Project Life: October 2012, Family of 4

Doing my Project Life pages every 2 weeks was an awesome change.  It's long enough that I'm sure to have enough photos even if we don't do anything exciting.  It's also enough time between pages that I am excited and ready to work on the next set, rather than feeling like I need to catch up or worry about getting behind.

What I can't decide for next year is whether to do one week per 12x12 page, or keep the 2 week time interval across two pages.  I think the week-per-page approach will make me feel that pressure again to not fall behind, though, even if I decide to work on the pages every two weeks.  It also means that for weeks where we don't have much going on, I need to make sure I have some photos or something to write about.  As I write, I'm talking myself out of 1 week per page, and keeping the same approach of 2 weeks per 2 pages.  I love it when a plan comes together!  (Yes, I realize I can just go back and delete this entire paragraph, but of course you wanted to know my entire thought process.)

This past 2 weeks was pretty low key.  We're sort of getting into a routine at home, as much as we can with a tiny baby who sleeps at random times.  But generally, I do the night feedings for BabyM and TJ takes the night wakings with T.  He gets T ready for preschool while BabyM and I sleep.  We often sleep in until 10 or 11, which is awesome, even if we are getting up every 3 hours or so for diaper change/feeding.

Click the photos to see a larger version.

Oct 15-28: Sleep is good, Children's museum

Oct 15-28: Meeting Thatha, Sisters, a tired baby is a good baby

The highlights were my dad meeting BabyM for the first time, and a trip to the Children's Museum where I got a lot of really blurry Instagram photos (unfortunately!).  Mostly we hung out at home.  The time period ended on Oct 28, so Halloween photos will be in the next spread.  Arbitrary, I know, but I wanted to get back to a 2 week time period instead of half-a-month.

I grabbed some of my recent purchases for these pages - the Basic Grey Shine On 6x6 pad and some silver doilies I got at Jo-Ann's, and the "This is Life" card from the newly expanded scrapbooking section at Target.  I also recently sorted all my miscellaneous 3x4 printed cards by color, so I can grab one that matches for an empty slot - I love the "So Tweet" one!  If I hadn't cut them all apart and put them in a box near my desk, I'd never use them.

This spread was pretty easy to put together since it was mostly photos without a lot of "craftiness". I did experiment with stamping on a photo using the Staz-On solvent ink (the "I Love This" on the photo of TJ and BabyM), but it's pretty subtle.  I'll use a lighter photo next time.

I can't believe I've kept up with Project Life for this entire year!  Only 4 more spreads to go!  I'm definitely doing it again in 2013.  What about you?

Linked up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday.

5 Things I Love About New Babies

I'm so totally a baby person.  Love them.  But the first 4-5 weeks with BabyT were rough as we sorted out breastfeeding, soothing her to sleep and general life with a newborn. Before BabyM was born, I was wishing I could just "fast forward" through those early weeks.

Tomorrow BabyM will be 5 weeks old, and I'm so glad I didn't find the magic fast-forward button.  It's been delightful to watch her grow from a tiny wrinkly skinny baby to putting on that delightful baby chub on her cheeks, thighs and hands.  She's still got more to go, but is getting nice and squeezable.

In honor of her 5-week birthday, here are five things I love about tiny new babies:

1.  Watching her grow so quickly. It's almost like I can *see* her getting bigger if I keep staring. 

2.  The cute little faces she makes when she's sleeping. TJ calls this her "system startup routine" - her expression goes from sad/crying to half-smiles, to radiant joyful smiles.  All meant for her imaginary friends, I guess.

3.  Dressing her in adorable tiny outfits. She has no opinions about what she wears, so I get to choose.  And everything looks cute on a baby.

4.  Snuggles.  She WANTS us to hold her, and squeeze her, and cuddle on her.  She's not too busy playing or embarrassed by us.

5.  Port-a-baby.  For a couple more months (maybe), we can take her out when we want to.  We're not chained to a nap schedule just yet.  She can sleep on the go.  Though I've noticed she doesn't sleep nearly as well as her big sister did when we're out and about, so our days may be numbered.

she's watching you, and she DOES NOT LIKE what's going on.

You can tell from this that we've been blessed with another relatively easy baby.  (Knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, etc.)  Things are a lot easier this time than last time, even with a 3 year old in the mix.  (She's an awesome Big Sister, by the way.)  Fingers crossed that it'll continue!

Quitting before I start

As always, I have a tendency to take on more projects than I can reasonably handle.  I'm all "ooh, shiny!" about new things, especially crafty ones, and before I know it, I have 37 things competing for my very limited non-sleeping, non-baby-nursing-changing-soothing, non-preschooler-entertaining, non-housework time.  

Here's the list of what I'm supposedly doing right now:

1. Easing back into Paleo eating - this week, no sugar.  Failed miserably thanks to Halloween.
2. Meal planning and actual cooking (as opposed to eating out or heating up Frozen Things.)
3. 30 Days of Thankful mini-scrapbook album
4. Cut It Out Silhouette online crafty class at Studio Calico
5. Project Life
6. Finishing the mini-scrapbook of T and my trip to Portland in July
7. Setting up the class photo sharing site for T's preschool
8. Staying on top of laundry (how does one tiny person generate so much?!)
9. NaBloPoMo
10. Setting up my December Daily mini scrapbook album once the kit shows up mid-month
11. Crafty projects for Christmas gifts (calendars, photobooks, M's birth announcement)
12. Sending out holiday cards (end of month)
13. Understanding and enrolling in my health insurance plan for next year
14. Creating and submitting some cards and scrapbook layouts for publications
15. Submitting an application or two for crafty "creative teams"
16. Selling craft supplies I'm no longer using online
17. Making pet ID tags for a few repeat Etsy customers who requested them

It sounds insane when I spell it out, doesn't it?  So I'm likely to ditch NaBloPoMo and slow the clock WAY down on the non-time-sensitive crafty projects.  I'll probably save 2012's photo book for January.  

We can check off "voting" as complete.

I've made great progress on the Portland trip mini album - the whole album is assembled and my photos are printed, and everything is together in one box.  It can rest while I complete some of these other things.

I can't ever seem to get it together in time to make stuff for craft magazine publication calls. I think I have so many projects going, that making cards specifically for the themes requested is way, way down on the list.  I might need to let this one go.  Same for applying to "creative teams", which is basically free labor.  Companies send you free stuff, and in exchange, you make projects with them  and tout their wares.  Sounds like a lot of fun, but it's work with specific deadlines.

What I need to make a priority is my health.  I'm one of those lucky people who loses weight relatively easily while breastfeeding, so if I can harness that chi and combine it with eating right for my body (which is definitely Paleo), I think I can get things under control without having to commit to a major exercise program or restricted diet.  

Now that T is older, I'm also starting to realize the importance of setting a good example.  We tell her she can only have one "treat food" a day, so it doesn't make sense for her to see us chowing down on candy bars and soda multiple times.  

I spend NO time on meal planning - we just shop a couple of times a week and put together meals from what we have so it's often very random.  And then there are MANY times where none of it sounds good so we end up going out.  I need more of a plan, and more stuff prepared ahead of time.  Now that it's fall, I can start using the crockpot again - making a batch of oatmeal weekly has been working quite well.  Not rocket science, but it requires dedicated time.

So while I should be the proud owner of an "I'd rather be crafting" bumper sticker, I do need to cut back on all the open projects.  Right now it's just going to be 30 Days of Thankful, and Project Life since they're time sensitive and I've made great progress on both.

Priorities.  I'd love your take on this.  What do you think is important, and what should go?

Been around the world

I'm a sucker for 30-day challenges.  Like doing the Whole30, or 30 Days of Lists, or my crafty 30 Days of Thankful.  (More on the last two in a future post!)  30 days is short enough that I won't get bored, but long enough to accomplish something.

I just found out that November is National Blog Posting Month, where people are challenged to post *every day* for a month.  There are even daily prompts for it. So I guess I'll give it a shot!  This means I need to go back and do a post for yesterday since I didn't know about this challenge.

Today's prompt is: If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Photo by jcolman on Flickr

I can fantasize about tropical islands with palm trees, daily 75 degree weather and no snow, ever. But that's not my real answer.  My real answer is right where I live now.  We live in a not-so-hip suburb of Seattle.  Everything is closed by 9pm.  But it's home to me like nowhere else has ever felt.

Maybe it's because I love our house.  It was the first one we saw when we started looking to buy a home, but I knew right away that it was "the one".  We've already agreed that we won't ever move to a different house in Seattle.

Another reason is that I love the diversity of our area. There are people from all over the world in our tiny suburb.  There are also TONS of interracial and inter-cultural families.  I noticed at a restaurant one evening that 5 of the 7 other tables near us had interracial couples or families.  As a consequence, it's not weird or unusual that my kids are mixed-race.  No one bats an eye, or even asks about it.  LOVE that.

The small but awesome side effect of all this diversity is that we can get nearly any international cuisine we can think of, within a 25 minute drive, similar to Los Angeles or the Bay Area. Well, except for really good Mexican food.  I'm still searching for that.

One other huge factor is my feeling of "community", which I wrote about 5 years ago, and it's only gotten stronger.  Because I live so close to work and I've been at the same company for almost 10 years, I constantly see people I know when I'm out and about.  Just today I ran into a neighbor and former coworker at Old Navy.  When we took T trick-or-treating, we met up with another neighbor who also used to be a coworker of mine.

We love T's preschool, which is right down our street and has only about 10 families in it right now.  And of course, having lived in Seattle for most of the years since 1997, I have tons of friends in the area.  I can't imagine starting over from scratch in a new town.  Even looking for a Space Needle photo on Flickr yielded one from an acquaintance's husband.  How crazy is that?!

Yes, the weather from October to May sucks.  But we're getting better at taking advantage of the dry days, so we're not trapped inside.  And after 10 years, I think I'm getting used to it.  If we strategically plan a good vacation in February or March, the dreary gray season is bearable.

Your turn.  Where would you live?

Give me something good to eat

OK, so I'm cheating a little for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) because I didn't realize it was this month and I hadn't posted on Nov 1.  So I'm backdating this one.  My blog, my rules, yo.

Our neighborhood is pretty sad on Halloween.  In the 8 years we've lived here, we've gotten about 2 trick or treaters.  EVER. Most of our neighbors have grown children, plus we live at the top of a dark hill, so it's a lot of work for kids to come up, and probably doesn't seem very safe.  Judging from the number of neighbors with their lights on this year, it wouldn't have been worth all that walking anyway.

But despite my lack of enthusiasm for Halloween, I feel like if you're going to trick or treat, you should do it in your own neighborhood. I don't really get the mall thing, or this "trunk or treat" thing that local churches do. I'm only lukewarm about taking kids to work for the planned festivities, though it's nice to see a different side of my coworkers when their kids are around.

So I was determined that T's first ToT experience would be walking around our neighborhood in the cold and dark.  We all set out together, which was really nice.  We chatted with the neighbors we knew, and T was probably their only trick or treater, so they made a big deal out of it.  It was fun, and after the first house, T declared "we should do MORE trick or treating".  Though we couldn't actually get her to say "Trick or treat", so we settled on "can I please have a candy?" and "Happy Halloween!".

A good time was had by all and the wee ones were in bed by 7:30pm.  What more could we want?