The journaling is printed on vellum and attached to the green cardstock mat with the ribbon and eyelets. I noted in it how nice it was to be seeing all the fall colors of her garden. We'd never seen her garden at that time of year before and really hadn't thought we ever would. (I didn't grow up in this house, my parents moved in after I'd been married a few years so it was never my home.) It was really a whirlwind adventure how we ended up moving to MI. Now seems as good a time as any to share it with you.Brad had a two year appointment at the National Lab he had a fellowship with. He could get it renewed for another year or try to be converted to a permanent employee. Now nothing against Santa Fe or New Mexico, I met some of the kindest and most generous people there and my medical team was the best! But there was NO way I wanted to live there for a second longer than I had to.
He'd been looking and applying to jobs all over and mentioned in passing one day that there was a job possibility in MI so he'd applied. I didn't get my hopes up because Brad has always warned me that we would probably never live in MI again because his field is concentrated on either the West and East coasts. I knew he applied, but then again he applied a lot of places so we didn't think much of it.
We had planned on going to MI that summer anyway for a month long visit so ER could celebrate her one year birthday party with her extended family. We all drove out from NM to MI, yes I said DROVE, have I mentioned my fear of flying? Then Brad flew back to NM while ER and I stayed in MI for most of the visit. He'd fly back to MI in time for her birthday party and then we would all drive back to NM. Since we drove we were also able to fit stops in MO to see Brad's grandparents; we packed a lot of family time in those trips!
While us girls were in MI, guess who got a call from the company in MI? Brad back in NM, and gee didn't it work our perfect that he was already planning on flying out in a week to MI. They scheduled his interview for one of the last days of our summer visit and then we drove home as planned. He was offered the job, of course cause he's such a super fabulous science guy, and got a job offer from a company in Long Beach, CA at nearly the same time.
The draw to MI and the chance to be close to relatives was to good to be passed up. I wanted our daughter to really know her grandparents and to celebrate holidays with big gatherings like I did growing up. Plus it broke my heart the way she'd be looking for her grandparents after visits to see us. I didn't think the opportunity would ever come up; we jumped at it.
So about one month after we left MI from our extended summer trip there, ER and I came back for good and at the end of that month our family of three had moved into our first house. In the garden pictures, I am still kind of dazed that we are even there at all. Things moved really fast!
Now after that long side trip, here's the second set of pages I wanted to share. Today Brad was commenting that I don't scrapbook as much as I used to, blame blogging for that, and maybe my stuff should be sold on Ebay - AS IF!
He is right that I don't have as much time to devote to my favorite hobby, and I've been finding myself resorting to grid layouts more and more. I like them because, if you're like me and have a zillion pictures from an event and think ALL of them are scrap worthy it's hard to get them on one double page spread. I like how on this page the patterned paper give your eye someplace to rest and keep it from looking overly cluttered, or at least I think it does. If you don't, don't tell me and burst my bubble, okay?☺ The circle stickers are on pop dots for dimension and the journaling is printed directly on the patterned paper.
One of my favorite columns from Creating Keepsakes Magazine is Becky Higgin's Page Sketch. I am sure this is based on one of them, but since I have years of past issues all torn up and arranged in binders by number of photos on the page there is no way I could ever tell you which one. I have both of her special edition page sketch magazines and they are what got me scrapbooking in the first place. She has a book out with all the sketched together in one handy spot and if I wasn't so type A and didn't already have them all saved and organized I'd buy it. It's a great resource especially for beginners.BTW: If you're a scrapbook magazine junkie like me tearing out layouts you like and storing by number of pictures used is a great way to organize your inspiration. It's helped me a lot over the years, I just decide how many pictures I'd like to use and then flip to that section of my binder until I find the perfect one to scraplift. There you know my secret! I get help from magazines, I do design my own pages too but I have so little time and am so far behind I find working from sketches really helps cut down on the time it takes to do a page and get more photos scrapbooked.
You might be wondering where are all the animals, but since we've got a membership we've been to the zoo so many times that it's no longer about taking pictures of the animals! I mean other than the ones also considered family, ha!Does that picture of me in pink sitting on the stone bench next to ER look familiar? Either that one or the other almost exactly the same photo is the one I got my profile picture from. I think I might change it soon, my hair kind of looks big and bushy due to the humidity in it.
Noelle and Holly are hosting Scrapbook Sunday so please head over there for more inspiration and the stories behind the stories!
I also wanted to share some great news, I won Jen's at What's Shakin'? Ecostore USA giveaway and will be getting a $25 gift certificate from them! How cool is that, I'll be sure to share the goodies I pick out with you on a future post. Thanks Jen!
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I'm feeling lazy today and using the professional photo from Kraft Foods in today's post. Normally, I use my own but this one looks much more appetizing than mine:) It is a good salad and easy to put together, we first tried it after the 
Anyhoo, back to the recipe:
Brad and I are celebrating our ninth wedding anniversary in August, but we'll have been together fifteen years in November. Sometimes high school sweethearts really do end up getting married! We got married after college and right away moved across the country so Brad could get his PhD in Chemistry. We've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and in New Mexico's state capital of Santa Fe. Our journey came full circle when we moved back to Michigan a couple of years ago. It's nice being home again, but since we're in a different part of the state it still feels new and different. 
New Mexico is where we added our daughter known as ER on my blog, to our family. This was photo was taken the first day we brought her home from the hospital. I still can't believe how much she's changed in the blink of an eye. At this point we were still in the when are her real parents going to come and get her phase, it hadn't completely hit us how much our lives had changed!
ER is going to be three this summer and enter a co-op preschool two afternoons a week next fall. I'm dreading the separation, I think it's going to be very tough on both of us. She's always been a very clingy child and literally wants to be attached at the hip as much as possible. I want her to get the chance to be with other kids, learn unspoken social rules, school behaviors, and how to follow directions. These are things that are hard for me to teach her by ourselves at home, but I know it's going to be heart wrenching at the beginning of next year. She is fascinated by all the new materials I keep bringing up from our basement from my teaching supplies and it's been great for me to 
Fall is still a ways off and we need to be potty trained to actually start preschool. I certainly don't want to rush summer, as this year I hope to enjoy more of Michigan's lakes! We took a short overnight trip to the west side of the state last year, where the beaches are sandy. They're rocky on the east side where I grew up, so the nice sandy beaches are a real treat. We liked it so much last July that we're planning to go back for a little bit longer with ER's Grammy and Papa. We're hoping to take ER to Disneyland next year, so we're not taking a big trip. We'll keep busy with day trips to see family, the zoo, and the nearby inland lake we like that has a splash zone. 
My mom, above right, is pretty big on eating al fresco, and we did a lot growing up. I like picnics best when we get my favorite foods from a gourmet food store near my parents. It's too expensive for us to eat at most of the time, so it's a real splurge to get their goodies prepackaged up in plastic containers. We've made it a tradition since ER was born to treat ourselves at my mom's birthday picnic. We pick up our food, head over to a near by park, and find ourselves a shady spot to relax. It's my favorite picnic of the year.
We like this particular park because it has paved walking trails, well maintained rest room facilities, lots of swings, and a boat shaped play scape. However, the biggest draw for ER has always been the ducks that swim all along the stream that winds its way along the walking trail. The first time we came, before she was one she was fascinated by them as you can probably tell from the way she like to walk right over the edge and get at them. Good thing my Dad is holding her by the dress! 
We also love BBQ potlucks. We host and go to several each year. I love all the pasta, fruit, and potato salads and ER's favorite summer food is definitely fresh corn on the cob! I'd rather have everyone over with lots of dishes to pass, good friends, and great conversation than go to a fancy restaurant any day! If you lived by me, you can be sure I'd greet you at the door with a glass of ice tea!
Memorial Day was still being a fun family day. It started with the big parade in town and we found our friends in the mist of all the crowds. It was fun to sit with one of ER's little friends from play group. ER wore the festive headband she got last year and photographer from our town paper took her picture. She might be in the newspaper for the second time! Our daughter, getting famous already!
My Mom, Dad, and brother Dave all came out to our house since we couldn't drive out to theirs. We're down a car and still have another, but it's old and doesn't get driven much anymore as Brad works five minutes from home. I don't trust it all the way across town. They even brought the BBQ food with them! It's great when Mom still brings over dinner isn't it☺
We didn't do anything too exciting, but ER was happy to have her grandparents over to play in the sand table with and they took her for a ride on the trike they got her last Christmas. Everyone is amazed by how well she's riding it, she's a little speed racer! We also opened the sidewalk chalk for the first time, and that was a HUGE it. She almost went through the whole package.
Whoohoo!!! Today is the BIG day over at ABC & 123, our big 
We're excited to start our summer featuring 
Here is the front cover of our book and the personalized dedication page. You can add your own text on this page, you do not have to choose from a small selection of prewritten dedications. My daughter's name has been edited for privacy. Through out the book, her name is featured predominantly on each page twice, once in the text and once in the accompanying picture.
I liked the unique and creative ways that her name was incorporated into each photo, on the page above her name is spelled out with lots of little surfers. On others her name is created with clouds, bees, or added onto things like a bar of soap, bike license plate, recycling box, and a trophy.
We got a twenty piece 
Here is an example of a notebook preview from 
This was my centerpiece, I originally made two luminaries but I gave Margaret the other one because it had pictures of her girls in it and I forgot to take a picture of the whole table set up for dinner. Imagine the flowers in the center and a luminary on each side.
You know I couldn't leave the kid's table alone; I had to decorate that too!
I bought a really inexpensive outdoor vinyl tablecloth at Kmart, the kind you can whip off and use again. Cut it to little bit bigger than my daughter's wooden table and hot glued ribbon all along the bottom. Added some felt stars I got precut in a package in Joann's dollar spot to each corner, and put a few clear floral pebbles in underneath the stars to act as built in table weights. This way the tablecloth wouldn't fly around, if we took everything outside and ate on the deck.
I made their centerpiece out of an empty oatmeal container. Just decoupaged on thematic paper and coated it with Mod Podge. Then I embellished with a few patriotic buttons that I hot glued on here and there. I found piece of thematic scrapbook paper full of patriotic sayings. Cut it up and used the USA one to decorate the container and then taped the rest to candy sticks, one on each side, and added some mini flags to my arrangement.
Inside each basket I put a pair of red, white, and blue hair clippies that I made, some festive glitter star stickers, and a few sticks of sidewalk chalk. I thought if the girls got bored we could break those out while they were over.
Here are out little guests at last year's Fourth of July barbecue. My friend Margaret brought them each the cute headbands. Aren't they fun! I saved ER's and hope to put it on her again this year. You can also see how nicely the banner dressed up the fireplace.
The next page is from one of the first warm spring days we had in Santa Fe that year. I love being back by my family but I do miss the perpetual blue skies and much more temperate climate. Close ups of the pages follow.
I added the text right on to the photo in PS Elements and printed out all at once. In hindsight, I wish I'd chosen a different color as it blends in a bit with the rocks at the bottom, but I'm not going to do it over, so that way it stays!
The letters are chipboard and the flower is a die cut. The flower is raised with a little foam tape and a second die cut is underneath it. It gives it a little bit of subtle dimension. I really liked the colors and the pictures of this layout, the spring colors just make me feel happy☺
I opened each page template in PS Elements, dropped in my pictures, and added a little bit of text. Now I can print them out as 4x6 prints slip into a photo album. I can even use their other kits to make more pages and add to our story book of memories quickly.
