#2: Wednesday we took Travis in to work (so that we could go to Target). We all had breakfast at Panera. At Target, we found this guy for Benji:

His name is Tigee (the kids said “Until Benji is old enough to name him”). He’s a miniature Hobbes. I hope that doesn’t mean that Benjamin is going to be a Calvin!

#3: I was so excited to slip my first photos into my Project Life binder:

I also had an epiphany this week. I’m going to borrow what I wrote and posted on the forums and bring it here:

I wanted to tell you guys something funny… I think I have come up with One Little Word for my scrapbooking! Okay, TWO little words: WHO CARES?!

(I know–I’m acting a little crazy over the whole OLW thing, huh?!)

Anyway, I’m starting to see how I get so hung up on the art and the sharing and the wanting praise that I stop myself from even starting until I know I have the time to “do it right.” I was writing this morning on my blog, posting two pages I made last year (here) and I started to ramble on about my handwriting:

I’m still working on learning to love my own handwriting. Sigh. That is a work in progress.

I’m using my daily journals for Project Life and Writing Motherhood to practice my style and hoping for the best. But I started to also run papers through the printer and I think I will be experimenting more with that. My goal is to record our memories—not worry about my art or even having my handwriting on a page. I need to stop letting these things hold me back from doing what I love and what I think is most important with this hobby. It’s not about impressing other people… it’s about recording life. Of course I want to be happy with my work, too. And scraplifting is one way to get there!

And then, I was just thinking about this:

Over the holidays, I had to use my flash to get some photos for my Dec. Daily album (trimming the tree, Christmas Eve). I was preparing the photos for printing Tuesday and I was like “Ah, man. I wish I had better pictures without a flash. Oh, well… I’ll just use these.”

Yesterday, I went to the store to print them out. And you know what? When I looked at them, they didn’t scream “YOU USED A FLASH!!!” at me. They look normal! They look great! They look like captured memories! Now I’m thinking that they look worse on a monitor than they do in real life. Anyway–lesson learned: “Girl, get out your camera and stop worrying so much!”

So… Take that, Inner Critic! No one cares what you think!

What’s most important here? HAVING the pictures and TELLING the story.

I just wanted to share these ramblings with you, in case you needed to tell your own Little Miss Perfectionist to go jump in a lake.

It’s freeing to be in this place. I want to record memories more than anything else. It’s time to relax, have fun… and get it scrapped!

#4: Last night, coming home from a night out with Travis and the kids, we turned on to our street… and saw smoke. The closer we got to our house, the more it looked like the smoke was coming from our house. I started to enter that surreal, dream-like state where everything is going wrong, yet you can keep on functioning. Once we pulled up closer, we could make out that it was actually a car on the main road, about 50 feet from the back our house, that was on fire. We couldn’t get into our neighborhood at that point. There is only one way in and the police were blocking it. So we took the kids out for ice cream… at 9:00 at night! After that, we were able to get back in to our neighborhood. Several neighbors were hanging out in the side yard so we stopped to talk and got to see a picture of the car engulfed in flames! So weird. No one was hurt. And I went to bed extremely thankful that it was not worse.

#5: I’ve decided on a project for my One Little Word. I’m going to make some sort of tag journal mini album! Thank you, Dearest Erika Martin, for the idea. I will be making one a week. (I’m actually wondering if I have an old deck of cards on hand!) I want it to start off as loose papers/tags and end up bound together. Thanks to my friend, Donna, I now have a Bind-it-All… so this part should be a piece of cake! Since this is my NOW journal, I’m going to go and start that—right NOW!

Many things still haven’t happened. We’ve yet to go camping. I still, after 10 years, do not have a full set of dishes. But so many other things did happen. It’s a really fun exercise to make yourself a list like this. I will certainly have to do it again one day…

But today, I wanted to focus just on 2012. Here are some of my specific wishes, hopes and dreams for this year:

FAMILY & HOME

• Capture one family photo a month (love this idea from Tara Whitney: 6 people, 12 times).
• Continue to enjoy family story time // Help Travis find great books.
• Do more that the kids enjoy during school // Worry less about cold, hard facts and make more messes.
• Get back to a regular MWF Outside/Bath night schedule.
• Make Saturdays more about outings, less about work and/or TV and video games.
• Stick to a good, old-fashioned cleaning schedule // No, really—this time, I mean it.

WORK

• Get out of the house with my notebook and draw out ideas (at least once a week; Saturdays or even early weekday mornings).
• Stay off Social Media sites until after I’m done with high priority items.
• When e-mails or requests come in, either reply right away OR make a note in my planner.
• Get into the rhythms of blogging to take advantage of the beauty of organization.

HEALTH

• Eat more fruits and veggies e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. // More trips to the store.
• Start moving more // Specifically, get outside and walk/run.
• Lose 10 pounds before my birthday in four months.
• Lose 10 more before the year is up (and thereby become a Lifetime Member with WW).

MEMORY KEEPING

• Do something scrappy every day.
• Backscrap when inspired
• Enjoy Project Life
• Print more photos (see above).
• Journal stories in my daily diary.
• Blog the Friday Five to help record weekly highlights and memories.

ART

• Play in my art journal every day // Collect quotes.
• Make a mini art book for my One Little Word with meaningful quotes.
• Make a canvas just for me.

PERSONAL

• Whatever organizational systems work for me, I want use them until they break. I need them in my life. If I’m going to keep up with all I have to do in a day, I need structure and lots of aides, since I can’t have a personal assistant move in to my house… LOL!
• Where ever I am, be all there.
• Stop the yelling // Be a scary whisperer instead (in all seriousness, it does make me calmer).
• Stop and listen to the little ones when they interrupt whatever it is that I’m doing.
• Smooch my husband. Always.

I’ve been a member of Pinterest for over a year now and I have to tell you—for me, that has been one of the most life changing sites I’ve ever been a part of!

Anyway, it was through Pinterest that I started to see all these beautiful PL spreads popping up. It was via a pin that I discovered my PL hero, Marcy Penner. I loooove her clean and simple hipster style.

So, for Christmas I strongly hinted that I would be pouting and crying and someone would be in big trouble if I didn’t get some stuff from my Amazon wishlist under the tree. There wasn’t anything else I wanted more than a binder and some page protectors!

Well, Mr. Santa did not disappoint! My Bear knows what makes me happy. Ha ha! (And it’s a good thing, because most items are now sold out!) o_O

Here’s what I’m using:

An American Crafts D-ring Binder and PL page protectors A and D.

Still on my wish list:

The 6 x 12 page protectors, grid notecards and a Selphy!

Nothing much is in my album yet. I did cut up some cards and insert them, just for fun. I heard that it’s good to work ahead!

I did want to show you this little idea I had that I stuck in my book on Monday: index notecards, for place holders, so I could journal in my book!

I plan to head to Target sometime soon to print off photos for my December Daily and also pick up a notebook for keeping notes in. But for now, I thought that this was fun and easy.

Last night I made my first note card and worked on this week’s title card:

I am undecided if I like the title card as is, because it is pretty in it’s simplicity, or if I want to add more embellishments. I left it alone for now. I can pull it out again any time!

I have a few personal challenges for myself this year with Project Life:

• I want to informally do Project 365/366, so my mindset is geared towards recording everyday life and I’m getting my camera out each day—even if I’m using my iPod and Instagram.
• I want to take a headshot of each one of us this week. Then I want to take a headshot of us all at the end of the year. This will be my first and my last pages.
• Each month I want to try to capture all four kids in one snapshot (and all six of us, if I can swing it!)
• At least once a month, I want to take a picture of myself.
• Every week, I want to get involved in the picture somehow–even if it’s just a part of me.
• Every Friday, I want to wrap up a spread and blog about Project Life in some way. (Welcome to the first one of those! Ha ha!)

Most people probably start with their title page, but I felt like I needed to wait until 2012 started. I want to use 2012 pictures for everyone, if I can swing it. I might cheat and use one from Dec. 31st for Benjamin.

So far this week, I have only been able to capture one gem for the title page:

Joshua and Benji have not cooperated. I figure Katie will be easy, so I’m saving her for last.

And I took a snapshot of myself that I thought was cute:

“Yay!” for feeling cute!

I have yet to print a photo that I have taken with my iPod. We’ll have to see how the quality is.

I’m sure that iPhone cameras are better… there’s more room in an iPhone for better components. Still, Instagram is fun and addicting and a great way to do Project 365.

Even if the prints stink, I might still take them all year long, just to be in the habit of taking pics!

And now for the Friday Five:

#1: The goal of this week was “Getting Back to Normal Life.” Monday was full of running errands. Tuesday was full of housecleaning. Wednesday was the first day back to school. Thursday was a mix of cleaning and schooling.

#2: Somewhere in the middle of all this there would be 5 minutes of painting in the art journal, 10 minutes of blogging, 15 minutes of creative writing, 5 more minutes of painting in the art journal, taking 20 pictures just to get one good one, stamping in the art journal… Life happens in bits and pieces around here. I feel like I have lived in the backend of WordPress this week, between writing posts here, at Sugarplum Paperie and at Tell Your Story Every Day. And if I’m not there, I’m in the kitchen, creating something. Starting to miss Photoshop this week…

#3: My one little word is NOW. I would like to get more intentional about my word next week. This week, there were only a handful of moments where I pressed pause and spent some time fully enjoying the moment. I have a nebulous project in mind to make a journal for my OLW and through it find ways to remind myself to slow down and be all here. Still thinking over the hows and whats of that…

#4: I went back to Weight Watchers this week. The last time I weighed in was on 12/14 (I missed two weeks of meetings—one thanks to food poisoning). Looks like the food poisoning canceled out all the negative effects of all the trips to Starbucks I made this holiday season… because there was no change in my weight. I’m trying to look at this as a good thing. At least I do not have more weight to fight. But currently, I am at a total 15.8 lost… but I’m thinking more about the 2.2 I gained, because right before Thanksgiving, I had hit a total of 18 pounds lost. ::thinking positively, thinking positively::

#5: This week I got out my Love Your Handwriting book for the first time since 2007. I practiced more and did some exercises. I tried writing faster and making my letter taller, aiming for a pretty but messy look, since my neat and clean is neither neat or clean. I’m continuing to practice this style when I write in my daily journal. I’m hoping that I’ve really latched on to something here that will help me love my handwriting… because the more I love it, the easier it’s going to be for me to write on my pages and scrap a lot faster!

I found this little kraft paper journal in Michael’s one night. It called out to be and said “Hey! Play with me! You know you want to!” so I bought it.

(You know those funny Pier 1 commericals? “Party, party, party!” That’s totally me in that commercial.)

So, I brought it home, got out the acrylics and went to town!

Except, things didn’t really look the way I thought they would.

So, I got out a pen and tried to doodle and write some profound things. I even tried adding a little flower embellishment on the page, you know—to be artsy.

Ugh. It was not what I expected.

A few weeks went by.

I ignored my journal.

But I felt sad about that! It’s not what I had intended to do at all. I was supposed to be on a new journey of exploration and discovery! But I think that I forgot that I needed to walk and move to get where I wanted to go. Doh! That’s why we use the whole “journey” metaphor in the first place, isn’t it?

So, a thought occurred to me—I should look harder at the inspiration I found on Pinterest! I needed to see how I could deconstruct the work of those I admired.

Well, when it comes to admiration, there are two people I highly admire! The first is Karen.

Karen makes beautiful scrapbook pages (I love her use of white space and her long titles that are whole sentences). And she makes beautiful art journal pages. After stalking her blog for layout inspiration, I started to get caught up in her art journaling journey. It was with that in mind that I immediately picked up that little journal for myself with glee and great expectations. I was ready to play, too!

But I had no road map to get where I wanted to go… until last week, when I stumbled upon the amazing, free tutorial videos made by Christy Tomlinson! Now I’m a-stalkin’ her, too. Hey, any woman with more kids than I have and her own business? She’s an instant hero.

Now, I had heard of Christy’s wonderful classes before from my friends. But I just assumed that all her best tips and secrets were contained in them. (And, you know, who has an extra $45 lying around? Not me.) What I didn’t know was that Christy is an extremely generous person and she has made a ton of wonderful videos showing us how she plays around with different products and how she creates such depth and interest in her canvases. I found some great clips on My Craft Channel (specifically Episodes 1 and 2) and in this YouTube video she made here that helped me take a giant leap forward in my own play times.

So, I took my first page, covered the whole thing up with layers upon layers of paint and started anew with my favorite quote:

A girlfriend of mine used to say that when we would stamp and make cards together and it’s stayed with me as my crafty motto ever since. It’s especially dear to me now, as I am embarking on this new crafty little journey… and totally fitting, considering that I made a “mistake” with my first page which lead to a wonderful opportunity for creativity!

A funny little anecdote: My kids are talking about going outside to pick some leaves and flowers to press.

My daughter says to my son, “Well, just get your flip flops on.”

He says, “I can’t. I just have the one.” My ears perk up.

I say, “Why is that? Can’t you find your other shoe?”

He said, “No, it broke the other week. I just have the one now.”

Then suddenly, my children are left to stare in wonder as their mother claps her hands in delight and excitedly demands that the kids go find this one flip flop for her. This is not something that Mommy would typically be happy about!

Then they follow her to the kitchen where they watch her take scissors and a kitchen knife to the thing to cut it up to use as a stamp in her art journal. (ps. I did ask Joshua if it was okay with him before I cut it apart in front of his little face.)

I guess I am now one of those “crazy” people. Woo-hoo!

And you know what? That new stamp is the most awesome thing! You can see it above. The sole of the show was worn away, but the inside of the flip flop makes the coolest diamond plating type of pattern! It’s great.

I just love it! Ah, yes I do… here’s to new, crazy, fun things!

The main gift for my mom was this necklace from zafirenia’s shop:

I thought it would be fun and feel good to support other artists on Etsy this year. I’m so glad I did. I think the things I found were really fantastic!

I have been saving this cake box that I made last year for something special. It turns out that this was the something special!

But the coolest thing of the day was when I pulled out the extra supplies leftover from when I printed the box—pieces that didn’t work for anything then, but I put to good use today! I also had a beautiful set of cards to give my mom that were made by a friend of mine. She is a digital scrapbooking designer, but I didn’t know that she was a fine artist as well until a few weeks ago when she posted her Etsy link on Facebook.

So, I wanted to wrap the cards in a brown paper bag. When I opened the cabinet in the kitchen that holds all our various shopping bags, sitting on top was a yellow paper gift bag. It was the perfect color yellow to go with those hybrid extras!

I decided to deconstruct the bag:

I ripped the bottom seams apart and then tore the side seam, too. Then I snipped up the bag to fit the gift…

Here is the paper with Heather’s lovely cards inside:

Heather’s shop is here: Ooh la la, Artsy! Shop!

My mom has recently become a fine artist herself, working with watercolors. I thought she would really appreciate them because of that. Aren’t they pretty?!

Then, I just wrapped up the cards like a Christmas present:

I “parcelfied” them with some black twine and added the hybrid tag.

And this is the part that just gets me—a random bag in the cabinet just happens to match a random “Happy Birthday” tag that I made to go with a matching cake box from a year and a half ago?! That’s not coincidence. That’s was a little gift from the Daddy of All Things Creative. I got goosebumps. So cool.

Here’s everything together:

I had some scraps of leftover printed paper and I made a butterfly out of my Martha Stewart punches. I stamped “MOM” on the bottom in Stampin’ Up! White Craft ink with my nifty clearance aisle find (also Martha Stewart, purchased for just $3!).

And there we have it! A lovely coordinating gift set.

It’s cake without the calories. Ha! Delightful.

Thanks for listening all about my crafty afternoon.

It’s the end of the year and I have all these plans to try out all these big scrapbooking things next year—things that I’ve always wanted to do, but miss out on. I always seem to hear about the good stuff… in January, when it’s too late. But not this year (thank you, Pinterest!). This year, I am ready!

I’ve been thinking about the one little word that I’d like to focus on in 2012, the banner I’d like to hang over my year. Currently, the word I keep coming back to is NOW.

It’s small, intense and can mean so many different things. Here’s what it means to me:

I am not a big fan of the past.

I know—I’m a scrapbooker! What is up with that?

It’s just that when I look at photos of the past, far from being filled with a sense of sweet nostalgia, I am full of a mixture of embarrassment and sadness. If I spend an hour sorting through photos from my childhood, I feel like crap for the next few hours. Even when I spend an hour sorting through photos from my early married years, I think more of the hardships and sad times. It always makes me happy that I am where I am now… in some sort of strange, twisted, desperate way.

I am not someone who likes to look back.

Instead, I’m one of those people who is always talking about the future. I’m a junkie. I get so excited about possibilities and opportunities. Too much coffee can be really dangerous in this house! I love new projects. I love taking crazy leaps of faith off cliffs… it’s thrilling!

I saw this beautiful illustration on Pinterest and it made me think of this very thing.

(link)

When I look at this, I see myself.

After months and months of growing out my hair out (because other people like it that way and tell me that I should do try it again), I’d get to a point where I had enough and I’d want to hack it off. After all that time, it means nothing to me to just do it on a whim. It’s what I want to do. It’s more “me” than growing out my hair is. I wouldn’t look back. I’d be happy.

As I was thinking about all this—how I don’t like to look back and how I love to look forward—I realized something big: I’m not living in the moment.

So, for me, NOW means RIGHT NOW.

Be here, now.

Savor this moment.

Focus.

And capture it…

(…which brings to mind another big scrapbooking event that’s coming up that I’m planning to do, but more on that in another post.)

Another thing that NOW means to me is “now” in the sense of “Do it. Do it now!”

I will have a list of things in my head… and I will let the one thing that upsets me the most on my list hound me all day long and sour my mood and rain on my parade. Why not just do it as soon as I possibly can? Like… right now! Now’s a good time! Rip off the band-aid. Get it over and done with.

Or I will say to myself “You can start that… tomorrow.” Of course, that’s a good thing to say to yourself when your day is so crazy and you need to draw the line somewhere. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about things like healthy eating habits, starting to exercise, putting off sinful habits. It’s too easy to say “Tomorrow.” I want to say “No, NOW. You will thank me later.” There’s always going to be that initial little hill to climb over… whether I try something new today or tomorrow or three weeks from Thursday.

All of this is something that I want to take with me into 2012…

So, that’s my OLW for 2012: NOW It’s very little. But very potent to me.

It’s already the middle of the month. How did that happen?! o_O

Thursday, Dec. 1: I took Katie outside for a photo shoot with her new jeans (see post below). I pulled out my new ornaments. I found these at Target for the tree this year. Too cute to pass up!

They fit in so well with our other ornaments. If I had to give our tree a “theme,” I’d say that it’s “toys.” I have lots of glass balls and bells and traditional things. But all the other little pieces are toys, for the most part. Little wooden rocking horses. A jack-in-the-box. A gingerbread doll my grandmother made, which is totally ’70s—it’s yellow and not brown, with sequins even! I love it. So kitschy!

So these guys fit right in.

Friday, Dec. 2: I went in for my surgery.

Travis and all the kids spent time in the waiting room and at Panera. Thank goodness for his Scribblenauts game on his iPad. They were engrossed and not climbing the walls.

My mom came to pick up the kids and take them out to a tree lighting ceremony. They spent the night with her.

I slept. And slept. And slept.

Saturday, Dec. 3: The kids came home. I played with my new box of All About Reading and All About Spelling books. (Our previous curriculum was not meeting our needs at all. I am so pumped to start this in January!)

Then I passed out like a coma patient once again.

Sunday, Dec. 4: Katie and Joshua sang at church. Here’s my cutie, in orange (so “Christmasy,” huh?)

Monday, Dec. 5: I don’t remember it. I think Travis stayed home? I must have slept all day.

Tuesday, Dec. 6: My mom’s birthday party. I missed it. (I don’t know how much therapy is going to get me over the guilt of this.)

I took my last pain pill that night because I had had enough of living in a coma. I wasn’t even in that much pain! I had a list of other complaints, like nausea and feeling totally worn out. I needed to kick the drugs.

Wednesday, Dec. 7: I muddled through, not doing much of anything. But not sleeping all day either.

Thursday, Dec. 8: I think this was the day we made popsicle stick stars as ornaments for the tree. I don’t have photos and can’t recall anything that happened along with the star making, just that they were on the kitchen counter for a few days before the tree went up… so that’s what I’m going to guess.

Later in the day, I had a doctor’s appointment, so I actually left the house for the first time in close to a week—with makeup on and everything! I also went to the cool new Publix downtown. It’s two stories high and you shop on the top level. That was fun to see it. I want to take the kids there. I know they will love seeing the escalator for the shopping carts.

Friday, Dec. 9: I finally started to feel like myself again.

I spent the day sorting through CD back ups of photos, making sure that everything was also on the EHD (doubly safe and sound). I painted and played and scrapped.

Katie had seen my December Daily work and she wanted to start her own mini album, too. So, we sat down and I walked her through what scrapping is all about. I told her that she wasn’t just allowed to cut up and glue paper, just to cut up and glue paper. She needed an idea of a story that she wanted to tell. What photos did she have? etc., etc. She came up with the idea to make a mini all about her trip with us and her Grammy to Orlando in October.

So we edited her photos to get them ready to print and then together we made her cover:

Yes, my eight and a half year old made this!

A title is still to come.

I gave her tips and ideas, but she assembled it all. She finger painted the background, trimmed the paper strips, painted the embellishments, picked all the colors and even did her own sewing. It’s so gorgeous. I am going to have to scraplift this idea and color scheme for a layout!

It looks a lot like the style that I like. Like mother, like daughter! I was careful to drag her through page after page on Pinterest and question her about what she liked first. She likes it messy, like me! Isn’t that great for a kid?! No worrying that you did it “wrong.”

Meanwhile, I also finished Page 2 of my December Daily:

That night, we put up the tree (see the post below for a snapshot of some squirmy kids!).

Saturday, Dec. 10: Woke up. Took a good look at the kitchen. Made some coffee. Looked at the kitchen floor some more. Busted out the Brillo pad, the mop and the broom and did a number on the kitchen. Passed out on the bed, two hours later. Yay! It needed that.

The bad news is that while I was doing all this… I was actually supposed to be at a ladies’ Christmas luncheon at church!

Man, I am still so bummed that I missed that. I was so looking forward to meeting other moms and getting time to talk with them without twenty billion little interruptions from kiddos. ::pout, pout, pout::

Later that afternoon, I took Penny to Target where we spent a little too much on presents and also got some household goods. It’s so much fun when they are the age that you can take them shopping and they have no clue that you are buying them presents. It’s like some sort of parenting challenge. Whee!

Then we came home, got out all the boxes and we all decorated the tree!

These are my favorites:

This was once a garland, but I only had this one bit of it and it was only about 6 feet at most. I took it home, trimmed all the glittery pine cone clusters off the rope and made them into ornaments (all I needed was a hook! So easy). I hang them deeper inside the tree, as if they are more a part of it. They are always the first to go on. I love them!

Then I worked on making hot [white] chocolate from scratch. It was my first time trying it. It was just okay. Good with gingerbread cookies, though:

The kids watched Rudolph (and then Ron Paul) and went to bed.

Sunday, Dec. 11: We missed church, but we went to our small group and had a great evening with our friends. I brought too much dessert. We came home with carrot cake. YUM!

Monday, Dec. 12: Nothing special or Christmas-y. Just an average Monday. I spent the entire day and night working on updating things (contracts, information and instructions) for the new year for my business. So boring.

Tuesday, Dec. 13: Relaxed. Created and painted. But nothing really Christmas-y.

Wednesday, Dec. 14: Nothing special. Just a Weight Watcher’s meeting. Did have some eggnog with the kids after dinner. Yum! Gathering a lot of inspiration online for different projects. Brainstorming about work related things with Travis.

Thursday, Dec. 15: Lots of gifts having been coming all week from UPS and the USPS. I see one or both of them at my door each day. Lots of Amazon orders from Grandmom and Granddad (arriving separately), presents from friends, orders from Etsy for others. My doorbell has been getting a workout! Today I received a Bind-it-All from a sweet friend. I am beyond excited to play with it!

So…

…it looks like I really need to get more “daily” about my December. This week has been too much work and not enough play. Time for more intentional Christmas glee!

Here’s my list of things I want to be sure to capture in the next 10 days, as we countdown to Christmas:

• My favorite old ornament.
• The popsicle stick ornaments we made this year.
• The kid’s mugs (a better shot than the one above. Blah. Flash!).
• The wreath on the front door.
• All those UPS boxes!
• Presents being wrapped.
• Presents under the tree.
• My mom’s birthday gift.
• Dinner out with my mom (this Friday).
• The kids’ winter jammies (but I have to find and buy them first).

Ideas for this weekend include trying to get a family photo, firming up plans for Christmas day and Christmas dinner and maybe a beach walk. Ah! That does sound lovely, doesn’t it?

::off to get into the Christmas Spirit::

I guess the real thing that held me back was that after posting pictures of little Benji, I should post about my birth story. But I didn’t want to post about my birth story. It actually makes me sad to think about how things turned out so differently than I had hoped. So, it’s taken me 11 months to come back and give myself permission to gloss over the past and start moving forward.

This year has simply flown by for me. My emergency c-section occurred at the beginning of year and the first few months of 2011 are a total blur. I have photographs that prove that I was up and about. But I have very little memory of the details of life. I slept a lot. I took a lot of pain meds. That was my day. I feel so sorry for any new moms who start out with their first baby in this way. It was so different from all my other past experiences. Why anyone who choose to schedule a c-section for convenience is beyond me! Give me 7 hours of labor with no pain meds. Yeah, that was hard work and painful, but oh so much more rewarding!

But I digress.

Due to all the things that happened during the last few months of my pregnancy, my doctor advised me to make this my last pregnancy. While a big part of me is okay with that, my mother’s heart is not okay with that. No, I don’t want to rush out and have another baby anytime soon. No, I don’t realistically see myself having another baby at 37 or 39! But I adore my children and I’ve spent the last 10 years being open to whatever God wanted to bring into our lives… so it’s strange now to be permanently closing that door. I’m at peace and I’m emotional. It’s such an odd mix!

So, my year has been full of doctor’s visits and new medications. There were several highlights! Katie took sailing lessons this summer (which was a gift from my mom). I was so very proud of her bravery and optimistic spirit. She was scared, but she did so many new things without hesitation!

That girl is amazing.

Joshua’s big news this year was that he started K/1st grade and he’s loving it! I was initially worried about juggling my two students, but I can usually do a lot of one-on-one work with Joshua while Katie works on her math and language arts books. After he finishes his own math and language arts, he goes off to play while I work with Katie. Then we all come together again for history (Joshua mainly colors), science and read-aloud time. We are all really having fun with school this year!

Joshua also lost his first tooth last month (which happened a lot sooner than Katie!):

And then there’s Penny. Ah, Penny!

She can be summed up as:

Independent. She thinks she can do everything else her siblings can do! Like pour the water into cups. Finally, I started letting her get things out of the fridge. She’s such a little helper—but sometimes so instant about it!

Trouble. She’s often getting into something. Thankfully, nothing as bad as my lipstick. But we keep an eye on her. She can’t be trusted!

Adorable. She’s so stinking cute. It’s hard to reprimand her and keep a straight face.

She’s started to talk in full sentences now. She’ll say things like “How are YOU doing?” or “a-My turn, Katie!” or “What’s DAT noise?” Precious!

She was climbing all over us at the table during school time, so I started giving her own things to mess around with, trusting her with the scissors and glue or giving her fun things, like dried beans, to play with. She loves it!

There is a hair cut coming in Penny’s future. It makes me sad, because it means that her curls are finally growing out. But on the other hand, she’s starting to look like an adorable, puffy-headed ragamuffin if I don’t pull her hair back in a ponytail!

And then there’s Benji. He’s almost a year old now…

At the moment, he’s competing with Penny for the title of “Biggest Trouble Maker.” He can crawl and pull himself up to standing. And of course, that means we have been checking the floors continually and I have a nice collection of small toys living up on the shelf by my desk. Walking is next. Oh, boy! I think I need a few more baby gates…

As for me, I had a few great things happen this year (after I came out of my drug-induced stupor, that is). First, I joined Weight Watchers in May with my mom. I have lost 18 pounds to date. I never thought I would love a program like WW, but I do! It’s in line with my goals to eat “cleaner” (they encourage you to get in lots of fruits and veggies) and because I’m paying for WW each month… I’m actually eating lots of carrots, bananas, grapes and spinach salads instead of just thinking “Oh, that’s so nice. I should do that!” And I cannot tell you how good it feels to get rid of this fat. The person I see in the mirror is not the person I remember being. I put on 10 pounds with each new baby over the years! Now I’ve lost my “Benji” weight and almost all of my “Penny” weight. I’m close to half way now.

I also got a haircut when I reached my first goal:

That alone makes me feel like myself again! I also recently hit my next goal, so I am looking forward to doing some clothes shopping, too! It’s been a good 7 1/2 years since I bought more than just a new shirt or pair of pants.

Other highlights from this year: This summer we finally found a church home! We’ve been here for almost two years now. The search was long and I had really given up hope. We also celebrated our first Halloween. It was a blast! The kids loved dressing up. And Travis and I celebrated our 9th anniversary—which means that a lot of little 10th anniversary dates are happening now. Ten years ago we were engaged. We celebrated our 10th Thanksgiving together. And soon we’ll celebrate our 10th Christmas, too. It’s amazing to think that it’s been that long… and that I love this man more than EVER! He really is my best friend.

(I was trying to take a picture of my new hair cut. He came in and started messing with my shots and making me laugh. Goof!)

So, now December is upon us. Benji will be one on New Year’s Eve. We will have both parties and doctor’s appointments galore. It will be busy, crazy and hopefully still a lot of fun!

That was basically my 2011.

One. Big. Blur.

Here’s to 2012!

Benjamin Alexander Seitler

b. December 31, 2010
w. 8 lbs., 10 oz.
l. 21 in.

1 wk. :: 01/09/11

5 wks. :: 02/09/11

Yesterday we weighed Benji at my last midwife check-up. He was 12 lbs. and 10 oz. Looks like he’s following in his big brother’s footsteps. Those Seitler boys do not stay little for long!

Tomorrow Benjamin will be 7 weeks old. I can’t believe how fast time flies! Well, I guess it flies faster when you’re living with minimal sleep.

October: In October, we got out a bit to enjoy the lovely, mild weather:

[Sarasota Jungle Gardens; 10/17]

[Penny Makes a Friend]

[Anna Maria Pier; 10/24]

We didn’t do anything for Halloween this year, which is something I think we will change next year. I’ve never been big on Halloween myself so I think I just took the easy road and played the “I’m a Christian; I don’t celebrate Halloween” card for the last 12 years. This year, I felt too tired and too overwhelmed to bother with it. And then I kept saying to myself that we had better things to spend our money on, with the baby coming and all…

And then on Halloween night, a little voice came drifting in the window. It sounded like a little boy, about four or five years old, was outside our house—and all he said was “Trick o’ Treat!” (in seriously the most adorable and innocent little voice you ever heard), but it was enough to reduce me to tears and make me feel like the biggest Scrooge/Grinch/Evil Stepmother around. My kids LOVE to dress up! And, of course, what kid doesn’t love candy?! Childhood is a magical time of enjoying silly, goofy things like Halloween. I can remember enjoying it myself! Why not have fun with it now? So, now I’m totally resolved—next year, I would like to go all out and have a great time celebrating Halloween with the kids.

November: At the end of October, my grandfather passed away. He was just 2 weeks away from celebrating his 101st birthday! I was very happy to get to spend his last day with him. When I arrived, he said my name and placed kisses on my hand in his still so refined and debonair way. He was always such a gentleman—just like a leading man in some classic black and white movie. In November, my mom hosted a lovely memorial service that was a wonderful time of celebrating and remembering my grandpa’s life. It almost felt like Thanksgiving with all the family that was there and the good food! My mom really knows how to throw a party, that’s for sure.

[Children's Garden Reading Festival; 11/21]

Then on Thanksgiving, we had a lovely, laid-back afternoon together at her house with a few of my mom’s friends. She made it easy this year and told me all I needed to bring was dessert. So, I made a Maple Pecan Pumpkin Cheesecake and I tell you what—I was so glad that I didn’t have to cook anything other other than that. I was amazed at how much that one homemade dessert took out of me! Yikes. It’s easy to forget how pregnant I am sometimes…

We ended the day with a walk on the beach and watched the sun set. It was a lovely, relaxing day! And then not only did we get to enjoy having Travis home on Thursday, but he also had Friday, Saturday and Sunday off as well. Good times! Relaxing times! I know I certainly needed a break from the whole school/work/school/work cycle.

December: And now… here we are at the end of the year! And we’ve found ourselves to be super busy once again!

Thanks to the “nesting” instinct, I led everyone in some Spring Cleaning before we broke out all the Christmas decorations for the season. We went through every room of the house, dusting and vacuuming every corner and every cranny. Oh—my back! But it felt good to get things so clean. We’ve been here a year now and things needed to be moved around and cleaned a bit.

Then we pulled out both the tubs of baby clothes (which I’ll have to start sorting through soon!), the tree and all the boxes of Christmas things. At first, it was surreal to be doing all this as the A/C was kicking on. I know that I spent the first 23 years of my life in Florida, but the years I spent outside the state really reset my seasonal clock! But thankfully the day after we got the tree up, a cold front moved in and it’s felt more like Christmas Time ever since.

[Really, she's worse than a cat!]

Now the tree has been trimmed and it’s time to get to the real fun of Christmas—shopping for the kids! I just love getting them presents, picking out things I know they will love. And I love wrapping them, too! There’s just something magical about pretty wrapping paper, isn’t there? Or maybe I’m so enamored with it because I love graphic design. Either way—it makes me happy just to look at a new roll of wrapping paper!

And as if this wasn’t already the busiest, craziest time of year…

About a month ago, at my midwife appointment I measured a little big (about 3 cm/3 weeks bigger than I should have been). Two weeks later, I measured right on schedule so we thought “Hmm. Okay, no big deal!” Then at my next appointment two weeks after that, I suddenly jumped 10 cm and was measuring 40 weeks at 30 weeks. Obviously, something was up. So, we scheduled an ultrasound to see what we could see. The possibilities included there actually being two babies in the oven! But nope—there’s just one! It looks like it’s a fluid issue, possibly related to my kidneys. Everything about the baby looks fine! Except for the fact that the technician thought that the baby was more like 36 weeks along, not 33.

So, the next day my midwives ordered a second ultrasound to be done at Sarasota Memorial. I went off to the Labor and Delivery triage by myself and spent a good 3-4 hours hanging out there, waiting to be admitted, monitored and then have the ultrasound. That technician pegged the baby at almost 38 weeks! You know, I might give you 35 weeks… but there’s NO WAY that things can be that off. First, I seemed to have morning sickness begin and end, right on schedule. I was reasonably sure of my dates. Then, up until recently, I was measuring right in line with my weeks, just like I always seem to do. There was obviously a jump… a growth spurt along with some extra fluid making my belly big. But, as Travis said, unless I was abducted by aliens for 5 weeks, there’s just no way the baby could be that much farther along!

So, all this has left me feeling like the baby could really be coming any day now, instead of thinking that I had a few weeks left! Who knows?! Yikes.

We did find out that the baby is a boy! Joshua is super happy. Now we just need to think up a good name—and soon, apparently! This weekend when we were at Target, I picked up a baby blanket for the baby. Everyone gets a special blanket in this house! It’s one of my favorite little things I like to do when getting ready for the new baby to come. Now it’s time to start diving in to do a mountain of 0-3 month sized laundry as well. Oh, my! How did we get here so fast? I have no clue…