High School? No Way!!!

A few short weeks ago, Meredith graduated from Grade 8.

I can’t believe that this girl will be going into high school in September:

Where did the time go?

She had a great graduation day. She went to school in the morning for rehearsal, but had the rest of the day off to get ready.

We took some photos in the backyard and I have to say they captured her personality perfectly.

 

The ceremony took place at the high school. It was spectacular to see the kids all dressed up in their best. I can remember a lot of these kids from preschool and Grade 1. They’ve all grown up so much. The girls’ outfit ranged from floor length gowns to casually pretty summer dresses, from high sparkly heels to flip flops.

It is hard to believe that next year, I will have a child in high school.

I’m so proud of you, Meredith. I’m proud of the person you are and the way you present yourself. I’m proud of the way you treat others and how much you care about the world. I’m proud of how hard you work at school and how you don’t give up when you don’t understand things. I am just plain proud to call myself your momma.

Go get ‘em, sweetheart!!!

365 Update

I’ve been hanging onto these pages for far too long waiting for the right time to post them accompanied by some witty banter. I think I should just get them posted and forget about the banter.

Here they are:

I promise to post thoughts and photos from the big Graduation Night soon.

Really.

So behind . . .

Oh dear. I am so behind. Behind in everything, it feels like.

I’m behind on my blog posts. Seriously behind. Neglectful might be a better word.

I’m behind on my 365 pages. I love those pages. I love to look back over the course of the year and see what’s happened. The everyday moments that get lost if we don’t record them. I have too many of those from my own childhood and I want to make sure my children remember what our life is like right here, right now. Because it’s pretty darn good.

I’m behind on my laundry. Every day.

I’m behind on my spring cleaning. Why do we do spring cleaning anyway? When the spring arrives, I just want to be outside. Of course, this year was perfect for it with all the rain we’ve had, but I’m still behind.

I’m behind on my scrapbooking. I haven’t managed to do a lot of that lately. I miss it.

I’m behind on my organization. Does that make sense? I like to keep things in order (I know some of you are shaking your heads right now!!). I am a bit of a freak in this area, but right now it’s making me crazy. I don’t do well in chaos and I feel like that is a constant state for me lately.

However, I have been productive in other areas.

My website is almost up and running. You can find it here but be warned, it’s not done yet.

Andrea’s website is here. Hers is pretty much done. It’s constantly changing and I’m so proud of her for how she’s built up her business.

The school Spring Fair is over and it was a huge success. I’m quite proud of the logo I designed and the communications I sent out for it. It’s a lot of work but we raised a ton of money for the school. It’s great to work with such a large group of committed, giving, tireless women.

Thanks for not giving up on me and checking back here regularly or adding me to your Google Reader. I appreciate it.

Have yourself a wonderful day. And do me a favour, do something for YOU today. Something entirely selfish.

Then tell me what you did. I’d love to hear from you!!

WOWSA! Has it really been that long?

I managed to get caught up on my 365 pages this weekend so here they are:

Yes, they all look very similar but they do all tell a very different story!

And here are a couple more just for fun:

More later folks. I'll try to do an update on my life one of these days!!

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This video really spoke to me. I just had to share it here.








*** For some reason the right side is getting cut off. She changes the sign to read "it's a beautiful day and I can't see it". The ending says "Change your words, change your world." Sorry about that peeps ***

365 pages

So, here they are. My pages for the last couple of weeks.

I know I don't post much on here anymore but I do appreciate you coming and visiting and looking at my life. I'm hoping one day to get back into blogging mode, but that day is not today.

And here are a couple I did a few weeks ago:

Thanks so much for looking. I hope you liked them!!

Yay!! Up to Date Feels Good

So much for my plans to scrapbook the March Break away.

What was I thinking? And why is it that I consistently think that if the girls are home I’m going to suddenly have all kinds of free time? Yes, I didn’t have to leap out of bed this past week to make breakfast and lunches and get everyone safely off to school, however, I still needed to do the shopping, the cleaning, the laundry, the exercising and the working that I normally do during their school day. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that I would let everything slide. I just couldn’t do it. If anything, I was busier this week than I normally am when they are in school. We managed to head to Niagara Falls for 2 days and tour the Aviary, ride the bumper cars, play mini golf and spend lots of time at the Waterpark. We saw our friends the Roberts for some crafting, some lunch and some bowling. I met with my favourite client on Thursday for a brainstorming session and accomplished a lot, and we went to Medieval Times on Friday. It was a good week and I think we managed to balance our busy times with relaxing times at home in front of the TV, with a book or a with a game. I do enjoy having them home, but I have to remember, it doesn’t actually mean I have more free time. Just different time.

Having said that, here are the pages I got done today. I am loving the format I’ve chosen for this year. It’s fast and efficient. I’m totally and completely up to date now. I can’t believe I almost considered not continuing this year.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Two More Pages!!

Wow.

I got another 2 pages done today.

I’m on a roll now.

I’m hoping to be fully caught up before the end of March Break. The house will be dirty, the laundry may not get done but at least my album will be up to date.

Priorities, right?

Finally Some Project 365 Pages

I can’t believe March (specifically March Break!) is here already and I haven’t posted a single P365 page. Until this week, I hadn’t done a single P365 page. I’ve done pretty well with the photos although I notice some weeks are more photos of stuff as opposed to us, but that still shows to a certain degree what’s in our life right now, right?

Anyway, it seems to me that as the years go by I get busier. Even though the girls are getting older and more independent, I seem to take on more and more but am unwilling to give things up. My Project 365 is one of those things I am unwilling to give up but I am finding it harder and harder to make the time to pull it together.

I had this year’s album all planned out with some lovely templates and a design in mind but I realized that I was putting off doing the pages because they were quite detailed. Templates needed to be organized, embellishments and paper needed to be coordinated and for me, that is the hardest and most time consuming part of the whole process. When I sat down and did the first 2 pages and found it was taking me literally hours to put together, I decided that was crazy. There was no way I could do that for an entire year.

This year’s pages are going to be very clean and simple. They are all going to follow the same layout and the same colour scheme and will not contain any fancy embellishments. I don’t think I’m even going to edit the photos. Basically, all I’m going to do each week is pop in my photos, change the dates and add my journaling. After all, that’s what’s really important, right? It’s not the pretty paper and the fancy embellishments; it’s the content of the page that makes it meaningful. I stumbled upon the idea for my layout here yesterday and have managed to get January done in record time. Now that’s something I know I can continue. I just hope I don’t get bored with the pages midway through the year.

Here are my pages for January. My question is, if they’re all going to look basically the same, should I still continue to display them here?

Snow Day - Perfect!!!

We have a snow day here in Southern Ontario. It’s snowing and blowing like crazy outside. What better way to spend a snow day than in the house with the kiddies. We’ve watched a movie and I thought it was a good opportunity to get this digital page completed. It’s been sitting in my computer waiting for some time now:

This one I completed some time ago but forgot to share it: 

I also found these ones hiding in my hard drive: 

I think I’ve shared some of them in an online gallery, but not here. Forgive me if you’ve seen them before.

I am doing my P365 this year but am terribly behind. I’ve been working on designing business cards, stationary and a website for a friend of mine and everything else seems to have fallen by the wayside. The website is due to be up and running by the end of February, so I’ll get back on track with the P365 then.

In the meantime, if you’re in Ontario, relax and enjoy the beauty of the snow. Don’t fight it. It’s not going away anytime soon. Just stay in your house and snuggle up with a good book or whatever you do to relax and if you must go out, please drive carefully.