the moments in between

summer 2013 | week 3

today starts week four of our summer vacation. here's what we checked off last week : 

aim for the stars (A) : alex spent a week at UNO's aim for the stars "get your game on" camp, where they sneak in a little math and strategy along with the games.

big box play (S) : sam spent 4 mornings at camp at his school - they turned boxes of all sizes into toys, memory boxes, a town, a firetruck and more.

CWS game : Matthew, Alex and Ben saw Indiana vs Louisville on Saturday night.

sonic shakes after baseball (1/2 price after 8pm!) : the perfect end to a hot evening at the ball field.

learn a new card game : alex learned hearts at camp, and came home asking if he could teach it to us so we could check this one off. 

sprinkler (1) : This one needs to be more of a counter than a check off. ;)

we also added a summer slug bug count. my kids are eagle eyed slug bug spotters, and competition is generally fierce in our car. we thought this would be a fun way to make the slug bugging a little more cooperative. (and since instagram has taught me that "slug bugs" aren't universal - i'm not talking about slugs. ;) slug bug =  a game in which you punch whoever you're with in the arm when you see a volkswagon beetle). we spotted 8 on saturday morning, and are now up to 12.

one summer day

i'm trying to be a little more intentional with my iphone photos this summer. on wednesday, i challenged myself to a day of instagramming photos + verbs. it was a good reminder to stop and think about what was actually happening in each photo, though i think i'll push myself to be more creative with my verbs next time.

looking

jumping

peeking

shopping

water fighting

sneaking

chauffering

protecting (and winning)

shaking

happy friday! i can't believe our third week of summer vaca is coming to a close. this one was a lot more hectic than the two before - sam and alex were both in camps. i'm missing lazy mornings already.

wordless wednesday : pep talk

the list | summer 2013

we have big plans for this summer. 

we started with the camps the boys are already enrolled in, the events we look forward to each year, and the other usual summer suspects (pool, lake, zoo, children's museum). we added some movies we want to see, then threw in some local events that we've always thought about but never committed to. we don't have a big trip planned this summer (we'll be heading to FL this fall), but we have a couple smaller jaunts planned. and for those "i'm boooooooooored" moments, i hit pinterest for a few more ideas. 

here's our list : 

• picnic @ memorial park
• monsters university
• hummel camp (A&B)
• paint pet rocks
• zoo
• movie nights - goonies
• mini golf
• summer reading club
• slides downtown
• nat'l donut day 6.7
• lake
• aim for the stars (A&B)
• CWS game
• grilled pizza
• jimmy's egg
• minecraft nerf targets
• okoboji
• big box play (S)
• nat'l ice cream day 7.21
• splash park
• movie night - HP & the deathly hallows pt 2
• homerun derby @ ameritrade
• sonic shakes after baseball (1/2 price after 8pm!)
• squirt gun fight
• shakespeare on the green - 12th night
• outdoor movie @ midtown crossing
• KC royals game
• joslyn art museum
• rock hounds (S)
• pool
• omaha children's museum
• learn a new card game
• e-creamery
• astronomy show @ UNO
• 25 drawings
• make cookies
• 500
• nat'l smores day 8.10
• memorial park concert & fireworks
• catch fireflies
• lincoln children's museum & soda shop
• des moines
• stormchasers game
• funplex
• sleepovers
• hike @ platte river state park
• sprinkler
• perseids 8.12
• make popsicles (we just bought these molds & want to see how many different kinds we can make!
• ice cream from the ding ding man
• glow in the dark bowling 

here's to a summer filled with adventures. what's on your list?

the summer list - in progress

last year, summer got the best of me. we did some fun stuff, but i never really felt like i hit a good work / play balance. and this year i'm determined to get it right. we sat down today and put together one heck of a summer list. which is a pretty epic collection of getaways, camps, events and activities, as well as some holidays that i think deserve observing. i'll share the list once we get it finalized.

we did nothing the first week of summer vacation.. but this week, it was time to break up all that togetherness. we started with a trip to the library, to get everyone signed up for the summer reading club.

ahhh..  quiet. no electronics, no bickering. the perfect way to end the day.

we've had sunshine and blue skies - but our summer is still lacking in, well, SUMMER. since it's not warm enough for the pool or the lake, we headed down to the children's museum.

alex and ben are quickly falling into the "too cool for this" category, but they're willing to humor sam.

a human ant hill is apparently still totally cool. ;)

there was still a fair amount of doing nothing. and electronics. and bickering. and mama working. but it was nice to mix things up a bit, and i'm looking forward to more adventures!

filling the bucket

the first week of the month is about planning. it's about chasing concepts, pinning inspiration, sending assignments and slowly reigning in the desk chaos. it's sitting down with calendars and notebooks and to do lists. it's bouncing ideas and seeing where they go.

it used to frustrate me that nothing get DONE this week. if all goes well, i come out of it with a clean desk and a lot of followup work. but without this week, nothing happens. this is the week where i gather ideas. this is the week where i ask questions and listen to the answers. this is the week that starts balls in motion.

slowly, every email XXXXX and plan XXXXX item on my to do list becomes a to do list of its own. and i work through them. classes take shape. projects get made. assignments come in. the desk gets messy. it becomes a mad rush of due dates and live dates and barely enough time to think. and by the end of the month, i.am.DONE.

i've realized that the first week of the month is what lets everything else happen. all of those quiet, puttering moments give me space to think. to dream. to wonder what if. to refill the bucket, so that i can do it all again.

weekend

matthew put together our new coffee table.

(it's big and fabulous for sorting laundry. ha)

we played baseball in the rain.

sam played teeball in the not quite raining and hit three balls "right out of midair."

we played baseball in the sun.

alex slept in like a teenager. he's enjoying the no more 6am wakeups.

we had ice cream sandwiches for dinner.

now we're on to week 2 of summer vacation. and hoping this one has less rain and more outside. happy monday!

what i see | behind the fence

i see a moment where i hold my breath.

i see a moment where i wonder what you're thinking.

i see a moment where i love this game.

i see a moment where i'm so proud of you.

i see a moment where anything is possible.

(ps : registration for more happy little moments ends TODAY. here are a few more sneaks of my project. sign up here, it's going to be a good one!)

project life // 2012 cover page + week 17

may is always bad for me + project life. the end of the school year brings a flurry of events, and not much in the way of extra time. on the bright side, i know i won't be short on photos once i finally get to those weeks!

the studio calico kits keep me accountable for getting a little project life done... i gotta get some use out of it before the next one comes! this month, i finished a recent week - and then went off on a tangent and did my cover page. for 2012. because may of 2013 is a fab time to do that, right?

2012 cover page // i gathered up some of my favorites from the kits (and some confetti, of course!) and finally filled in that blank page at the beginning of my 2012 album. i mixed in a few of the happy little moments printables and items from marcy's class kit (LOVE her stamp set!!!) as well.

maybe i can get it together and make my 2011 title page now?? anything's possible!

week 17 : april 20-26 // this was one of those cold, miserable and just plain BLAH weeks that don't inspire much in the way of photo taking, so i was glad to have some memorabilia to help fill in the pockets!

to make the confetti pocket, i folded the 4x6 crate paper overlay in half and stitched it shut. break out a swiss cheese border punch or a hole punch and go to town on paper scraps, magazines, catalogs, or anything colorful you have laying around to make the confetti.

on the field notes card, i used a standard hole punch to punch out the lens of each camera. i backed it with one of the map print cards and then filled each lens with glossy accents.

InLinkz.com

there's something cool in the works for PL subscribers at studio calico - all PL main kits starting with roundabout will be shipped in these cool storage boxes. they have a magnetic closure and an inner tray to help keep the cards from shifting around. you can see the insides here.

If you haven't had a chance to get the PL kit (crossing my fingers that the waitlist will be gone SOON!), the Cumberland Gap add-on is still available. i'm in love with the basic grey filmstrip alphas. and that grid washi is perfect fot adding a bit of journaling to any photo.

happy wednesday!! our day started with a 7:23 delivery of our new couch. and i didn't even realize that early of a delivery was a possibility. at least we weren't waiting around all day?? i am in love.. it fits the space so much better, and definitely reflects my current style for the house. i've had a lot of ?s on instagram about where we found it - here's a link. if you're in the midwest and looking for this style of couch, i can tell you that 5/5 truesdells thought this one was comfy. ;) now to patiently wait for my new coffee table to come on friday! 

Studio Calico Roundabout + Happy Little Moments

hello, roundabout. i loved the vintage-y travel feel to this month's kits..  the maps, the slide frames, happy colors and tons of texture. studio calico subscribers can purchase the ROUNDABOUT add-ons now, right here - and that link will work for everyone at midnight EST. you can click on the name of each LO to see it in the SC gallery along with a list of which kits were used. i'll be back to share my PL spreads tomorrow!

MN 2012 // i've been thinking about doing an "overview" page from our trip to minnesota last summer, and the travel elements in roundabout pushed me to finally get it made!

i scanned through my photos and pulled together a collection that summed up all of our stops, and then printed them in a variety of sizes. i arranged them in groups across my page, and turned the raindrops from the transparency pack with a hole punch.

the title is handcut - i wanted it to be attached to the bottom border and wasn't sure how to make my silhouette do that. ;) the "adventure" stamp was stamped on one of the crate transparencies and then layered over patterned paper.

t5 // thank you, self timer, for a lovely family photo at the end of our vacation. we were sweaty, sunscreen-y and covered in bug bites, but we were oh so happy. =)

this LO was made mostly with the navy pier addon, but i added some bits from the other kits to finish it off. the frames from crate to too cool, and i had fun filling each of them with photos, paper and embellishments.

camp //

as my boys get older, it's harder to get their experiences onto layouts since they're not always things that i'm involved in. alex recently went on a camping trip with his 6th grade class, and i wanted to put together a page to record his memories.

i started by asking him to email me about what they did at camp, and was happy to actually get a full page of text out of him! i start with that as my background - i printed it on a piece of the more grid patterned paper. i had one photo of all of the kids gear dumped at the entrance of the camp, and i took that and built my layout on a piece of vellum. once i was finished, i stitched the vellum in place along one side - it lifts up to reveal the journaling.

InLinkz.com

i also have some peeks at the handbook i'm working on for the more happy little moments class at studio calico. registration for the classes ends on 5.31, and it's filled with fabulous ideas for all of you mini album lovers! the teachers, maggie holmes and marcy penner, are both making an altered book and have come up with some amazing techniques and variations on their pages. my role in the class is to take those ideas and adapt them into a handbook for those who love the class concept, but want to try it in a different format. the hardest part for me has been narrowing down just which ideas to use! i am putting the finishing touches on all of my pages and will share even more sneaks later this week. i hope to see you in the classroom!!

InLinkz.com