30 @ 3–Week 1 Photos

Remember, you can find the 30 @ 3 Lists by clicking that link.

I’m actually on week 3 starting today, but am just now moving it to the blog. Each Monday I’ll post the next week’s photos. So, here are week one’s photos!

(1. New Cup  2. Drawing  3. Crazy Hair  4. On One Foot.  5. Favorite Color – They are all out of order so that I could fit them together the best way possible for the image.)

Tomorrow I’ll post some pictures from this weekend. It was a busy one for us. John and the big three had camping with Cub Scouts. Ryan had a soccer game – and we actually got some pictures worth sharing this time. Plus, there was the cuteness of Mason discovering grass.

Hey read this too!On August 27th I posted a giveaway for a template set, unfortunately there were less than a handful of people to enter. I would really like it if more people entered, so I’m going to put myself out there again. (Because it’s kind of a blow to the self esteem when no one wants to enter. lol) I’m going to re-open the entries for the template set, making the new deadline September 21st. If no one else enters I will just give all who did enter the set. I’m updating that post with the new entry deadline, so please keep your entries on that post, not this one.

Sunday Scrapbooking

I’ve been on a roll this week! FIVE pages done for releases Saturday, plus I’m still working on one that I got a little late.

New this week from Jenn Barrette and Laura Banasiak, and a new-to-Sweet Shoppe from her also



(Hey! That one is rocking my Wordless Wednesday photo!)

Traci Reed had a new solo kit come out and a new collaboration with Mari Koegelenberg


(Oh! That template is one of mine in the giveaway…)

Julie Billingsley had a collab with Meghan Mullens, and Krystal Hartley has a new gorgeous kit.


(…vintage Zach…)

Almost.

John and I spent the night not getting much sleep.

(Mason napping this morning)
Yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot of that going on.

I almost wished that we had a handy little can of formula sitting around the kitchen. Almost. What would have been better would have been to actually have some milk in the freezer. I really need to get back to pumping…. but I digress.

This wasn’t Mason’s normal, “Hey! I’m awake and I want to talk all night!” awake. This was crying, wanting to be held as close as possible, and nursing all.night.long crying. I offered to take him into the living room so that John could sleep, but he said no, it was OK. I told him that he could go sleep in the living room then, and again, he said no. You just got to love a man willing to suffer through nights like that with you willingly.

We sort of took turns. I mean, there’s not too much John can take over and help with in this situation. (Thus the dreams of handy cans of formula.) However, he did take Mason for an hour at one point so I did get some sleep then. At about six when John got up to get the big boys up and ready for school I just plopped Mason in his pack-n-play, tuned out, and went to sleep for another hour and a half until Bella woke up. John swears Mason didn’t cry. I’m choosing to not question that and just believe him.

I got up this morning thinking, well, it’s almost been six months, maybe I should go ahead and start solids. Maybe I should take this as a sign that nursing isn’t enough anymore. But then one of my friends commented on my Facebook status and pointed out something I didn’t even consider. GROWTH SPURT. It is about time for another one. Plus teething. (Will my child’s toofies ever actually pop through his gums????)

Anyway this will pass. Eventually. Hopefully. It might seem like it won’t, but it should will.
It’s hard being optimistic on 2.5 hours of sleep.

Proof that it will pass…

30 @ 3 - What it is.

I’m doing this photo prompt challenge with a group of my friends who all have children that were born at about the same time as Bella. I started it a little while ago, but couldn’t figure a way to incorporate the pictures into blog posts without them seeming, well, random. I decided, why not just bring the challenge over here too? Here is the information I gave my friends:

Starting next week I'll be posting weekly topics with 5 photo prompts for you to take of your 3 year old. (Hey, camera phones are perfectly acceptable.) You don't have to do them daily, or in the order listed. They are pretty general, and most are things they do on their own without prompting. 

I don't want this to be a stress thing, just a fun way to get some more pictures of our kiddos. The pictures don't have to be perfect. Think of it as a way to capture their quirks at this age.

 

I’ll post my first week of pictures Monday. Feel free to join in and snag the list! And your kiddo doesn't have to be three for you to join in. He/she can be any age.

Oh and for my scrapbooking friends, make sure that you go by and check out Traci Reed's blog for the September freebie from the Hawt Mamas. It might just be a set of nine templates, and I might just have made one of them.

Wordless Wednesday - Picture Editing

Straight from the camera:

After some tweaking in Lightroom:

And a little more tweaking in Photoshop:

Finish it up in Lightroom with a black and white conversion.

(link up here, here, here, here, here, and here)

This month so far + September Template

What I’ve yet to blog about so far this month.

Labor Day at my Aunt’s house. The majority of my dad’s family met Mason for the first time. Mason was pretty fascinated by my dad’s tattoos.

Ryan started playing soccer, and has had his first game. His team won 7-2. Unfortunately for his team Ryan was goalie when the other team scored the 2 points and John said Ryan was totally off in La La Land when they happened.

And in other Ryan news….

Apparently my boy has a little girlfriend… or maybe a stalker….

Bella has been sick a good majority of the month. Between allergies and a stomach bug it’s been a long few days for her.

And to round the past ten days off…

Zach has been invited to join some smart kids program thing at his school!!

Lastly, what you’ve been waiting for, September’s free template!

--->DOWNLOAD HERE<---

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the five template giveaway… well… only 4 people responded. If a few more would like to enter that’d be great, if not, well, I dunno. lol

I am a Christian. A Sunday post.

I am a Christian, but I am in no way perfect or better than you.

My story isn’t all that dramatic.
I never killed or mortally injured anyone.
I never beat up an old lady or robbed one for drug money.
I never sold my body for money.
I never sold drugs either.

I didn’t grow up without church or not knowing about Jesus or God. I did. Even when my parents didn’t bother to go to church my brother and I went with our grandparents. I knew all the stories, all the rules. I knew the hypocrites. The people who you went to Sunday School with who were convinced they were better than you because you were poor and they were rich little private Christian school kids. I let them make me think I wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t want to be them. I didn’t want to be snobby. I didn’t want to exclude and hate other people.
I wanted to be a good person.

Somewhere along the way I completely gave up on it.
Somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to do what I wanted to do.
Consequences, pardon me a moment, be damned.

I did drugs.
I got drunk.
I had sex.
I lied – a lot.
All of that before I turned 17.

I ended up with an almost one year old and pregnant with my second when I graduated high school.

I’m not saying Christians don’t do all of that also. Some do. Some just say they are Christians when really, they aren’t. Some are Christians who know they need help and they are trying. Remember being a Christian doesn’t make you perfect. Being a Christian means that you know that you need help. That you can’t do everything on your own. It means knowing that you are flawed. It means knowing that you are a sinner and that you can never not be a sinner. You can try. You can pray, you can beg God to make you perfect, but you know you will never be perfect. You will never be good enough on your own to make it into Heaven.

There I was, 18 and pregnant with my second child. I was terrified – more so than I was the first time. Because I had been trying to make my life better. I had a son now who needed me to be the best mom he could have. The moment I found out I was pregnant I stopped drinking and doing drugs. I tried not to lie. I tried to be a better person. Obviously I didn’t stop having sex… seeing as how I was pregnant again and all.

Getting pregnant with Zach at 16 was hard on my family. It wasn’t what any of them wanted for me, but we all pulled through. I had one huge wonderful support system with them. It had happened, and we were all determined to make the best of it. And now I was pregnant again. How totally could I possibly mess up my life? How much could I disappoint everyone who loved and cared about me? I didn’t even deserve their help or support this time. This time it was all on me.

I was sitting in church with my family one Sunday morning, my mom and step-dad had finally managed to get me back to going. The whole time I was sitting there with a sick ball of dread in my stomach. I was pregnant, again, and I had to tell them. I was so scared of what they would say, how they would react. Surely this would be the announcement that would make them not love me anymore. That would make them look at my in disappointment and write me off as a lost cause. Had they ever done anything to make me suspect they would feel that way? No, but my logical self was absent those weeks. Eventually I tuned in somewhat to the sermon. It was about forgiveness. Something about how if this horrible guy in the Bible can be forgiven and changed we all can. That there is not anything that we can do that God will not forgive us of if we only ask him to. I was pregnant, hormonal, and bawling like a baby. I wanted someone to forgive me of all the stupid stuff I did. I wanted to tell someone that I had messed up again, gotten pregnant again, but that it was OK, they’d be there for me.

You could say that was my ah ha moment.

I’m still not perfect. I still screw up a lot. I still have moments of weakness. Of selfishness. The difference now is that I know that it’s OK not to be perfect, that I can never be perfect, and that God loves me for that. That is what makes me want to try to be the best I can now. Not just for my children, but because I know that I have this wonderful precious gift that I can never deserve or earn, never, but I can try.