

Now, my more recent find (which makes me totally happy). I store my clear stamps in CD cases. I'd been keeping the little sheets with the designs on them with the cases. I had them all in little boxes that were pretty but it was a pain to get to them when I wanted to use them (had to move boxes off each other and then look through them all to find what I wanted). I thought about just getting a bigger case that could hold them all so I wouldn't have to unstack boxes. Then, I found this as Walmart for just $20!

 

It holds 147 cases and spins, just like my Clip it Up!! So stoked about the accessibility! This left me with just one issue...how to remember what all I have so that I actually use stuff more often. (Isn't that always the issue? LOL!) Here's the part I'm particularly proud of...I realized I could make a binder with all my stamp images! Now, I'd had this particular thought before but hadn't gotten around to stamping all the images on paper yet. Though I'd heard of others who had done this, I found the entire task to not quite be worthwhile. I, you see, like/need to be able to lay the stamped image over my project to see how it will fit. You can't do this with the image on paper. But, you can do it if you use Staz On ink and stamp them on page protectors! (Prior to this, I'd been thinking I needed to do it on transparencies, but those can get pricey.) So. Here's what I ended up with:

 

Another benefit of the page protector route is that I can slip a piece of paper behind it to see the images better but still take the paper out and lay the sheet over my project to see how the image will look and fit. Since I wanted all my stamp images in the same place, I added my clear stamp image sheets also (the ones that come with the stamp sets when you buy them)...just taped them right to the front of the page protector:

 

So, now I can page through my binder when I'm looking for a particular stamp and might even happen upon something else that works better. Right now I have it sorted by theme...alphabets, words, leaves/flowers, etc.

So happy. :) Thanks for letting me share!