MAGGIE HOLMES Photography and Scrapbooking Blog

Scrapbooking

I finally got around to scrapbooking last week - not for any specific assignments but just for fun! I absolutely love the opportunity I have to create projects for publication but it is also fun to just play around sometimes with no guidelines, requirements, etc.

I have been better lately at printing out photos as I take them instead of just leaving them all on my computer until I am ready to scrapbook. It was always such a process to sit down at the computer and look through thousands (literally) of photographs trying to decide what to scrapbook. Then I would have to spend the time editing, cropping and printing and sometimes I would run out of time (and energy) before I even got scrapbooking! So, I decided to start printing out my favorites as I take them. Now, when I am ready to scrapbook I can just grab some photos and get started right away! It works much better for me!

I have quite a few monthly scrapbooking kits from Poppy Ink that I haven't used so I was excited to dig into one of those finally! Kits really are a fun way to go because you get a sampling of products that are already put together for you. Then you don't have to spend a bunch of time trying to decide which products you want to use. (These are especially great for people that don't scrapbook a lot or that get overwhelmed when they go to a scrapbook store!) Each kit has everything you need to create a bunch of pages! I added a few other products that I have in my stash, but mostly used what was in the kit.

The first layout is about Tyler and how he loves sports and then the other 2 are about their first days of school this year! I love these boys!! They are growing up way too quickly!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

emily jane

emily at 2 months:

smiling at us all the time now! first social smile was on august 30th - she has the cutest and biggest smile and her eyes just light up!! it is so fun!!

cooing at us when she smiles!

likes to look at her mobile in her crib

sleeps through the night - from about 10pm to about 5am

still has all of her hair and it seems to be lightening up - the roots look pretty blonde

loves her swing - her favorite place to nap (other than my arms!)

likes but doesn't love her binkie - likes it most when she is going to sleep but then spits it out as soon as she falls asleep

grunts and groans and moves around a lot during the night (according to brian -- i don't really hear it)

likes her blankies snuggled up by her cheeks

loves to take her baths

makes really good eye contact with us and tracks moving objects like her mobile

is the absolute love of our lives - we all adore her and she still gets smothered with kisses and attention from her brothers!!! in fact matthew loves to climb in her crib and lay by her when she is fussing -- even though i tell him not to! :)

nicknames - emmy jane jane jane jane jane (matthew started this one), sweetie princess, sis, little sis (mostly i call her sis and whenever i call her that nathan says to me "mom, she's not sis, she's emmy jane!")

thanks for stopping by! have a great weekend!!

Emily's Announcement

Here is Emily's Announcement. I know I have been promising to post this - thanks for the reminder Christina!!

Lisa Bearnson Kit of the Month

If you haven't seen the Lisa Bearnson "Kit of the Month" website yet, you must check it out!

This month's kit is travel themed and it is awesome! The kit comes with everything you need to create a complete mini album. The album is fabulous - tons of pages - and then there are gobs of embellishments and papers to customize your album!

You also get two rubber stamps that are my favorite things in the kit!! They are double-sided so you really get 4 stamps! And, the best thing is that they are pretty generic so they don't have to be used just for travel themed pages! They can be used on lots of other projects as well! I know that I will be using them over and over!!

I don't have enough photos from just one vacation to fill the album so I decided to make mine an ON-GOING travel album. I am going to put photos in there from all of the different vacations we take. Most of our vacations are to Utah or California to see family so it will include different random photos from those trips.

The other fun thing is that the kit comes in this awesome silver tin so I am going to keep my album and all of the supplies in there. Then when I have new photos to put in the album, I just have to grab the tin and I am all ready to scrapbook! Seriously, this kit has so much product in it! Tons of paper, rub-ons, stickers -- I don't think I will even be able to use it all!!

Another fun idea that my friend, Loni, gave me is to use the album to create an everyday-travels album. You could take photos of the everyday places you go with your kids and family and then make an album about that!! I think it would be so fun and neat to capture that and scrapbook about it!

You can see the pages that I did over on the KOTM website. There will also be idea samples from a bunch of other fabulous designers on there too, so check it out!!

emmy jane and other random thoughts

I have a few minutes before I have to leave to pick up Tyler and Matthew from school....

so I thought I would share a few photos of our little sweetie princess:

I love how her toes are all spread apart on that last one! She is so funny with her feet! It seems like they are always clenched tight or spread out! I love tiny newborn feet!!!!

I have taken soooo many photos of her! I just need to go through all of them now!

And I did get her announcements out! (Except a few to people that I still needed addresses from.) I just need to save it as a jpg and then I will post it on here! It was so fun to do a girlie announcement!!

By the way -- We are still working out at 5am every day! I just know that if I don't get up and do it before the kids get up, it probably won't happen! And I am committed to getting back in shape! I feel so much better and have much more energy when I am working out and eating well! It's hard but so worth it! I have to say though that I am not nearly as tired today! I have never been a morning person but I think I am adjusting to the early schedule. You do what you have to do right?

The house is so quiet right now - Nathan and Emily are both sound asleep. I feel bad that I have to wake them both up to go get the boys from school! The hardest part about having 4 kids is getting all of their schedules to coordinate! It seems like Emily needs to eat every time we have to leave to take the boys or pick them up from somewhere!

We have a fun night planned with the kids - we are going to rent the movie "Rudy" and watch it with the boys! We are planning to pop popcorn, have diet cream soda (my new favorite) and make a big bed of blankets and pillows on the family room floor! They are super excited! And you gotta love "Rudy"! It's is such a great movie - a classic!

Thanks for stopping by! That was sort of a random post - lots of different ramblings! Anyway, have a great day!

**Edited to add - I realized that my title was not capitalized and thought that maybe I should go back in and fix it. For some reason I always write emmy jane with all lowercase letters. I don't know why - I guess I just like the way it looks! I noticed that in my little journal where I jot things down I always write her name in there with lowercase too! ..... and so, I decided to leave the title in lowercase after all......

Word of The Day: Tired!

Here is a rundown of my day so far:

4:20am - woke up and fed Emily

5:00am - worked out with my husband and his sister in our family room (we started the P90X program yesterday and it is kicking my behind! I haven't worked out for about 9 months and I am so out of shape! yikes!!)

6:00am - mopped the floors (I figured that I was up and the kids were still asleep so I would hurry and get it done!)

6:30am - showered and got ready for the day - at this point I was feeling good about being up so early and glad that I had already accomplished so much - thinking "this is a good schedule - I like this!"

7:00am - made breakfast and ate

7:15am - 8:00am - fed the kids, made Tyler's lunch and got him off to school

8:15am - fed Emily again while sitting on the couch fighting to stay awake - started thinking "maybe this isn't such a great schedule after all - I am really getting tired!"

9:00am - cancelled Nathan's play date with his cousin because I was too tired to load the kids in the car to drive him there!

10:00am - fighting to stay awake again and thinking that I really need a nap, but with 3 kids at home I know that is not going to happen. I cleaned the kitchen and did some laundry.

10:30am - the kids were hungry so I fed them lunch and I had my lunch also because I was already starving from being up so early!

11:00am - fed and bathed Emily and got Matthew ready for school.

12:00pm - got Matthew off to Preschool and put Nathan down for a nap. I start thinking that I might get a little nap at this point.

12:15pm - got a call from Tyler's school that he was in the nurse's office with a headache so I got Nathan up from his nap, loaded him and Emily in the car and went and picked him up. I realized that I am not getting a nap and I actually start feeling less tired - probably my adrenaline kicking in.

12: 40pm - Tyler said that his head doesn't hurt anymore and he wants to go back to school. sorry - that is not happening pal!

2:00pm - Now - the house is actually pretty quiet. Emily is asleep and Tyler and Nathan are watching a show. Tyler doesn't seem very sick - he is acting fine. I am hoping that he doesn't have the flu or something like that! At this point I am thinking "I could do this again, I am not that tired!" but I still have a lot left to do: pick Matthew up in 30 minutes, take Matthew to soccer practice, make and feed everyone dinner, bathe the kids, do homework, do more laundry, pick up the house, etc. etc. etc.! I might be speaking a different story around 6pm tonight!! :)