How Many?

In our family, we do a lot of travel by car. My husband and I are also map geeks who like to tally how many states we have visited, with a bit of friendly competition thrown in for good measure. I am proud of the fact that at 5 and 3, our sons have each visited 26 states, and I love the fact that they are learning to be excited about visiting a new state and finding them on maps.

This layout has long been on my list to create. Hopefully we'll have at least one more to add this summer. (And I now realize I need to add the "as of" date to this page. Back to Photoshop!)

Paper: Katie Pertiet's Color Challenge 4-25-10 Paper Pack at DesignerDigitals.com; Fonts: Impact and American Typewriter

An Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day Print

After seeing so many fun holiday printables on the web (and printing and using them to decorate for the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day), I decided to try them out myself. So here's my first attempt, in honor of celebrating our Irish heritage. You can see the 5x7 print here, and are welcome to print and enjoy it for yourself.

St. Patrick's Day stirs up plenty of happy memories of times spent with my great-grandparents, and especially St. Patrick's Day dinners with them, in their house that was painted a light green, inside and out. My Great Nanny Sue and I were cozy companions, side by side at her big green kitchen table sipping tea.

Here's to soda bread, leprechauns and the wearing of plenty of green next week!

A Weekend Captured in Photos

As I played with the Instagram app over the weekend, a page started forming in my mind, something like this collage page from Ali Edwards that I had marked in my Tumblr site last week.

The square Instagram photos lend themselves to a grid layout easily, and the filtered effect ties them all together. I wanted to keep everything else very simple, but did find the gray flourishes in a free kit I downloaded from Persnickety Prints over the weekend.

I really like having a whole weekend summarized like this in a series of photos on a page. It's my tiny take on projects like a Photo a Day for a Year. I know I could never keep up with recording a year, but I like to have little random samples sprinkled into my albums.

Quotes Were Flying Tonight!

Tonight the boys were full of funny comments. From the time I picked up Robby, to our conversation once we picked up Joey about U.S. presidents, and all through dinner, they were unwittingly popping out  one-liners. I had to jot them down as soon as we got home.

R: I'm planning a surprise party for you. I'm going to invite your whole family and my whole family. (I find it interesting to think that my family and his family are different.)

J: We are getting smarter than you because we go to school and you go to work.

R: I prayed for you at school today Mommy because you gave me a haircut.

J: I prayed for you at school today too because... I like your hutch. (Interesting reason.)

R: Some day I will be the mayor and rule the whole city!

Coincidentally, on this day of prolific quotable quotes from the boys, Cathy Zielske had a post on her blog all about capturing quotes. I had read it earlier, and I'm sure that helped me be more in tune to their comments, so it may not entirely be a coincidence. But these are the kinds of quotes I so often want to capture. I think they are a sort of slice of life in miniature -- tiny little snippets of the boys' personalities and ponderings. I love the mini album Cathy shares in her post, and after tonight, I think I need to work on one of those myself.

Anticipating Spring

After all the snow days, gray skies, chilling winds and rain, this weekend we had two lovely days here in Connecticut. It was the kind of February weekend that reminds you that spring will eventually make its arrival, though there's no guarantee that its arrival won't be delayed by another snow day or two. Saturday morning we took advantage of the sunshine to let the boys ride their bikes at the beach. I took the opportunity to play with the Instagram app on my new iPhone.

When Sunday turned out to be equally sunny and even warmer, we headed to the beach again at the end of the day. This time we walked down to the water's edge so the boys could throw shells in. This didn't last long though, since my littlest one can't be near water without getting himself into it. It took him less than five minutes to walk right in, getting his shoes, socks and the bottom of his pants wet. I guess he may be anticipating spring with even a little more excitement.