Stumbling

Those of us who have toddlers know that it's sometimes hard to keep them on their feet. They are so independent, want to do EVERYTHING on their own, and most of us like to give them those independent moments, make them feel like they are BIG.

When it comes to walking, this can be a bit of a challenge. You wait and wait for them to start walking, eagerly anticipate capturing it on your camera and it happens, everyone claps and cheers - and then they stop walking. They run. Everywhere. Then they fall, again and again.

How many times have you been holding your little one's hand, walking side by side when their legs suddenly go out from beneath them? There they are, dangling from your steady hand until they plant their feet on the ground once more.

I've caught myself telling my almost 2-year-old, "It's a good thing mommy has your hand!" on more than a few occasions.

This is a relatively mundane topic, but while reading in the Psalms today, I stumbled (pun intended) onto this passage:

The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand. 

Psalm 37:23-24 (NLT)

Ponder that for a little while. How wonderful is it that we serve a God who is ALWAYS holding our hand? We are all sinners. We will stumble time and again, but He will never leave our side, and most definitely, He will not let us fall. 

You are not defined by your mistakes. When you do make a mistake, look up at the hand that is holding you and you will certainly find your way back onto your feet again. 

"It's a good thing I have your hand," He will say. 

Project 365 - Week 2

Week two found me thinking outside of the box and I think I like what I came up with!

Newborn Session

Nearly a month ago, my best friend had a baby - and boy is he adorable! Though my experience with photographing newborns is limited to my two boys, I really wanted to give my friends a special gift, so I volunteered to do a newborn session for them and, luckily for me, they agreed!

In all honesty, I never thought I would never fall in love with the idea of photographing people other than my own family, but something about this little guy made me re-think a few things. After this session, I feel confident in saying that I would love to do more of this - plus families and kids.

Here are some of my favorite images from our session:

DIY - Memory Jar

Do you remember those dioramas that you made from an old shoebox in elementary school? What if you could save memories for your children (or even yourself) in the same manner?

Trade out the shoebox for a glass jar, fill it with things collected from a vacation - and maybe even some pictures - and what you get is a 3D memory jar.

I can't claim this idea to be my own, although it is really a good one! Actually, I ran across this in the August issue of Parents magazine.

The timing of this find couldn't have been more perfect because our family had just spent the 4th of July camping, and as a part of our trip, we had my son do a nature-themed scavenger hunt. What started out as an idea just to keep him occupied and interested in a hike, turned out to be a great opportunity to create memories and also bring home some of what he found.

My son has a bit of the photographer gene, so as a part of his scavenger hunt, we asked him to take pictures of two of the items on his list. With those pics uploaded, I jumped over to PicMonkey (seriously the best free photo editing website!) and created a collage, adding words and a couple of graphics to the photos he took. (I thought it would be cute to put a © symbol and his name on the photos as well, because he did take them!) 

All you need is a clear glass jar, the magazine suggested using a pickle jar, but I only had a mason jar on hand, so that's what I used.

A few items is all you really need. I think less is more with something like this. Adding photos is a really nice touch. Especially if you have a lot of photos in mind, creating a collage is a nice way to incorporate all of them.

Lastly, I wanted to have more than one way to view the items, so I removed the lid, leaving the rim that goes with the mason jar. I cut a circle slightly larger than the mouth of the jar out of a plain ziplock baggie. With the plastic in place on top of the jar, I was able to still screw on the rim, creating a "sunroof" of sorts.

This was so much fun to create and I know that my son will enjoy collecting more memory jars for years to come!

DIY - Turning a Photo Calendar Into a Scrapbook

It may be obvious given my chosen occupation that I like photography. Let me re-phrase that, LOVE it. That being said, I tend to go a little crazy when it comes to all things related to photography, and that includes creating keepsakes for my family.

In this digital age especially, nearly everyone owns a digital camera - and because of its ease of use and the vast amounts of images you can store on a computer or memory chip - I think people are taking more photos than ever.

I, for example, took somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 photos of my family in 2011. Knowing that there was no way that I was going to take the time to print that many photos and then put them in albums (out of the first five years of my marriage, only one of them is in an album) I decided to create a calendar full of photos. I figured this way I would be forced to choose only the photos that I really liked and that were memorable.

After the first year, I didn't quite know what to do with the calendar, but it was too special to just put in a box. Then I had an epiphany - these pages of photos would make the perfect scrapbook!

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Because I have a Mac, it comes with iPhoto, a photo program that also allows the user to create calendars, photo books, etc. within the program. However, there are tons of websites out there where you can upload your photos and do the same thing. Two examples are Snapfish and MyPublisher.

Calendar Cover

Below are two examples of pages I created for the past two years. As you can imagine, there are a ton of different layouts and designs that you can use.

I tried to use photos that corresponded with that
particular month and/or season.

Sometimes, simplicity says it all. 

Here's some of the nitty gritty:

First, I cut each page from the binding. The photo portion of this calendar measured 10 x 13 inches, so in order to fit my pages into a scrapbook sleeve, I had to do some trimming (the standard scrapbook album uses 12 x 12 inch pages). Therefore, I had to take 1/2 inch off of both sides of the page to make it fit into the sleeve.

This is so simple, it's ridiculous. Lastly, I inserted the trimmed page into the plastic sleeve...

...and added some textured scrapbook paper to compliment the collage.  It can be this simplistic, or you can go to town and add the usual scrapbooking suspects like lettering, stickers and things of that nature. Honestly though, for those of us who lead busy lives, leaving it this way may be the only way it will get done!

There's No Such Thing As Perfect Timing

We thought we were so smart. A few months into our second pregnancy, my husband and I relished in the fact that we had timed this pregnancy perfectly. By the time the baby would be born, our son would be three, well on his way to being potty trained (if not already there) and we would have oh so few issues - because he'd be three.

Did I mention that we thought that we had timed this perfectly?

Anyone reading this who has more than one child is rolling with laughter right about now (as is my mom, even though I am an only child) and as it turns out, I am relatively sure that God is having Himself a pretty good chuckle right now too.

You see, the past few months have been a very somber reminder in my house that we are not in control and as much as we make plans and hastily hope that they are the right plans, ultimately, we are not the ones holding the blueprint.

I realize that this revelation isn't a new one. However, as I sit here in the pitch dark of my living room - eyeballing the hallway to make sure that my son doesn't get out of bed for the ump-tenth time tonight - there seems only to be light coming from my laptop monitor, while in truth there is endless light coming from another source in our home.

That source is Jesus Christ.

Truth be told, He has put a tremendous amount of light in my son. I have had to remind myself countless times recently that there is more to my son than the occasional temper tantrum and the absolute refusal to go to bed when I ask him to. I am truly convinced that he has the heart of a servant. In fact he has a huge heart. He is always concerned about the well-being of others above himself (yes even at his age), he is always eager to help you or ask you if you would like a snack too and this age has also brought him the ability to tell you randomly that he loves you before he offers you a kiss.

Needless to say, there is no perfect timing when it comes to bringing children into this world - they come in God's time only - and I find myself humbled (and a bit humiliated) for even thinking that just because my son didn't go through the "terrible twos" didn't mean that he wasn't going to have challenges at some point. (Insert God's sense of humor that it happens when I am eight months pregnant and new to being a stay-at-home-mom!)

So, here we go. There are merely two months until our new addition enters our family and I have come to terms with the fact (at least for the time being) that this isn't going to easy, but one thing is certain, it will be perfectly imperfect and that is fine with me.

DIY - Family Photo Collage Frame

What started out as a simple way to fill a space left on the wall of my son's room - after we took down his crib and put up his "big boy" bed one year ago - turned into filling a different kind of spiritual space.

When the crib came down, I had to hang something on the wall above his bed because the gap between the wooden letters spelling out his name, and the top of the bed was too much for me to handle.

In a devine moment of inspiration, I decided to print photos of my son's family members from both sides of our family and put them into a collage picture frame.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough room for aunts and uncles, but we did squeeze in a space for his cousins, since he loves them so much.

There are four generations represented in this frame, and one has since passed, which makes me even more appreciative that pictures were taken when they were, because regardless of whether or not they are still here;

"Family is forever."

Trust me, I am not delusional. We all have moments when we aren't the biggest fan of someone(s) in our family for whatever reason, but honestly, they are forever and my husband and I really want to make that impression on our children.

The truly inspirational part of this story has nothing to do with simply hanging a picture frame, our son created that all on his own. 

It started as him standing on his bed and pointing to each photo and telling us who was in it.  Soon, it became a quiz of sorts and we would ask him where someone was and he would jump up, climb onto his bed and point to them.  At one point, he even asked where his youngest cousin was. (She had just been born - which reminds me, her picture still isn't in the frame!)

Family collage. If you want to add in more people, just use
a larger frame. The more the merrier!

Photo tip:

Try to take multi-generational photos when you can. Trust me, it will be worth it later on. Also, when creating a collage try to throw in some black and white or sepia-toned images amongst the color photos. Doing so breaks up the monotony of color photos, not to mention, some photos just look better without color.

Speaking of families, sometime soon I intend on creating a multi-generational family gallery on our hallway wall. Once, I do I will share that with you as well. You think I like pictures now, well I LOVE old pictures, and have some big ideas on what to do with them!

This project is so simple yet, at least for our family, it ended up meaning so much more than we had ever intended or imagined.