Project Life Pages

Here's some catch up on my Project Life Pages.

Some weeks I enjoy printing just my Instagram photos and adding a note explaining a bit about the photos. I love Instagram! I'm WENDYM888 if you want to follow me.




For Week 6, I photographed our letterboxing trip.

Sunday Feb 3, we went to the Ribault Monument at the Fort Caroline National Park to find “The Wizard” letterbox stamp. Kylie found the stamp near a large tree on the side of the parking lot. Inside the letterbox, there was beautiful hand-carved stamp of a wizard along with a guestbook. After we stamped our book, we walked the few steps to the Monument which is the spot where Ribault claimed Florida for France in 1552. There was a view of St. John’s River and some lovely climbing trees. It was a short and successful letterbox trip!


Week 6 page 2 had notes on Spring Cleaning, our yard sale, Kylie's iPod and her sleep patterns. The journaling reads:

As part of my early Spring cleaning and in order to get ready for Kylie’s yard sale, I went through everything in the Florida room. And then I decided to flip-flop the chair area and the low bookcase. It’s nice to have a change in there. And even better to weed out the old toys.

There were two pre-k teachers ready to pounce on our yard sale before it officially opened. They took the majority of the board books and toddler DVD’s. Our neighbor’s daughter, Sammie, was also a good customer and a great friend to Kylie all day. Sammie and Kylie kept one another occupied during the sale. We made sure Kylie thanked all of her customers. And we took the unsold items to Goodwill. We ended up making $70! It was far more than we anticipated.

We ran an ad in the local paper, “The Beaches Leader” for the yard sale. The cost of the ad was $13. Well worth it!

I loaded some songs and albums onto Kylie’s iPod. We put a mini speaker in the Florida room to play her songs. Kylie was thrilled to have her “own music” like some of her older friends have. And she danced with happiness the day we set it all up.

Kylie slept in all this week! Normally, she is awake at 6am but her body clock must have shifted. I actually had to wake her up at 7:00 a couple of mornings. I have to say I had some avenging parental glee at waking her up. Maybe after 5 ½ years of her waking me up the tides are turning.


For Project Life Week 7- I showcased Kylie and her bead loom and included some notes about my doctor's appointment and Karen's travel. Journaling reads:

Karen was in Denver Colorado February 10 – 14.

Monday 2/11 I saw the doctor at Florida Sports Medicine Institute. He diagnosed my injury as a grade 2 adductor strain. He prescribed physical therapy three times a week for four weeks at a rehab center at the beach. My first appointment is Monday 2/18. The doctor believes it will be 3-4 weeks before I can run again.

Kylie got a bookmark at her school’s PE class. The girls beat the boys at their activities and the girls got bookmarks.

Kylie’s school celebrated Chinese New Year. As a special snack, the class had egg rolls. When Kylie came home she told me, “I tried one of the egg rolls and I really didn’t like it. I wanted to be polite so I went to the bathroom and spit it out in the garbage there.” Good story Kylie!

Kylie learned the art of working a bead loom this week. She was so proud of her first bead decoration that she asked to take it to school. I sent a note to her teachers asking permission.


Week 7 page 2 was about Valentine's Day, Kylie playing at the park and her latest Kiwi Crate. Journaling reads:

Kylie traversed the entire tire loop at Jack Russell Park for the first time. Some of those tires are really tilted making it challenging. She was so proud of herself. And I captured her triumphant finish on video. Way to go Kylie!

Kylie signed the back of all of her valentines and taped a colorful pencil onto each card. At school, she got to decorate her valentine bag and the children passed out their cards by putting them into the bags. At home, we gave Kylie days-of-the-week socks, a secret diary with a lock, and a mood-changing necklace along with some stickers and a ring pop.

Play date at the park on Friday with kindergarten friend Carolyn- no school.

With this month’s Kiwi Craft Crate, we made yarn pompon animals and a cardboard swing and slide.

Letterboxing

Since school was out on Monday, Kylie and I decided to go letterboxing at a nearby park. Here are a few pictures from the day:


Kylie found the Eagle Scout Map which was one of our clues.


We saw lots of woodpeckers along the way.


I'm wary when the letterbox clues have you in a wooded area and tell you "look for a stump and then look for a log". We looked around two stump/log combinations before we found the correct one on the third try.




It's always a relief to find the box. And it's fun to see the hand-carved stamp.


We stamp the letterbox stamp onto our book and pages. Then we stamp our three-star family stamp into the guestbook.


Mostly we love letterboxing because it takes us to new parks. It gets us out of the house and into the fresh air and sunshine.


Kylie was asking me if we could return and ride our bikes around the paved trails.


Kiddo found a good climbing tree.


Our girl loves trees.


It was a good letterboxing day!

Jump Rope - donations please

On Wednesday February 27th, Kylie is participating in a Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser to benefit the American Heart Association. Kylie will happily jump rope during her entire PE class. We are asking Kylie's friends to make a donation to this cause. It's a one time donation, not a "per jump" donation. I believe if you click on this link, you can make an online donation on her behalf. Please consider donating $1, $5 or more. Thank you!

Project Life Week4

I loved focusing page one of this week's project life pages on the topic of Kylie's friends.



Kylie has been doing much better with the “mean girl” scenario at school. She is staying away from the little girl who got her in trouble. She is playing more with other friends. She is learning to walk away when she feels the beginnings of a power struggle. The American Girl Doll books “Stand Up for Yourself” have been a big help to us both. It gives her a vehicle to begin a discussion with us and it gives her good information.

Kylie had lessons on writing a letter and addressing an envelope this week at school. She wrote a letter to her cousin Emily, to last year’s schoolmate Clara, and to her friend at school, Maya. In all of the letters, she asks for a playdate. Kylie loves spending time with her friends.



Kylie is riding her bike so well. She rode 2.5 miles on 1/19 and 3.5 on 1/20.

Kylie ran 2 miles without stopping on the track on Friday. Even though she still has a cold, she wanted to run. I am ridiculously proud of her.

Kylie started choir practice at church. She will practice on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 – 6:30. They are working on a piece to present on Palm Sunday.

Kylie is learning how to jump rope.

Kylie has fallen in love with the original Charlie Brown tv episodes. We can get them on iTunes and on Netflix. She watches them over and over.

Daruma Doll- Paint one eye in when you set your goal. Paint the other eye when your goal is achieved. A little extra luck, accountability and fun for a hard-to-reach goal.

We don’t get snowflakes in Florida so Kylie made her own.

Here are two of Kylie's school journaling worksheets for the week.


And this one made me laugh out loud when I saw it. It reads: "Monte (the gerbil) is funny. I like his poop. I like his pee." And she included a picture of Monte's plastic gerbil cage.


So that's it for another week. Thanks for looking! Click on the photos to view the credits. If you want to see other Project Life Projects, see

Ali Edwards blog

Big Picture Classes Gallery

Project Life Week 3

I wanted to use some more of our family photos at the start of our PL album. And I wanted to showcase the 3 pictures I took this week of Kylie reading.


This month’s Kiwi Crate had Kylie making her own board game. She glued the game board squares and the wood-block dice. Then she colored the two game pieces. She colored them to look like herself and her friend Maya. Then we got to play the game. This craft was good for about 1 ½ hours of fun. The other craft was to create a ring toss game and then play bingo by marking the game rings we hit. Kylie and I love to get her Kiwi Crates because they deliver such creative crafts and fun.

Kylie had early release from school on Friday 1/18. We went to Big Air Jump House.

I love that picture of Kylie and her pinwheel.

Document: New Ascics for Kylie- size 12.

Kylie and I made sugar cookies together.



I included two pieces of Kylie's school journaling with this week's pages.





So that's it for another week. Thanks for looking! Click on the photos to view the credits. If you want to see other Project Life Projects, see

Ali Edwards blog

Big Picture Classes Gallery

Project Life 2013 Weeks 1 & 2

I'm pleased to start another year of Project Life Scrapbooking. Project Life is a simple approach to memory keeping. If you would like more information on the process, you can click here. I post all my Project Life Album pictures onto my Flickr album. If you click on a picture, it will take you to Flickr where you can view the credits.


Week One, Page One is a simple title page with photos of us taken before the start of the year.


Page Two has the goings on of the week.

We've noticed a big leap in Kylie's desire to read and her reading comprehension. She read this "Junie B Jones Survival Guide to School" book twice!

The small far left pocket is a summary sheet from our babysitter when she sat for us on 1/1.

Karen & I got a babysitter for New Years Day afternoon and we went to the movies. We took our picture in front of the Hobbit sign in the theater. I love that I have a place to keep movie stubs in our Project Life Scrapbook.

Our neighborhood raccoon paid us another visit on Friday morning. He was busily eating birdseed that had fallen to the ground at 7am. It really is a jungle out there in our Florida backyard.

I am sad that I'm injured and am going to miss the Disney Marathon but my motto has been "KPO" for "Keep Pressing On". I'm trying to keep it all in perspective and I cant be too sad when my Kylie is so happy.


I loved this piece of art Kylie made with markers. She titled it "Heart Explosion". I stored it in a simple letter-sized sheet protector and tucked it behind the two previous pages.


Many times I'll glue a piece of Kylie's artwork to a 12x12 piece of cardstock. I have a rubber stamp to create the journaling lines that you see in the upper left corner. Then I put the artwork in a 12x12 sheet protector. Since I use a front page-back page method for my PL Week pages (instead of a left page-right page) I like how her artwork separates the weeks.

I don't remember what this story was about- other than it had a toaster pastry in it (see block 5). But I simply love how Kylie is creating storyboards.


Great picture of our cat Phoebe.


Week 2 in our PL scrapbook was all about Grandpa's visit. But I did want to document Kylie's visit to Bolles School on Monday, January 7th. I put the reminder the school mailed to us along a picture of Kylie holding the Bolles bear that I took at the end of her visit in a separate 4x6 page protector. On the back of the picture, I inserted a journaling card where I jotted down these notes about her visit.

Kylie was nervous the morning she visited Bolles school but she was all smiles when I picked her up. She was tickled that they gave her this bear with a Bolles sweater. She liked feeling special when she was tested by one of the teachers. They tested her on listening and reading comprehension and some math. She switched classrooms and got to experience both kindergarten teachers. She did some journal writing on zoos and colored four “s” words in a four-square worksheet. And she made a penguin out of construction paper. There was another applicant, a girl named Leslie, attending today and she and Kylie got along. Kylie also recognized a girl named Katherine from Flavia’s aftercare who she saw on the playground. All in all, it was a good visit. Now we wait and see if Kylie has been accepted to the school for next year’s term.


The start of the week was fairly uneventful. Karen was consulting in Pittsburg and I was at home focusing on healing from my groin injury. I went to the chiropractor three times over the course of the week. We bought a twin mattress in anticipation of Grandpa’s visit and for future family stays. On Monday, Kylie had her Bolles School visit. Grandpa and Karen flew in on Thursday afternoon. We had Kylie’s school breakfast on Friday. On Saturday, we tried letterboxing and went to MOSH. On Sunday, we had a successful letterbox trip and went to the beach.

The children’s Father’s Day Breakfast was held in the classroom. Kylie gave Grandpa a footprint bookmark. She showed him around her classroom. He got to review her workbooks. And he got to see her work on sentence matching. I’m so glad Dad was here to enjoy this special day.


Page 2 documented our visit to the Museum of Science and History and our Letterbox adventure.

William Webb Farmhouse in Mandarin FL Sunday 1/13/13. The box was hidden off the backporch. There was supposed to be another box near the chicken coop but it was missing. There was a beautiful pier behind the home. It was a good letterboxing day!


Behind week two's pages, I included this simple page protector to hold 6 pictures of Kylie and Grandpa playing at the beach together.

So that's it for Weeks One and Two!

If you want to see other Project Life Projects, see

Ali Edwards blog

Big Picture Classes Gallery

Four more years

A lot can change in four years! Here we are at President Obama's first inauguration. This was taken in our Portland, Oregon home. Kylie was one year and nine months old.




And here we are today.




Here's to four more great years Mr. President!

One Little Word 2013- Manifesto

Image courtesy of Ali Edwards.

This will be my sixth year with the One Little Word project.

I first read about this from Ali Edwards blog. She encouraged me to pick a word that would be a guiding force for the year.

My first word, in 2008, was Create.
I loved that word. For that year, I was ALL about creating. I created new experiences for my baby Kylie. I created a lot of love with Karen. I created a loving home in Portland. I created tons of scrapbook pages. I created lots of knitted projects. It was a fantastic word that truly motivated me throughout the year.

My second word, in 2009, was Choose.
This was an interesting word for me. The thought behind it was that life with Kylie was so encompassing that all lot of other things were starting to slip. Like my health/fitness. Like our finances. Like anything that wasn't Elmo-related. It was easier to go about the day-to-day stuff and not think nor work on the bigger goals. So picking the word "choose" was like a light slap on my cheeks encouraging myself to wake up and start working on my life. I was partly successful. But my memory of the word "choose" was that it wasn't much fun.

My third word, in 2010, was Steer.
"Steer" was "choose" on steroids.
I did steer my family to our new home in FL. I did steer my but to the gym and steered my attention to our budget. But "steer" was heavy in responsibility. It was my least favorite word.

My fourth word, in 2011, was Triathlete.
For the entire year, I ran. I learned to bike. I learned to swim. The process was fear-filled yet exhilarating. And I fell in love with the training. I believe that in a non-competitive sense, I did become a triathlete.

My fifth word, in 2012, was Cultivate.
As Becky Higgins writes on her blog: Cultivate a good life and record it. I fell in love with this phrase. It was a great touchstone for me as I worked to create memorable moments throughout the year. I think I was most successful when I created our Summer Manifesto. I had so much fun posting that list on our fridge and ticking off the items.

So for 2013, I chose "Manifesto" as my One Little Word. The idea of the manifesto isn't so much a "to do" list to stress over but rather a list of things that are seasonal and important and fun. I plan to create a manifesto for Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Here is my Winter one:


You can read more about the One Little Word project here. And for inspiration, you can see Ali's list of words here.

If you've picked a word for the year, please share it with us!

Funny faces and family portraits

As a Christmas present for our families, we decided to have some pictures made. Kylie's teacher is an amateur photographer who is learning and trying to build her portfolio. She came out to the house and took some shots.

There were several family photos that we liked. And there were some photos that cracked us up.

Like this face:


And this one:


There were sweet photos too.


The whole set can be seen on Flickr here.

At some point, I'll update our blog header with some of these photos. But it is going to be hard to pick which ones to use. Feel free to vote on your favorites.

Happy New Year everyone!

Book List 2012

Happy New Year!

Here's my traditional "books read" list for 2012. 46 Books read and 11 audiobooks. There are a lot of good reads in this list but without a doubt, my favorite books were these 8 books by Louise Penny. Would love to know your favorite reads of 2012 or links to your book list in the comments.

Still Life, Fatal Grace, Cruelest Month, Rule Against Murder, Brutal Telling, Bury Your Dead, Trick of the Light, The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski
All Wound Up: The Yarn Harlot Writes for a Spin by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski
Tuesday Night Miracles by Kris Radish
Arranged by Catherine McKenzie
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Georgiana Darcy's Diary by Anna Elliott
Bowling Avenue by Anne Shayne
Serpent's Kiss by Melissa de la Cruz
Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene
To the Last Breath by Francis Slakey
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris
Charlotte Au Chocolat by Charlote Silver
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Fire by Kristin Cashore
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
City of Dragons by Robin Hobb
Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Cruise
The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Lone Wolf by Jodi Picolt
MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche
Touch of Power by Maria Snyder
The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stewart
Princess Elizabeth's Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal
A Test of Wills by Charles Todd
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Enchanting Lily by Anjali Banerjee
The Sisters Montclair by Cathy Holton
No Regrets Parenting by Harley A. Rotbart M.D.
Train Like a Mother: How to Get Across Any Finish Line-and Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity by Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell

Audiobooks:
Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb
Delusion in Death by J.D. Robb
The Rope-An Anna Pigeon Mystery by Nevada Barr
The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March
An Irish Country Wedding by Patrick Taylor
Gold by Chris Cleeve
The Racketeer by John Grisham
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
A Life Without Limits by Chrissie Wellington
Eat and Run by Scott Jurek
Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

Project Life Week 48

I was delighted to learn that Kylie's Aunt Amy and her girl cousins all publish pictures online with the Instagram app. I've started following them and they follow me. It's been fun to snap easy iPhone pictures and then tweak and upload them via Instagram where the family can see them and comment. So for this week's Project Life, I decided to tell this week's stories via the Instagram 4x4 size.


1. Multi-colored soap at the drive thru car wash.
2. LEAP! from Jack Russell park play structure.
3. Shake it baby! Kylie made bell bracelets (and anklets) from this month's Kiwi Crate. Then we had a dance party.
4. Kylie writing in her nature journal in our backyard.
5. Dice math on green tray at school drop off.
6. Frozen peas on sore knees and feet from hard run.
7. I've started braiding Kylie's bangs away from her face.


Joy is finding a balloon at the park. Unhappiness (picture 3) is when the balloon pops.

I love these friends holding hands that Kylie made at home.

Kylie often repeats her school reading homework. This week, she decided to read "Dick and Jane" out loud to me for fun and extra homework.

Kylie was so tickled when Phoebe sat on her for the first time. Phoebe was drawn to the toasty warm girl inside her sleeping bag laying on the couch.

On Thursday, November 29th, Kylie did all the rungs of the monkey bars by herself for the first time. Way to go Kylie!


Kylie finished her "red book" this week. She was the third kindergardener to finish in her class.

I love taking pictures of Kylie near the Magical Manatee statue.

Karen was consulting in PA this week. She took some nice Instagram pictures of her travels.

Karen brought Kylie some crocs and some other "trip gifts".

I love this picture Kylie took of our family hug. I love how we are all making the "mmmm" sound together, even Phoebe the cat.

Temperatures have been in the 50's. Cool enough for long sleeves and pants.

We got to meet our neighbor Lily and Sarah's newly adopted cat named Linus.

And that takes care of the month of November! Whew! Thanks for looking.