We are excited. Very Excited! Not because having kids put our lives on hold, they didn't. We really loved watching them grow and don't feel like we missed out on a single thing in life bc we had kids. On the contrary, they made our lives incredibly fun and interesting. They still do. We get to vacation in 3 different states due to them:) We're excited because we get to experience being a couple during a time in our lives where we are stable, happy and relatively free of the stress that comes from growing up. Buying houses, paying for college, building savings, building careers, that kind of stuff. We have more time and we appreciate each other so much more than we did when we were in our 20's. The communication thing has gotten much better. You get mad so quick when your 25 teehee.
Anyway, my point. Life will not be over for us. We don't miss having our kids living with us. gasp shock judge. Every kid eventually has to find their own space. Create their own life. Walk their own path. Our kids are doing a fantastic job and we are happy to see them thriving in their own homes. We visit. They visit. We are still a happy family. I still document their lives through my pages. Our family did not go away bc our kids left home. It has changed, certainly, but not for the worse. It is great to be able to talk to them as adults because now I can be their friend. When they were growing up, no. Just no. I feel much closer to them now because we can really talk without the pressure of responsibility (me for ensuring what they are doing is responsible and them for censoring what they tell me in case I don't find it acceptable). This is a layout of me and my daughter in NYC. The photos are awful, which illustrates what I am talking about bc they were taken on her iPhone when we visited her and she texted them to me. It makes me smile whenever I look at it though.....
Just like our daily lives have changed, how I document has changed as well. I am no longer able to take photos of them all the time. I rely on facebook (still getting used to instagram and have been forbidden to clog up my girls account whatever that means), emails and texts to get the photos that I need for my pages. We still get the big event photos as hubby and I make it a priority to celebrate their milestones with them but the everyday stuff is not so easy to come by. For my June calendar page I plan to use the family photo that we took in 2012 and individual photos of each of us this year to create a compare & contrast story for this month.
June marks the halfway point and it is very exciting to be closing in on done. My album has not gotten too fat so I count that as a big success. My original plan is still working out well for me too. The pages are cohesive and will make sense when they are in an album together. A few of the supplies that I plan on using.......
June's title will be something like "My How We've Changed" instead of summer or June. I decided to not use a month or season in order to shake things up. This will eventually be an album page and the month is on the actual calendar so no need to have it on the layout too. I'll have to alternately title a few more pages to keep this from looking like a lame duck but that's fine. Other than the title, I stuck to the recipe. It is still making me happy and making it easy for me to get the pages done. Normally at this point, I would have shoved the album in a to be completed drawer but this one has a good chance of becoming finished.
In fact, here is the January page with a photo..........
I plan to use pictures of all of us in this album but since we don't all live together anymore and we don't see the kids every month I've had to include more photo mats. Using individual photos taken in different places could be a challenge but the alternative is leaving our older children out of the family calendar and that is not an option for me. By changing the photos to sepia, black and white or even a sketch the colors should become less of a focal point. I could even use paper that has a lot of different colors (hello floral that I could not let go of) with black, kraft or white mats to keep the photos front and center. I am also sure that my kids would be game for me making a photo request:) if it comes to that.
Whew! Sorry for the long post. I guess that's what happens when you take years off your blog. You get all wordy lol. So tell me about how your photo taking, documenting habits have changed as your family has grown. Do you feel that your layouts reflect the flow of your life? Do you have a plan that you plan to stick to forever, no matter what? I would love to hear your thoughts........
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!
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