Week in the Life- A summary

This week we've mainly been:
tackling the washing mountain and then the ironing piles

Drinking lots of coffee (more than I initially believed- eek!)

Shopping for food

Remembering to reuse our bags -yay! I'm such a nightmare at this.

Keeping fit

Spending family time at the beach

Splashing and 'netting' (Jacks words)

Chilling with a book

or at least trying to

Climbing sand dunes

Being woken by tickly feet

Taking self portraits (needs practice!)

Being a mum and doing those jobs no-one else wants to do

Watching childrens TV

Tidying up the garden

Playing Super heroes

Eating together

Getting us all ready

Having Grandpa hands at swimming

Thinking about the way times are changing:

Doing more running:

Copying the Big Brother

but deciding hearts are best:

Having extended family meals:

Washing up!

Week in the Life- day one

I've decided (at last minute, like most things in my life!) to participate in Ali E's 'Week in the Life' project, whereby you document and record a week in your life via photos and observations. This week is the photo and notes week; next week comes the 'putting it together part'. I'm not sure that this will be truly representative of a normal week for me as both K and I are on annual leave but I'll give it a shot!

Anyway, this was our Monday. We headed out to Legoland, Windsor after staying overnight at my PILs. I had had a rubbish night on an airbed with Emma (who proved that it was virtually impossible for her to sleep on a double airbed without falling off somehow) and both of us were not in the mood for the early wake up call that K gave us. Much grumbling ensued.

Finally got in the car at 7:50am and made our getaway with Em & I promptly falling back to sleep again. By 9am it was clear that traffic was manic, crashes were galore and we blatently weren't going to make it to Windsor for the 10am opening. Somewhere on the M25, we ended up stopping for a 'comfort break' too. Not much chance of getting 2 kids back into the car without tonnes of whining and crying. Tensions were fraught to say the least. This wasn't looking like our finest plan.

Finally, sometime around 11, we finally made it here: The queues for entry were manic and all Jack kept asking for was to go into Legoland- try explaining non-moving queues to a 3 year old!

The relief when we finally made it inside the gates was immense. Almost immediately did we have one happy chap!

He just loved these guys who talked (scared me witless the first time they did it though!)

Even the dog barked!

A snap for my American friends :)

How cool are these models? Really made me want to build something!

We went on a few rides, found our bearings & had some lunch before making the most of the warm weather by splashing in the water park. Luckily, I'd been told by a colleague to bring their swimmers and a towel so we were prepared! :)

Then time for the icecream shot (how else do we bribe them out of the waterpark?)

Portrait of moi, looking shocking on little sleep and no mascara, taken by 3 year old (with help from me), but hey, at least it proves I was there (am I the only one who is never in the photos?)

Several more rides followed, before more food and more rides.

Another shot to prove 'I was there!' (taken on way out)

Finally left park at 8:15pm for the 2 hour drive home. All were completely shattered but happy. Day one: done!

Schools out...

...and finally some time for some scrapping!

I don't know why but I'm always so shocked when I see a photo of my daughter and can see the family resemblance staring back at me so strong. Emma is definitely a 'mini me' in looks and personality. Perhaps I should be worried: given what her tantrums are like now, what have I got in store for myself when she's a teenager?!?

Anyway, I love the way this LO of Emma, mum and I (all around the same age) turned out and wish the photo would do it justice. This was created with a UKS challenge in mind. The theme was based around weddings and the 'old, new, borrowed, blue' saying.

For an 'old' technique, I chose lots of machine stitching. My 'new' was my 'new to me' Circa 1934 papers from Cosmo Cricket. I'd been meaning to cut into them ever since I bought them!
The borrowed meant the LO should be scraplifted or sketch based so I chose this LO from Crate Paper (if you scroll down it's the LO by Jaime Warren) Fianlly 'blue' was the colour I chose for my cardstock. Job done! :)

Lean Mean Mini book

I was scrapping with friends on Saturday and originally had plans for these photos to be a double LO but as I looked through them, it was decided that a) I had too many photos and b) the photos told a story so it would be difficult to cut them down in number. Suddenly, I remembered that I had instructions in my crop bag for a Lean Mean Mini-book which I had printed from JimJams blog some time ago (link to instructions here: Thanks JimJams)

The advantage to this minibook is that it uses only one sheet of 12x12 cardstock and one sheet of 12x12 double sided paper! On a mission, I decided to give it a go!

Front cover. The whole album is held together with ribbon. I've used a sheet of Jillibean soup paper and some co-ordinating embellishments for the details:

Inside front cover:

There is plenty of room on these pull out pages for either more photos or journalling on the reverse. I added some machine stitching, word sticker labels and some cute tags with the kids initials on each:

This is the pull out pocket page. Would be equally cute to put a ticket etc from a visit in there depending on the theme of your album. Secret journalling, anyone?

Another half page pocket on the final pages.

Once I'd figured out the instructions this was actually really simple to make. This took me 2-3 hours with lots of chatting inbetween. I reckon if I was to do it again I could make the album (as a gift etc) in less than an hour and the whole thing including photos etc in less than 2.

Thanks for looking.