Not Just Another Manic Monday

I'm not one of those "I hate Mondays" kind of people. While I love my weekends, you wouldn't often find me mourning the return of my alarm clock on Mondays. Yes, there are those occasional weeks that I dread for one reason or another, but for the most part, Mondays are just another day (whether teaching or being at home with my kids). Yesterday, the only thing I was dreading was the weather forecast for the week, which called for an ice storm and more cold temperatures. I am ready for the playground people! However, my gloomy weather outlook brightened when I finished this yesterday (while both kiddos slept for a bit...praise God):
It was my first attempt at a hat. I made it for Eric and was going to wait until Valentine's Day to give it to him, but with the weather forecast being what it is, I decided yesterday was as good a day as any to give it to him. Happy Last Day of January Hubby. Spring is coming!
I pretty much rocked the circular and double-pointed needles. Not as scary as I thought. I might have to make one for myself since it fit so well.
And one for my sweet girl, who wore Daddy's hat until he got home from work and we gave it to him.
And we won't leave out this sweet man. Okay, so maybe this should be my goal for this year. They're all gettin' hats for Christmas! As if that wasn't a good enough way to brighten my day (and boost my knitting ego), these arrived in the mail in those wonderful orange Shutterfly boxes.
I was inspired by this blogger, whom I don't know in real life but enjoy reading her blog...she's an inspiration. She makes a digital scrapbook for each of her daughters for each year of their life. I am not a scrapbooker. It takes too much time that I just don't have. I have successfully made one scrapbook in my life. It chronicles my first 5K through my marathon and ends with the first race I did post-partum with Cate. It was easy because my race numbers took up most of the page. Throw in a picture, a card with my finish time, and some stickers, and a page was complete.

So I decided to start doing the Shutterfly/digital scrapbook thing for my kiddos. I've done small photobooks before, like the Hilton Head one above. But I've never done the big 12 x 12 size. I started with Cate's 3rd year book (celebrating this past year of her life). It's more of a photobook at this point. I know there are all kinds of digital scrapbook tools out there that I can use in with Photoshop Elements on my computer, but I haven't figured them out yet. I did two of the pages in Photoshop for her book this year. The rest are all Shutterfly layouts. After Saturday's birthday bash, I'll start her fourth year book. And get Brennan's first year book going. The great thing about Shutterfly is that I can leave the books sitting as projects all year and then just click order the week before their birthdays. I plan to do Cate's first and second year books as I have time. Thankfully, I have this blog to help me remember everything we did those years and every milestone she hit. So one night this week, Eric and I will curl up with Cate's 3rd year book and a glass of wine and celebrate another successful (in our opinion) year of parenting.

And last, but not least, these books also arrived in the mail yesterday.
That Robert Frost childrens' book makes my English teacher heart happy. In high school, our church did "prayer partners." An adult member of the congregation was paired with a high school student in the youth group to pray for them and encourage them throughout the school year. One year, my friend's mother was paired with me. I've kept in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and sending birth announcements. And being the sweet, wonderful, woman she is (and one I can only hope to be like as I raise my kids), she sent these books to Brennan. Not leaving Cate out though, she wrote an amazingly sweet note asking Cate to help Brennan look at his new books and then to read them to him once he could understand.

My heart was so full yesterday from all of this...accomplishments, reminders, and encouragement. My cup is overflowing and carrying me with high spirits, hope, and a smile into today. It also didn't hurt that because of the aforementioned weather, Eric had a delay today and got to stay home just a smidge longer with us this morning.

Happy Tuesday!

~Melody :-)