Remembering my Dad

This afternoon I was showing Emma some pictures of me when I was a child. Being 3, she has a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that I was once little like her. She thought it was so funny to see me looking like her. And really cracked up when I showed her a picture from when I first came home from the hospital. It's a family picture, with my sister holding me. She couldn't believe that was Aunt Tara.

Some of the pictures I showed her were these - me with my Dad.


(May 1977)


(No date, I'm thinking 1977 or 1978)


(July 1979)

In doing so, I had to explain to her who exactly this man was in the pictures with me, because she had no idea who he was.

Six years ago today, my Dad died.

Which means Emma has never met her Grandpa McIntyre. She has no idea she had another Grandpa or that I had a Dad, really. While I gave her a quick explanation, it wasn't something she lingered on or asked any questions about. I don't think it's something her young mind can really understand. We quickly moved on to some other pictures and she giggled some more. And then she was bored. It was time to do something else. Because, as you probably know, three-year-olds don't have the longest attention spans.

But I've been thinking about the pictures. Thinking about my dad. The good and the bad. Missing him. Wishing he could meet his granddaughters. Wishing I could hear him laugh. I love you, Dad.

I realize this is way more serious that any post I ever write. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled posts containing amusing (at least to me) stories about my daughters and scrapbook layouts tomorrow. And one of these days, a menu plan. :)

Scrapbook Sunday

These are three older pages because I haven't yet scanned some new ones. And it's late and I'm tired and just plain too lazy to do it tonight. :)


(My favorite pink cardstock from Hobby Lobby; American Crafts Thickers, butterfly, can't remember the first paper, but the last three are Basic Grey. Tomorrow I'll look for the first paper and see if I can find the manufacturer.)


(White/pink paper is KI Memories, yellow is...I'm not sure; border stickers are KI, I think; pretty sure those are Heidi Swapp letters. This is the problem with posting pages months and months after you complete them - you forget.)


(KI Memories pink paper, Basic Grey floral - I love love love this paper, the whole Urban Prarie line actually; AC Thickers; My Minds Eye bird.)

Organizing by color

My scrapbooking embellishments, that is. Anyone else do this? Have pictures of your storage? Right now, I've got them organized by color in baskets. But I've combined more than one color per basket, putting items in Ziploc baggies. I also have a metal and clear category. Oh, and I have two baskets for theme products: Halloween, Christmas, baby, other holidays, sports. Here's what I'm worried about - finding what I need easily. Obviously, I can just pull the basket/baggie with the color item I need, but everything is just thrown in the bags. So I'll have to dump everything out to find what I need. Which could be annoying, plus a pain to clean up. I need to figure out a way to sort within color, but still keep things in the baskets, but again, make it easy to find. I don't want to buy anything, since I just bought all the baskets last year. They're cute little IKEA baskets that fit perfectly on my shelf.

I did the same with my ribbon tonight. I went through all my AC ribbon, purging some of it, with the rest going in to these categories: by color, ribbon with words, striped ribbon, patterned, Christmas, polka dot. I never use ribbon and I think it's because I'm just overwhelmed with the whole drawer full of American Crafts ribbon packs. I think this will inspire me to use it more often since I can now find what I'm looking for easier.

I haven't tackled the rest of AC product yet. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do. I know there are plenty of House items I would use more often if I knew they were there, but I'm not sure about mixing them all up and taking them out of their cans/boxes. I also need to go through my AC Thickers Accents. My Thicker alphabets are already sorted by color.

I'm trying to do a major purge because I know I have product I'm not going to use anymore. I just have a hard time getting rid of things. But I'd like to sell what I'm not using at a garage sale, so I think I need to get ruthless.

So that's it. Still a work in progress. I might have to change some things around after I've scrapped with it for a while.

Anyone have any tips? Pictures to share? Regrets after switching to organizing by color? ;)

Scrapbook Sunday

I know I missed last week. I'd just gotten home from Cheryl's wedding and didnt' get around to posting them. Okay. That and the fact that I hadn't scrapbooked that week.


(Everything is American Crafts)


(Love, Elsie, Basic Grey and Creative Imaginations papers; 7 Gypsies stickers strip; American Crafts Thickers, accent, letter stickers)


(You can't really tell, but the strip hanging off the left side is scalloped. I'm not sure who made the blue paper, but the other two strips of paper are SEI; American Crafts Thickers and accent)

If anyone else has been posting layouts on their blog, let me know - I'd love to check them out!

Challenge on AC blog

I meant to post this last week, but I sort of forget. Better late than never! Get out your AC baby paper, make a layout using at least two of them and post it. Then link back over here, the AC blog for your chance to win a complete set of Baby Collection papers, Thickers and clear stamps, and you can check out cute little Mackenzie at 3-days-old while you're at it. :) But hurry! You've got to get it done by Midnight PST tonight!

In need of a makeover.

My blog, that is. But last time I attempted it, I spent hours and hours trying to get free Blogger templates to work and they wouldn't. And it was annoying. But I don't know a lot of HTML. So I sort of need to find a cool and fun and colorful template that will work with Blogger and is easy to do. I'm tired of the way the blog looks. It's boring. Plus, it's a bit outdated. So, if you happen to be on in the next few days and notice some weird things, remember it's a work in progress. Or there could be no change at all because I get frustrated and give up. ;)

Another picture Rebekah took on Sunday. Emma was squeezing me so tight, trying to get her face as close to mine as possible, that is smooshed her cheek. You can't really tell in the picture, but she's gotten a lot more freckles over the last month. Quite a few on her nose. So cute.
 

Rebekah was here...

...and now I have these wonderful, awesome and fantastic photos. They make me happy.





I actually took the first and third pictures, but used Rebekah's amazing camera. I now have camera envy. Cheryl's wedding was great, I'll post those pictures once she's posted some on her own blog. Loved getting to see her, meet some new friends, spend time with Rebekah. It was a great weekend.

More pictures to come...

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, I swabbed my cheek for the bone marrow registry. Seriously. It's that easy. Swab your cheeks in four different places, wrap the labels around them and send them in. You can Be A Match, too. :)


Today, Michael and Emma played school. Emma's idea. My math teacher husband decided today's lesson would be math with Kix. Emma kept asking if she could eat one.


Tomorrow I'll be picking Rebekah up at the airport around 1 pm and then we're driving to Cheryl's for her wedding on Saturday. See you soon, C!

Happy 4th on the 6th

Scrapbook Sunday

This page is from the June gallery at Write. Click. Scrapbook. If you haven't yet checked out the new Write. Click. Scrapbook. blog, take a minute to go look around. There's great inspiration in the monthly galleries, awesome blog posts and a Flickr gallery to post your layouts. :)

(Bazzill cardstock; 7 Gypsies word sticker strip; Making Memories tiny alphas; American Crafts Thickers; SEI, Chatterbox, Love, Elsie papers.)


This layout was posted on the American Crafts blog a while back.

(Everything is American Crafts)


Another layout from the AC blog.

(Everything is AC)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!