Digital Scrapbooking Day

It's been awhile since I've been inspired to scrapbook, but I figured today made it necessary to throw something together.

Liam's art teacher is wonderful. The kids learn about different artists, try various methods. Liam loved to draw before, but he is even more interested now, especially in sculpture. He came home in late December or early January asking us to go to an art museum. We finally took the opportunity January 30 and had a lovely visit to MIA. Neither Jeff nor I had been there before, which is too bad, because it's wonderful. We will definitely go back.

2010 Camping

Our camping weekends tend to be of three varieties--with friends, with family, or on our own. Aside from the long vacation, we're not doing any of the latter.

This weekend, we went to Kiesler's with Westbergs. The boys all have a great time playing together, and their oldest Eric is very helpful watching the younger kids. Liam got some time in the pool and finally seems to have figured out how to ride his bike.

When we camp with friends, we always seem to end up doing a little bit of geocaching. Our goal for the year is to find 250. We did 8 yesterday and 8 with friends earlier this summer.

A Weekend in Chicago

Chicago's a great city, so when we found out the Field Museum was hosting a special exhibit about pirates, we knew we had to go. Jeff found a hotel with a small waterpark, so we spent a wonderfully relaxing weekend there and visited the Brookfield Zoo and Field Museum as well.

(This was the oldest undone page.)

Hangin' with the Grandparents

My new goal for the year, now that I'm more than 16 months and 100 events behind, is to scrap new moments within 48 hours. Jeff is unconvinced, but I finished this one just six short hours after leaving the Almelund Threshing Show, and there was a 2 hour drive in there.

I'm not terribly interested in tractors, nor is Jeff, but we love for the boys to spend time with my parents. (His, too, for that matter, but they're almost always off somewhere else.) Most years, we make the trip up to Almelund for a few hours. Today was a beautiful, if muddy, day, and the boys had a great time. Liam was a very big helper, and tested out his skills as a salesman.

Easter 2010

The boys had a great time finding candy and Easter eggs hidden all over our upstairs. Thankfully, Sadie didn't eat any.

Christmas 2009

There is something to be said for spending Christmas Eve at home. We went to church, had a quiet dinner, opened gifts, enjoyed just hanging out. Life is good.

St Peter Clinic

After 35 years in the same cramped, colorless clinic, we finally moved to a beautiful new facility May 2009. I'm only a year behind (and had to take the pictures today to finish it).

And a Conclusion

I expect more conclusion pages to look like this, a hint of what will be in the next album. It's probably hokey, but paper's relatively cheap.

Last Page

When I don't have a single page layout to start or finish an album, I had been either leaving it blank (which is ugly) or putting a page that states it was left as filler (which is almost as bad). I decided recently that I should have actual pages. Some of them, as evidenced by this one entitled The End, will be very simple. This is a great picture, though, of the last sunset we saw in West Virginia before heading home in August 2008.

Carlsbad Caverns

Jeff & I have been to many, many national parks and monuments, most of which are interesting, beautiful, etcetera. Carlsbad Caverns, which we visited in April 2009, tops them all. The boys and we walked both the Natural Entrance and the Big Room tours (2 1/4 miles in total) and were awe-struck by the size, the formations, etcetera.

Minnesota River Flood

This is probably weird, but I love it when the river floods. It seems more powerful than it usually does and creates cool views. I can say that down here because only abandoned Riverview Farm and the Coachlight had damage. Also because we live far, far up the hill without any possibility of flooding.

Breakfast with Santa

For the first time, both boys enjoyed talking to Santa. Liam asked for a video game. Cole asked for a hug.

Cole in July

Cole approves of this page. Liam thinks we should really do a page about him.

Chamizal

It just seems to wrong to dedicate two pages in a scrapbook to a place where we spent 10 minutes.

3 Year Old Cole

Cole has been watching me work on this page since yesterday. He tells me it's good.

Missiles

We stopped briefly at the White Sands Missile Range visitor center. We parked at the gate, walked through security and were told only to take pictures in the direction of the mountains. Okay then. The best picture anyway was of the boys walking together holding hands. If only they got along that well most of the time!

Gila Cliff Dwellings

If you're ever in western New Mexico, definitely take the time to go to this national monument. It was a beautiful walk and the cliff dwellings are very well maintained. I would advise, though, not to feed your children a big breakfast before driving 2 hours through the mountains to get there.

22 Snapshots

Liam is busy many months of the year, but last June was one of the busier: camping, gymnastics, classes, traveling. His last month of four was awesome.

White Sands

Last April, we visited White Sands National Monument as our last stop of the day. It was overcast, so we didn't take any stunning shots of the sand, but we had a blast anyway. Liam loved dumping sand everywhere, making sand angels, and trying to keep his shorts up. (I figured a shot of his plumber butt would not be appropriate for the internet nor eventually appreciated by him.) Cole loved dumping sand on Liam.

Salinas Pueblo Missions

I've tried to do this page many times, but have never been happy with the results. I finally worked through it and the results are reasonable. My oldest outstanding page is now April 27, 2009!

Fort Davis

On our way home from Big Bend National Park, we stopped off for a brief (in the 100 degree heat) visit to Fort Davis National Historic Site. This mid-19th century fort offered protection for travelers on the El Paso-San Antonio Road, as well as many other functions.

Celebrate

Brittany Swanson & Jake Downing were married August 1. Theirs was the first wedding my boys attended as conscious thinkers. It was pretty fun watching them interact with distant relatives. It was hilarious to watch Cole hiding Hershey's kisses in his grandpa's pocket and Liam dancing. Oh, to be a kid.

Wonderful Winter

This winter was absolutely fabulous for our kids. The plows leave big snowbanks at the end of our driveway, so sledding was close. They played outside a ton since it wasn't so cold. Sadie loved it, as usual, and we had many days with hoar frost and snow-covered trees. I had many more pictures that I could've used on this page, but I think it turned out pretty well.

What do'd?

Cole doesn't say this anymore, but it was just so cute when he did. This is his summary page for June 2009.

Tuzigoot

This was again my oldest unfinished page. It was a quick trip on our way to the Grand Canyon way back last April. I need to hurry or I'll be more than a year behind!

Really Home

I forgot to post this one yesterday after I finished. (I think the fumes from all the cleaning products are getting to me.) This will be the final page in our Alaska scrapbook, assuming I ever find it again after moving!

Very scary indeed

The boys had a very hard time picking their costumes last year. In fact, I think we might have gotten down to mid-October before the decision. Liam was a skeleton (painted on sweats and missing ankle bones, as he later pointed out). Cole was an alien. They both had a great time.

Home from Alaska

This page is long overdue, but was pretty easy. The prettiest two pictures on the page, in my opinion, are the mountains in Banff National Park at top right and the sunset at lower right. That sunset was taken from the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where we stayed for the night.

Big Bend

Seriously, I get in the mood to scrapbook as I'm packing everything away? We visited Big Bend National Park last April. It was pretty in a dry, parched sort of way. The Rio Grande was not grand, but it was interesting looking across at the cliffs and realizing it was a different country. The turkey vultures were also pretty cool, although Jeff found the packs of them perched on fence posts a bit disconcerting.

Title Page

My scrapbooks are all packed away, so now is not a logical time to finish pages. Cole's first childhood album is not finished, many months away, in fact, but now it will have a title page.

His 49th State

Most of Liam's 5th birthday month was spent traveling to Alaska and back. He's a great traveler and seems to enjoy it as much as we do. These are some of my favorite moments from the trip. As I reflect on the page, though, I realize that I didn't mention at all that he turned 5!

Miscellaneous Alaska Photos

This is another page that I don't necessarily love. The sunset pictures is one of my absolute favorites from our trip and didn't really fit in anywhere else, thus the need for a page. Unfortunately, this isn't the page I imagined. Once I'm caught up, I may need to revisit it.

Cole in October

I wanted to use some monster digital supplies I bought, so I thought Cole would be the perfect subject!

A Year with Miss Libby

Liam spent last year at Little Saints Preschool. His teacher was Miss Libby, who he absolutely adored. He was very sad on his last day because he wanted to spend weeks and weeks more with her. Thankfully, he enjoys kindergarten too.

Mr Indecisive

Sometimes I really do pages just to get them done. This is Cole's May 2009 summary. I'm not thrilled with it, but it does the job.

Cole in April

Okay, I'm way behind on Cole's scrapbook, too. This is April, during which he visited his 47th & 48th states. The month was more about his catchphrase, though.

Catching Up

So now that I'm scrapbooking again, I figured it was time to start catching up. The last few pages I've done have been very recent, but this was my oldest - April 25. I was just finishing a conference in Scottsdale, and Liam decided he wanted to see the Grand Canyon. We first stopped, though, at Montezuma Castle. The boys had a lovely time hunting for animals, listening for birds, and looking at the dwelling from afar.