Family Year Books

Before my kids were born I loved to scrapbook. After the kids were born I've found that I just do not have the time to scrapbook like I did before they were born. My last scrapbook stops at the summer of 2010...the same summer I became pregnant with my daughter.

I still take lots of pictures .... actually about a couple hundred more now. Time is going by so quickly that I want to try to capture every moment.

Here is a solution to what to do with all those pictures when you do not have time to scrapbook them....

I've created family year books! Here are my last two I've created thanks to help from Shutterfly. These books will run around $29.99 and up plus shipping. Sometimes if you are lucky you can find code discounts and apply them when they have deals/sales going on. I paid only $13 for one of these books using a code and pairing it with a promotional discount they were having that week!

Here are my family year books from 2012 & 2013....

The front covers:

* I used photographs of big events that happened during that year. 

Inside I included:

*birthday celebrations.... 

* holiday celebrations....

* family trips.....

*the announcement of a pregnancy and the gender reveal....

 *the birth of a new family member....

*and other imporant or family year book worthy pictures...

Don't forget to write on the side of the family year book!

And you can put pictures or writing on the back of the family year books as well!

Now I won't feel bad if I do not get back to scrapbooking for a while and those pictures are not just sitting around on my computer waiting to be printed.

I Spy....10 Giraffe Spots!

Last night before bed I presented this "I Spy" book I've been working on for my kids! Their reactions were priceless! I loved it...they loved it!

Here is the front cover....

Last weekend I gathered up some toy items around the house and took pictures of them in a pile then loaded the pictures on the computer.

Next I pulled up my word document and posted the pictures and then looked for items in the picture for the kids to "spy".  I then made a list of items for them to find....some are easier than others.

Little People toys.... 

Mr. Potato Head parts.... 

Barnyard animals and toys....

I also photographed their bath toys for another page! 

All together there are eleven pages! I laminated the pages so the book can be read over and over again!

Here is the back page...

As the kids get older I'll add some new things for them to "spy". I purposely bound the book this way so I can add more pages in the future!

Nebraska ... Home of Arbor Day!

This past week and weekend we decided to celebrate Arbor Day! It has been a tradition of ours for the past few years to go to Nebraska City for their annual Arbor Day celebration complete with a parade!

What is Arbor Day? Arbor Day  is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. The first American Arbor Day was originated in Nebraska City, Nebraska by J. Sterling Morton. On April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska.

Now that my daughter is three and my son is almost one it made going to the parade even more enjoyable.

 Here they are waiting for the parade to start! 

 Here is my eleven month old son with my husband waiting for the 1pm parade to start!

 Audrey waved at the parade participants as they walked by! It was adorable!

 Picking up candy that was thrown out to the crowd by the parade participants!

This lady handed her a Colorado Blue Spruce seedling to plant at home! 

In years past we have visited local museums, restaurants, the craft fair at the outlet mall, and local flea markets to name a few but this year we had to get back home to take care of a few errands and to do some house work so we didn't get to stick around long. However, we did stop at park near Steinhart Park/Wildwood Golf Course before heading back to Lincoln.  

The Thursday before Arbor Day we bought a tree! We received an advertisement in the mail two weeks ago for an open house event at our local Earl May. We have been planning to replace our tree in our front yard after it cracked/broke in half two years ago and had to be chopped down so we decided to go to the open house to see what we could find. 

They had some yummy treats, drinks and fresh popped popcorn (my daughter's favorite). They were also offering a 10% discount if you purchased items during the open house. We walked around and looked at the trees and decided on a beautiful Red Bud tree. 

 

I can't wait to sit on my front porch and see this beautiful tree bloom every spring and see it grow year after year!

Did you celebrate Arbor Day? What did you do?

That is A Lot of Strawberries!

My kids like strawberries. Actually that is a huge understatement. My kids LOVE strawberries. They can easily eat a whole pound of strawberries...if I'd let them.

One of my daughters nicknames we gave her was strawberry while she was still growing in my tummy. I know strange nickname to have for an unborn child but it will all make sense soon. This picture hangs on her bedroom wall....

The top photograph is an ultrasound of my daughter. When I was pregnant with her my husband and I not yet knowing the gender of our baby got tried of calling her an "it" or hearing family call our child an "it". At the time we were trying to find a name to call "it" I read in my baby book that "it" was about the size of a strawberry. I mentioned that to my husband and the nickname "strawberry" stuck. The bottom photograph is some strawberries in an ice cream bucket my daughter and I picked last year from our very small strawberry patch in the backyard.

So before she was born she was "taught" to like strawberries....after all, that was her nickname! Whenever I find a cute outfit with strawberries on it I can't help but get excited and get it for her.

Last fall I found a cute strawberry dress for her at a consignment sale. I paid only $3 for it and it still had the tags on. Score! Shortly after purchasing the dress Driscoll's had an online contest to win a $1,000 scholarship for taking a photograph with their strawberries.

Here is the picture we submitted!

We made it into the finals and it was used to advertise the contest on their Facebook page but she lost to two cute boys holding up a sign that said "We Love Driscolls".....  smart kids!

So when I saw an eleven pound flat of strawberries on sale in an ad at our grocery store this past weekend I was all over it. We paid $11.88 for 11 pounds of strawberries. That is $1.08 a pound....not bad at all. Especially since the cheapest I've paid lately has been $1.88 a pound.

What did we do with all those eleven pounds of strawberries?

1) We packaged eight pounds of the strawberries in quart size freezer zip-top bags to freeze in our deep freeze and enjoy later in homemade muffins, homemade smoothies, and homemade pancakes and waffles. How did we do it? I had my three-year-old toddler help! It took us about 1 hour to go through them all, cut off the top stems, cut off any spoiled spots (there were not very many!), and cut the strawberries in half. My daughter's job was to find large, then medium, than small strawberries and hand them to me. When I was done cutting the stem off the strawberry she would take it and place it in a large bowl until I cut it in half and then placed it into a zip-top baggie.

Here is my daughter showing off a big juicy strawberry before handing it to me to cut up! 

And here she is taking a strawberry from me and placing it into the bowl.  

 The eight pounds of strawberries fit into nine zip-top baggies! 

2) While we were cutting up the strawberries to freeze we consumed about one pound of it! Between my daughter, son, husband and myself we just couldn't resist! After we finished cutting them up (it was after dinner) we enjoyed a yummy ice cream sundae with fresh strawberries, banana slices, chocolate syrup, and whipped topping. Yum!

3) I left two pounds of the strawberries in the refrigerator to enjoy with our meals and as a healthy snack option during the week.

Note: Go early in the morning during these sales to find the best selection. We went on Friday night (the 1st day of the sale) and the one's they had out looked awful. They looked like people had gone through and only left the small, bruised, and over-ripened ones. My husband went back around 8am on Saturday to correct mistake on the receipt and found they had restocked the strawberries with nice big and juicy strawberries!

Do you have any good strawberry recipes you'd like to share? I may just need one or two!