December Daily 2012

For the last three years, I have attempted to do a December Daily.  The first year, I was successful and I completed it.  The next two?  Well... let's just say there are two piles of red and green items still waiting for me in my craft room!  Terrible!

As we know, this year I attempted Project Life.  I did a great job the first half of the year, but then summer hit, pregnancy got the best of me, I had a baby, and it was abandoned.  I still sorted my photos into weekly folders in hope I could catch up, but it seemed such a daunting task it never happened.  I suck at this.

However, it's now December, and I'm faced with the question of whether to attempt the December Daily again or not.  Part of me says no - I have two years of unfinished dailies to do.  Part of me says it's the baby's first year here and it would be nice to document it.

So, my compromise is to pick up Project Life again and just do December.  If I can manage to go back and catch up on those lost months later, great.  Right now?  I'm going to give myself permission to not worry about it.  

What started out as something as simple as printing resized photos and adding typed journaling cards spiraled into detailed digital scrapping for each card that took way more time than I was able to devote.  It's time for back to basics, and that means I needed some fresh journaling cards.

That begs the question - what fun is making new journaling cards if I can't share them?

So, my gift to you this year for being a fan of my blog and liking my page on Facebook is this brand spanking new set of six printable journaling cards, perfect for a December Daily.  Just click on that link, "Like" the page if you have not yet done so, and get them for yourself!  Yes, I know the colors are Christmas themed, since that is what my family and I celebrate and therefore what I would use.  Unfortunately, like I mentioned before, I just don't have the time or energy to make Hannukah or non-denominational sets with a new baby in the house.  Primarily I make these for myself, and then share them.

Enjoy and Happy December!

Paper!

I've been making stuff lately, because let's face it, it keeps me busy and happy. Those are two things I sure could use lately! I made a few more of those blank December Daily albums to sell on Etsy, because who couldn't also use the money?

I love to make little books, but obviously I don't have enough time or material with which to fill them. This makes these a perfect endeavor for me.

I ended up making six total, and sold all six pretty quickly. I'm going to make a few more to list this week - one for a friend, one in blues and whites for someone who may want to get in on the December Daily fun but who may not necessarily celebrate Christmas (or like Christmas colors), and of course, one for myself.

They all had the different sized inner papers and lots of little envelopes and detailed edges to keep them fun. All were held together by large book rings and the covers were patterned cardstock over chipboard.

And, of course, a TON of ribbon on the spines. I was able to clear so much out of my stash! The only things I didn't add were numbers to the pages. I wanted the recipient to have the option of rearranging the pages to suit their needs, and also to be able to add the date where it worked instead of having to work with where I had placed it, if that makes sense.

This one had a red one just like it, but I sold it before I took a proper photo. It was exactly the same, only with a solid red cover.

I also spent some time playing in Photoshop and pretending to be a graphic designer, haha! I made a bunch of different things that could be added to a December Daily as page embellishments.

The very first thing I made was a set of numbers with a musical note background. I sized them so that you could punch them out with a Fiskars 2 inch round punch. Clever, huh?

Then I made these Christmas themed flash cards. These are actually a Microsoft Word document and then I cut them down to the 3" x 5" size after printing them on off white cardstock. I think they'll be perfect for journaling or backing with a photo.

I made two sets of lined journaling spots. The first set is for my friend who will be receiving one of the albums I'll be making this week. She's Jewish, so these will be perfect for her book.

The second set I left without any icons on the top, so that I could either add one later as I needed it or even just use a small rubber stamp to place one on the page. For these in the photo, I used a dingbat font to add the icons in Photoshop.

These are little journaling spots. There are over 20 to a page, and you punch them out with the 2" Fiskars circle punch.

I decided to make a fancier batch of page numbers for the December Daily albums. These took a LONG time because each one is unique. I saw some like this somewhere, I forget where, and decided to make my own. I think they turned out cute!

I'm trying to decide if I should list the pdfs/word documents on Etsy or not. I wouldn't print them out myself because that's just a lot of ink! However, if I listed just the file, I could email it to the recipient and they could print as many as they needed. Is that a good idea? What would one even charge for something like that? I have the music note numbers, the Christmas themed numbers, the Christmas flash cards, a mini version of the Christmas flashcards, the note circles, the lined journaling blocks, and the Hanukkah journaling blocks. I also have a set of circles that say "Don't Peek!" (would be great on packages) and some cute mini calendars for scrapbook pages.

I'd love feedback on this.

A few days ago, I came across Heather Nichol's blog, and I instantly fell in love with her style. She does a lot of stamping. I dabble in stamping, but I tend to think that a lot of stamped stuff looks... stamped. I know that sounds stupid, but bear with me. Her stuff is PRETTY. It's sophisticated. It made me want to go run to my scrap table and pull out my inks and punches. You're gonna die when you see her cute Christmas tags!

I made these cute mini cards today based on the design for some she had posted on her blog. First though, I had to reink half of my stamp pads because they were dry as a bone. I guess sitting unused for a couple of years (literally - for shame!) will do that! Thankfully I had the foresight to buy the reinkers with a lot of my full sized ones and was able to do so, or else I'd have been totally SOL.

Also, white Staz-On ink? Yeah, it "Staz-ON" waaaaaay better than the black. Not even their own branded stamp cleaner will get that stuff off my stamps, and it's always worked just fine in the past. I just told my OCD self to be like Tim and Jennifer and love the dirty stamps.

I'm not going to lie. It's hard.

Since I probably won't post again before Thanksgiving (but you never know) I'll put this up here too. I did handprint turkeys with the baby. So cute! I painted his little hand brown with plain old acrylic paint and stamped it on white cardstock. They actually came out really well considering he was more interested in squashing the paint in between his fingers than making handprints! All those years as an elementary school aide paid off. :)

Anywho... After the handprints dried I would give him a few feathers and let him place them on the turkey. Anywhere he placed a feather I would pick it up and put a little glue there so I could glue it back down again. In this way, he got to place them, but he didn't get to mess with the glue. After they were dry I went back with some markers and a pen to add the details. Then the cardstock got cropped down, punched across the bottom with a Fiskars Apron Lace punch (the latest addition to my little family of punches) and embellished with a bit of ribbon before getting added to a card. One of these will definitely be going into his scrapbook!

I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!

It's that time of year again...

It's been almost a week since I blogged last. Things have been busy around here! For instance, I worked on a new cookie recipe to post here. I have the photos of everything except the finished product! I need to remember to take a picture before we eat all of them. This recipe contains a whole pound of chocolate! Also, the last couple of days have been spent making a couple of these:

It's this year's December Daily! You can click here to see my posts about last year's album, and here to read what it's all about.

Just as I did last year, I made two at once. It only takes a little bit longer to make two identical pages than it does to make one, so I make the albums in matching sets but sell them individually. They do all get unique covers though. The one in the photo above is for my friend Sam. The second one will be my own book for this year. It still needs the cover to be done.

Here are a few of the interior pages:

Hooray for saving cute Starbucks gift card holders! I knew they'd come in handy one day!

As you can see, they're just empty skeletons waiting to be filled with all of our activities for the month of December! I'm anticipating an extra busy month. Why you ask? I'll give you a hint:

That's right folks - we're MOVING! We signed a lease this week on a house. This means that we'll have a yard and a garage! Bubba will also finally have a room of his own. We're all super excited. Check it out:

It's going to look so cute decorated come Christmas. I hope my husband is excited about climbing a ladder! (note to self - find someone with a ladder we can borrow...)

We actually were going to sign a lease on a different house in Mesa. It had a bigger yard, but the house, and especially the kitchen, was a lot smaller. Also, it only had one bathroom and no washer or dryer. A friend called me about this one the afternoon before, and we went to look at it that night. It's in a better location for us as it's closer to where my husband works than the other house, and it's closer to our friends. The street it's on ends in a cul de sac and there's a cute little park in walking distance with a playground - you know, for if we get bored in our own back yard.

We move in TWO WEEKS and I packed my first box tonight. There is going to be some major cleaning and purging around here in the next few days, I can tell you that. That's part of why I made my December Daily so early. There's no way I'd be able to work on them right after moving and I learned last year that it really is important to have your framework for the album done BEFORE the month starts. I don't want to end up working on it in MARCH again like I did for last December's book. Unfortunately, this means I won't be able to make extras to sell like I did last year, which is a total bummer.

I think I'll live though. Did I mention my scraproom will be bigger in the new house AND I'll get to have a garden and a clothesline? WHEEE!!!

December Daily

Every year, Ali Edwards makes what she calls a "December Daily" album and posts it on her blog. It consists of some sort of small, handmade scrapbook made from varying materials and different sized pages for visual interest. She uses it to document her family's everyday life during the month of December, including holiday traditions, family gatherings, and the everyday bits and pieces that she doesn't want to forget as the years pass.

I've thought about doing this before, but we never really did a lot for Christmas. Last year was the baby's first Christmas, and I thought it would be a fun thing to do then, but he was a month and a half old at the time. I just didn't have it in me to get the stuff together to make a card, let alone a whole album!

I know that I am not the only one who feels that way. I'm sure that a lot of people would love to do this, but simply don't have the time or the skill to create the book for themselves. Therefore, I present to you my December Journal.

The album is handmade from chipboard, patterned paper, and fabric bookbinding tape. It's held together by two 2 inch book rings, embellished with a metal bookplate on the cover and has lots of ribbon on the spine. It measures 8 inches by 8 inches.

The pages inside are of varying sizes and materials. There are plenty of little pockets for tucking various odds and ends that you don't want to get lost. There are 25 pages total, including one that is a blank calendar. Front and back, that's 50 pages, which means there are enough to do a few two-page spreads for those extra busy days. All that is left to do is add photos and journaling, which will only take a few minutes at the end of the day.

Pretty cool huh? Okay, so here's the best part - this album isn't for me. I made it to place in my Etsy shop. Even better?

There are two!

The only difference between the two are the patterned paper covers and some of the pages got flipped on the inside. Otherwise, same number of pages, same papers, same pockets and envelopes, etc.

The link to my Etsy shop, if you're interested, is on my right sidebar. I'm planning on making a couple more of these to list since a) they're really fun to make and b) Christmas is coming up here quickly and I could use a little extra money to buy gifts/giftmaking supplies!

Enjoy and thanks as always for looking!

Stuck.

You see this?

THAT, my friends, is my December Daily. The one that I was making for myself.

Yes, you would be correct if you reminded me (gently!) that it's already halfway through February. You would also be correct if you noticed that it seemed a bit... incomplete. You wouldn't be out of line if you wondered WHY it was in such a sad state, this far into the new year.

I can tell you the answer to that. It's because I suck, that's why.

This is where the "imperfect" part of Splendidly Imperfect comes in. This would be a "keeping it real" post! After all the whirlwind of Christmas and all of the December crafting frenzy, I just needed a break. I told myself that I was just going to take January off and not do ANYTHING. Obviously, if you've been with me for any length of time, you know that I don't really seem to be capable of doing that. I ended up embroidering dishtowels and knitting dishrags. I just need a creative outlet, I guess.

This book is almost done. Some pages need numbers still, some need journaling, and I need to print the photo for the 31st. Oh, and it needs a cover. So why have I not just buckled down and gotten the dang thing done?

Because I don't want to, is the easy answer. I keep thinking of all these fun projects I want to do. I want to make cloth napkins! I want to make that old dress I got at Goodwill into a skirt! I want to make a St. Patrick's Day bunting for my living room mirror! I want to get started on scrapbooking the baby's first year! I want to embroider more dishcloths! I want to make the baby an art smock so we can try fingerpainting! I want to make myself a new apron for fun!

Then there is the stuff that I NEED to do. I need to finish my sister/future brother in law's quilt. I need to make a gratitude album for my mother in law. I need to bake my neighbor the banana bread I promised her weeks ago. I need to make my sister in law's bridal bouquet. I need to get back into baking bread for us to have here in the house.

But I haven't done any of those things, because I told myself that I wouldn't start new project until I finished my old ones. Right now, that happens to be the December Daily album. There's a reason Ali Edwards tells you to premake all your pages - if you don't you end up spending way too much time thinking about them instead of just documenting your story and getting it done. I was a dope and was making them as I went along, then totally got behind as crunch time hit around Christmas.

There are only a couple hours of work left in this so it's totally stupid that it's not done and that it's keeping me from moving on to stuff I want to do. I guess I'm just uninspired and that's making me avoid it. Instead I've been reading blogs. I'll find an interesting one and read it ALL the way back to the beginning. I just keep it open in a tab and refer back to it here and there. So, if you have analytics and you're wondering who this freak is who has been camped out on your site for a week, um, Hello!

I'm starting to find that not doing the creative stuff is starting to affect me in other ways too. I've totally slowed down on my dishcloths. Where I was doing one a night now it's taking me a WEEK to finish one. I haven't been doing my chores as effectively. I'm cooking less. I'm just not motivated in general and I think this has a lot to do with it.

Therefore, I am stating here that I WILL finish that dang album by the end of the week. Then, I will make the book for my mother in law, and my sister in law's bouquet so I can get that in the mail. Hopefully those will happen next week. After that, my reward for finally getting those tasks out of the way will be that I get to make my napkins.

Hooray for that. :)

December Daily 2013

This is happening, folks.  OH YEAH.

Last year I skipped making one, because with a five month old I knew it would just make me crazy, and ultimately, I'd end up feeling like a failure when I couldn't keep up. This year she's more independent so HOPEFULLY I can keep up.  I mean, it's not like I have a great track record of finishing these before March anyway. I'll just do what I can and see how it goes.  Now that I'm doing Project Life and have a good system in place it should be a bit easier to keep track of things in case I fall behind.

Instead of making my own album cover this year, I went with a Sn@p by Simple Stories album. I'm alternating a full paper page with a pocket sleeve page.  This is my first time using the pocket sleeves, and I'm only using them because they came with the album.  I also found a package of the 3" x 4" refill pages on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  It's weird because they still sell them, but hey, I'm not complaining!

I sprayed a paper doily with photo mount and stuck it to the cover. The letters in "daily" are Basic Grey chipboard Mini Mono alphas covered in gold Stickles. I put a strip of washi tape (Recollections by Michael's) along the cloth edge and butted a Martha Stewart label against it. The letters in "December" are Recollections by Michael's glitter letter stickers.  I think those are my very favorite letter stickers! The wood veneer snowflake is Paperchase and I found it at Target in the Christmas gift wrap aisle. It has a bit of metallic gold and white baker's twine tied through the top loop. I used gold Recollections by Michael's glitter letter stickers for the date on the spine and accented them with a teeny wood veneer tree.  The tree is by Studio Calico.

I decided to use red, green, kraft, white, aqua, and gold as my colors this year. I usually go for silver, but I decided to change it up this year.  Based on what I'm seeing on Instagram, a lot of people are doing gold accents too!  I also bought some wood veneers, which are pretty new to me.

I was going to buy pre-made filler cards for it, but you know what?  That's dumb.  I have Photoshop, a full pack of photo paper and a printer. No need for spending those dolla dolla bills, y'all!

Isn't it cute?  I usually get my PL cards printed as photos at Costco, but I know that if I want to keep up with this I'm going to have to print at home.  That's fine with me; that's how I've done my DD in the past too.

I made a set of six 3" x 4" filler cards, and along with the ones I made last year, printed them on photo paper.  They came out great! I added a dab of red Stickles to the reindeer card as an accent.

The usual rules apply here - I make these cards for my own personal use. However, since I've put so much time into them, I figure other people may as well enjoy them too, right? If you are a fan of my Facebook page (found here) you can scoop these up for yourself. All I ask is that you keep them for your own personal use only. No reselling or refashioning into something else to sell. Also, if you want to Pin them to Pinterest (which I would LOVE and I think would make you AWESOME) please pin them from this page, and not directly from the hosting site. Since they are a thank you for your traffic, it's pretty crappy to give access to them to people who don't stop by. That's it!

Download them, print as many as you like and leave me a link if you post what you've made online somewhere. I love seeing what people do with my cards. :)

Christmas in May

You can tell if I've been crafting because when I do, my craft room is clean.  I'm really good about working in a neat area and cleaning up after each project.  However, an extremely messy room is a good indicator that I have not been doing anything creative.  The space ends up being a total dumping ground for junk and things I want to get around to doing when I have time (HA!) and it's just terrible.  Based on my lack of posting this year so far, I'm betting you can guess what sort of state my craft room has been in.

Last Sunday, I told my husband I wanted to take a "personal day."  I went into my disaster of a craft room that hadn't seen any love in literally months, and I got to cleaning.  One giant bag full of trash, four bags of miscellaneous crafting supplies given away via my local Freecycle, a bag of paper and stickers to my neighbor's daughter, two boxes of stuff for the Goodwill, and a week later, my room is finally clean.

I did the bulk of the work on Sunday, cleaning and reorganizing for about seven or eight hours.  I did the final small tasks during the past week, a few minutes here and a few minutes there. It was a long process, but one that sorely needed to be done because my storage was bursting at the seams!  

It feels so good to have so much gone!  Gone are the remnants of yarn and cheapie skeins that I didn't really love and for which I had no plans.  They were given to a woman who makes hats for preemies in the hospital.  Gone are all the fabric scraps that were too small for any sort of cohesive project.  Gone are the cards I made literally a decade ago but never used.  Gone are the supplies I've had nearly as long that I haven't touched in years to two different ladies who are just starting out with scrapbooking.  Gone is the pile of brass embossing stencils that I had never, ever used.  Gone are the half finished projects that I know I'm just never going to get around to finishing.

There was, however, one half finished project that I knew I wanted to tackle:  My December Daily album... from December 2011!!!  Isn't that terrible?  It has sat on the corner of my work table for almost a year and a half; just this huge pile of patterned paper, stickers, and photos waiting patiently for me to get to them.  Well, since my room is cleaned I figured, why not today?  I sat down and worked all night until finally, FINALLY!!!  It was done.  

It's not as fancy as some, or in a great album, or anything like that.  It's very "me" though, and it's DONE.  That's good enough for this girl!

Rather than photograph the pages individually, like I've done for other projects, I decided to make a video like I did for the Gratitude Album that I made a few years back.  Pardon the shakiness - I broke my little tripod and haven't gotten around to getting another one yet.

I'm thinking I may do a room tour video if time and my little people permit.  Just something to show how my room is set up and what I do for storage of certain items.  I've been watching those on YouTube and I love getting to peek into other people's spaces!  In all honesty, those videos are what inspired me to get up off my butt and clean my room, so thank you to everyone who posts those!  I love them!

November 2009 Twelve of Twelve

I forgot to do this last month, but luckily, since I've been using my iPhone as a white noise machine it's next to my bed in the morning. That means I can check Facebook first thing (bad) and see reminders before I get up and it's too late to do this when I remember!

I woke up to the lovely sensation of something warm spreading across my back. Bubba tends to wake up at about 7 in the morning, and then I put him in bed with me because he'll usually go back to sleep there. This means I get about another 2-3 hours of sleep most days, which is lovely. This morning he woke up before I did and managed to undo the velcro on his diaper before crawling over to where I was. I was sleeping on my side, and he kneeled against me while trying to peek over at the dog who was sleeping on the floor. This meant his naked front was pressed against my back, and well, I guess nature called!

Luckily, my husband was telecommuting that day so that allowed me to be able to get the mess cleaned up and myself in the shower right away!

It's never too early to start good dental hygiene! (gotta love the bedhead)

I tried parting my hair in the middle. Not sure I like it. I also put on lipstick, which is something I rarely do.

I needed some more adhesive, so I drove out to the scrapbook store. Of course, they were out! I did look through the paper though. It's so frustrating to see so many pretty choices and not be able to buy them! Oh, and for those of you who aren't local - this is only a FRACTION of what they have there. MMMM paper room!

We swung by Michael's because I needed some candy boxes. I made cake balls (cake pops minus the stick) the day before and I needed something in which to place them for giving. They had this huge bin of ribbon outside but I was good and resisted the urge to look.

Bubba's socks. I love these and will be so sad when he outgrows them. They're from Gymboree, and we bought them when I was still pregnant.

We had marriage prep that evening. These are our facilitators. I'm actually not sure what their official title is, but I like to take them food, hee hee! They got a box of cake balls.

Afterwards we made a stop at Hobby Lobby to look for the elusive adhesive. No luck. That baby was out cold! He totally wore himself out crawling around the room and cruising around the tables while we were at church. He even took a few steps there. He's officially started walking, but we haven't been able to get any video because he gets too excited when he sees the camera and falls!

I sold a couple of my December Daily albums (I still have two left in my Etsy shop! Go look!) including one to my friend Cicely. We stopped and dropped it off on the way to marriage prep and I took her some cake balls too. I did take a photo of her with the baby that I intended to use in this post, but she was leaning into the car and I realized after the fact that I had managed to take a photo down her top. It wouldn't be very nice to post a pic of her girls on the internet, so that's why it's not here.

Anyway, I decided that we needed a treat and since I had the cash from her album in my wallet, I got my husband and myself our first red cups of the season from Starbucks. This was our first time there in two months. How's that for cutting back?

I got to work on some pages for my December Dailies when we got home from our outing. I love paper!

Bubba helped. He's taken to standing on this stool next to my table and keeping me company while I work. He'll usually stand there and play contentedly with paper scraps and some of the "safer" tools like the bone folder or Empressor for about 15 minutes before he gets bored.

I needed a bit of a break, so I went into the kitchen to box up some more of those cake balls. These are the 1 lb candy boxes I bought, and they held eight perfectly. Between the Wilton ones from Michael's, and the Make'n Mold ones from Hobby Lobby - I think I'll stick with the latter. They fold nicer, they have a nicer finish, they don't gap when you close them, AND you got four for the same price that you get three Wilton ones. They're the exact same size and shape too. No brainer!

I went with a Fall/Thanksgiving color scheme when decorating them. I thought I'd like cake balls better, because I felt bad wasting all those sticks, but MAN, what a mess!!! I think I'll try it again with the actual candy making tools (yay Michael's coupons!) instead of just a spoon, but if that doesn't help, it's back to cake pops for me.

I also think it's worth noting that fancier candy melts aren't necessarily better for this. I was excited to find Guittard ones at Safeway (it's what they use in the FABULOUS hot chocolate that they sell at Williams Sonoma) but it turns out they just didn't work very well. They melted nicely, but when the candy cooled the shell totally cracked across the center. (They were tastier than the Wilton ones however) So far I've tried three brands and the generic ones from the cake decorating store are my favorites. I do plan on trying the Make'n Mold ones next though. I think that's what Bakerella uses.

Of course, I totally got sucked into what I was doing and ended up staying awake until 4:30 am. Oops. So that was my day.

The iPhone Photo Post

This blogger has been SLACKING, y'all. I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! That's ridiculous! I'm sure you're probably all really tired of hearing this from everyone lately, but this girl's been busy. I've been going and going all day and into the not wee anymore hours of the morning. I have seen the sun rise more than a couple of times this past week.

The baby is getting his back teeth/molars and they SUCK. They take forever to come in, they make him cranky as hell, and they messed up our sleep routine. All of a sudden this kid wants to wake up at three in morning and play after he gets over his initial anger at the world. Luckily he is not one of those kids that wakes up at 6 am no matter what, so we've been sleeping in REALLY late to make up for those nights. This is both a blessing and a curse, because now I don't know how much of this messed up schedule is teething related and how much is "we slept until almost 2 today" related.

One of the things I've been working on is fabric related. I can't really say what it is because it may or may not be a gift for someone who may or may not read my blog, but my husband and I scoured several places one night in search of the perfect fabrics. This is what we have so far:

I've also been knitting a lot here in the evenings. I'm finally to the point where I can do it while watching tv, which is awesome. My motto for December this year is A-B-C. A - Always, B - Be, C- Crafting. Always be crafting, always be crafting. Being able to keep my hands busy while in the car or getting caught up on the tv shows we do watch is extremely beneficial.

I've finished up a couple more December Daily books. I have not yet made my own, but I do have all the papers picked out at least. I was going to put up the tree on the first, so that would be the first day in my book, but then I managed to convince the apartment manager that our carpet was tragic past the point of redemption, so they're going to replace it next week. I am excited for new carpet, but dreading having to pack up all the furniture and books from there and find places to stash them until it's done. We have a lot of stuff bolted to the walls in here!!!

Bubba has a newfound love for my craft room too. He loves to play with all my tools (or at least, the safer ones he's allowed to touch) and it's not at all uncommon to find him during the day doing this:

I have this plastic step stool in there next to the table and he likes to stand up there and either watch me while I work, or go in while I'm in the living room and just color on scraps of paper I leave out for him. It's pretty dang cute, I'm not gonna lie!

It's finally starting to get cold-ish around here, which means that we have to bust out the warm stuff like flannel jammies:

socks:

and knit hats...

that cause uncontrollable hat hair!

I put puff paint on the bottom of a few pairs of the socks in hopes that it would make them less slippery on the kitchen floor. Yes, yet another one of my craft projects! It did not really work though. I'm going to have to suck it up this weekend and buy him some new walker shoes and remind myself that at least I don't have multiples and only have to buy one pair!

Speaking of hair...

one of the other things on our "To Do" list this weekend is to take the Bubs for his first haircut. It's growing longer than the rest on the sides of the top area and in the back, near the bottom. This makes for a very interesting mullet, to say the least. Also, he tends to sweat when he falls asleep and if he sleeps in the carseat, this causes those long side pieces to get crimped in a sticking out sort of way that resembles tiny wings on the sides of his head. Plenty funny, but not so cute.

We just want to get it evened out so the rest of his hair has a chance to catch up.

For shits and giggles, one of my Facebook friends posted our eighth grade class photo online. Can you spot me? I was 12 here - this photo is twenty years old! When did I get that old?

Finally, I leave you with this:

Technically it doesn't fit in with my iPhone photos, but I just had to post it or I would never get around to it! If you follow me on Twitter, or if you are one of my Facebook friends, then you would know that Bubba's actually been taking steps here and there since the 16th of October, just a few days shy of his first birthday. He would take one or two here or there, but I didn't really count that as "walking," just taking steps. I don't want to be one of those moms who overexaggerates her child's milestones, but I still want to give the kid credit where credit is due!

(sidenote - random pet peeve: moms who are all like, MY kid says 10 words. No, your kid makes ten sounds that you can interpret. When your kid is actually talking, then EVERYONE will understand, not just you.)

Finally, on November 10th, he all of a sudden decided to just go for it and took about eight steps to walk across from the TV to me in front of the couch! I was so excited! Now he's constantly toddling about the apartment, always with his arms up for balance. He sort of looks like a really really cute but drunk baby orangutan! HA! It's been nearly impossible to get a video though, because the second he sees the camera he gets really excited, falls, then speed crawls over so he can play with it. I think I shot about ten videos on the day I got this one before I got one I could use.

The best part about him walking is that now he picks up stuff like books and brings them over to me so we can play together. I know... heart melting, right? MAN I sure do like this baby!