Welcome to my blog! I'm a wife, mom, photographer, scrapbook designer, writer, singer, piano player, movie lover, small town girl living in Michigan with my husband and two kiddos. I started this blog waaaaay back in 2005 to share my photos with family and friends and it's become so much more than that since. I've made so many wonderful friends through my little corner of the web and connected with so many photographers and scrapbookers.
so THANK YOU so much for stopping by and taking the time to follow this little blog o' mine. ;)
I recently watched the movie “Bright Star” about the poet, John Keats, and the love of his life, Fanny, and I adored it. It is a gorgeous movie, beautifully shot, and such a sweet, romantic, heartbreaking love story.
This may sound strange, but one of my favorite things about this movie visually is the wind. Maybe it’s because we’re in the midst of a cold winter and I’m longing for warm breezes, but I love the way the wind blows in so many of the scenes – the trees and grass blowing, the curtains in the house and in Fanny’s room, Fanny’s hair as she sits sewing by the window. Love it!
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness”
I thought this movie was definitely a “thing of beauty”.
I have been wanting to make a photobook from our ‘08 trip to Florida for a long time and I finally finished it last week. Here are a few of my favorite layouts from the book:
To view a slideshow of the entire book, CLICK HERE then choose the full screen option to see it best.
I used several of Heather Ann Designs quick fill templates and papers for the design.
I don’t have any pictures from our Noorman family Christmas (Jake’s dad’s side) because I didn’t bring along the camera that night, but we had a lot of fun over at Brenda’s. We had a yummy dinner, exchanged gifts and played a little Rock Band. It was pretty hilarious hearing Jake try to sing some of the songs. He was not blessed with the gift of song, but he sure does have fun trying.
Last Friday (Jan 22nd), we headed across the state to Heather (Jake’s sis) and Jeff’s house for family Christmas (Jake’s mom’s side). We spent the whole weekend there, which was so very nice. I feel really blessed to be a part of Jake’s family. We have a such a great time hanging out together.
On Saturday, we slept in a bit then watched this show about Blackbeard the pirate while we waited for Nick to arrive. I think it was on the History channel, but I’m not sure. It was pretty interesting.
After opening gifts, everyone made their own pizzas. Yum! Jake, Chloe and I shared one. Jake put just about every topping known to man on his side of the pizza and us girls had just cheese … lots of cheese. Zach doesn’t like pizza (Can you believe that?), so it was chicken nuggets and fries for him instead. We try to tell him that he’s missing out, but he just won’t try it. Such a silly kid. Someday he’ll change his ways, especially when he gets older and his friends are hanging out eating pizza all the time.
We played some games after dinner. Apples to Apples, Yahtzee, and one other one that was really fun, but I can’t remember its name.
Then we put the kids to bed and headed down to Jeff’s “man cave” to watch movies. We watched “Mamma Mia” and then the guys put in “District 9″ because they needed something manly to balance out all the singing. LOL!
Heather made us a delicious pancake breakfast on Sunday before we headed home. The weekend went by far too quickly in my opinion. But it was a good time, a very merry belated Christmas.
The Sunday after Christmas, my aunt’s house was all filled up with laughter and conversation and good food and giggling kids running all over the place. It’s wonderful craziness and I love it. I miss my cousins and always look forward to the holidays.
We had the kids open their gifts first so we could see what they got. Then the adults did our annual gift exchange game. We each bring a gift that would be good for a guy or a girl and put it in the middle of the room. Then we draw #’s and go in that order. The first person chooses a gift and opens it. The #2 person has the option to “steal” their gift or choose another from the pile. It continues on down the line with opening gifts and stealing gifts. If a person gets their gift stolen, they either steal from another person or draw another gift and so on. Each gift can only be stolen 3 times. It’s pretty hilarious to see what becomes the most wanted gift. Gift cards are always a favorite. This year, some things people stole were binoculars, tools, digital photo keychain (that was mine, but Aunt Pat stole it. haha!) and the gift cards, of course. It’s a fun way to do a gift exchange rather than just drawing names.
Wish we could have stayed more than a few hours, but it started snowing outside and we ended up driving no more than 45 mph all the way home in a blizzard. It was worth it.
The day after Christmas, we drove to my grandparents house in Ohio. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins were there. We had a yummy lunch and then my Grandpa, who was a Pastor for many years, read to us from the Bible, which is a family tradition. When us kids were little, he used to have one or two of us read the Christmas story from the Bible. It’s wonderful that our kids get to be a part of that now.
The kids got some fun gifts this year. Zach got Legos, of course, and a paper airplane book, and Chloe got this cool sock puppet kit. She’s going to have fun with that one. The best gift of all was my new pair of slippers! I have been without slippers for quite a while now. I wore my last pair out and just haven’t been able to get myself new ones, so I put it on my list and my uncle got my name for the exchange and he did good (see above)! I love them. They’re soft and warm and comfy. Yay!
Chloe was so excited when Kaeli took the dogs out for a walk. She just had to join her. I took a few pictures of their cute pups. Can you tell Chloe takes after her dad? If it were up to them, we’d have a dog right now. (Jake & Chloe, if you’re reading this … too bad, so sad.)
It was great to see all my cousins, especially since we weren’t able to make it to the family reunion this year. I’m excited for March, too. We’ll get to see the family again because my cousin Brian is marrying his sweetie Lisa. I have the honor of photographing the wedding and I can’t wait.
I am finally taking some time to go through my Christmas pictures today. I’ve decided to post some each day this week from some of the family Christmases we had starting with Christmas day at my parents house.
After we opened gifts at home, we headed over to Mom and Dad’s for a yummy lunch and our gift exchange. It’s so fun watching the kids open gifts. Zach was cracking me up. He opened a couple gifts that contained clothing and he said “More clothes” and tossed it aside. He really needed some new jeans, so I was thankful that Grandma got him some, but I can remember feeling that way when I was young, too. Toss the clothes aside and get to the toys.
Before Christmas, I snuck Chloe’s Fancy Nancy doll to my mom for a special project she was working on. She made Chloe some pj’s and made matching pj’s for her doll. Chloe was excited. Fancy Nancy was waiting by the tree when we got there all decked out in a Santa suit. It was cute. Mom used to make me outfits for my dolls when I was growing up, so it’s special that she did the same for my daughter.
The afternoon was fun. Hanging out, playing Blokus, watching movies, etc. A wonderful Christmas day.
This new Project Life kit from Becky Higgins looks so awesome. It’s such a great way to document your everyday life for a whole year in a simple way without stressing about scrapbooking every single picture you take. Just print your photos, slip them in the album, write a little description on the journaling cards. Done. There is even a new digital version that you can make online and then have printed and bound into a Photobook at year’s end. I’m still trying to decide which one would work best for me. I love digital, but the kit looks so nice, too. Decisions, decisions. Click the above image for more details.
Here’s a video that Becky Higgins put on her blog introducing and explaining what’s included in the kit as well as the concept of Project Life. Enjoy!
Sitting by Lake Michigan with a warm summer breeze coming off the water would be GREAT right now.
I’ve got an upset stomach/achy body/scratchy throat/headache kind of thing going on here. This cold weather doesn’t help matters. Bring on the warmer Spring weather! Please.
Lots of Christmas fun to share here. Hope to get some pictures up here before it actually is Spring.
Took this out the window last week when it was snowing hard. Played around with focusing on the snow as it fell. Looking at this too long makes me a little dizzy actually.
Here I go again. Another winter and once again it’s time to complain about how much I hate it. We’ve actually been blessed with some beautiful sunshine the past couple days, but it’s making the temps bitterly cold. Mom and I are still out there walking in it, though. Determined to keep it up. The inches are coming off little by little as the weeks pass. Lost another inch on both my hips and waist. Feels good when the jeans become loose fitting. Maybe by summer I’ll actually be down to the size I want to be.
LOVING that I joined this Bible in 90 Days group. Getting into Leviticus right now. So many rules/laws about clean/unclean things and sacrifices. God was very specific about everything and He wasn’t joking around. If you didn’t follow His rules, you were dead. Literally. Two of Aaron’s (Moses’s brother) sons found that out the hard way.
One more family Christmas next weekend. We had to postpone it until late January because of work schedules, but it’s kind of nice to have the holidays drawn out a bit.
The movie Jake helped with last year and had a couple small roles in, “Homeless for the Holidays”, will be playing in Grand Rapids at the Woodland Mall Celebration Cinema starting January 29th. If you’re in the area, check it out.
Enjoyed watching Chuck this week. That show is so much fun. Glad it’s back for another season.
Not loving this whole craziness over The Tonight Show. It’s sucks what they’ve done to Conan O’Brien. I’d rather watch him than Jay any day. Not that I actually watch late night TV anymore anyway. But whatever Conan does, he’s got a huge fan base, so he’ll be just fine!
If you’re local, did you hear the news the other night about some idiots stealing the baby Jesus from the nativity downtown? That nativity has been in the courthouse lawn every year for as long as I can remember. It sucks that someone did this. Hope they find it or the person gets a conscience and returns it.
Posted this sweet little slideshow over on my photo blog of Janna + Dan’s sweet baby Jackson. She requested the song “You Are My Sunshine” and, while searching for it, I came across this wonderful artist, Elizabeth Mitchell, who has a way of singing children’s songs so even parents can enjoy them. I love her music. Here’s the slideshow, click the image to begin show.
A woman Jake works with started a group over on Facebook to read through the Bible in 90 Days starting this past Tuesday with Genesis 1 and working our way through. I’ve always thought about doing this, but I’ve never actually followed through. Seeing as I’ve had a Bible in my possession since I was pretty young, I should have read the whole thing by now, right? There is so much in there and I’m really excited to do this. I hope this will be the first of many times I will read through God’s Word.
If you’d like to join along with us, CLICK HERE. You can catch up! Each week she will post an Event on the Facebook group, which details the readings for the week. This week so far has been Genesis Chapters 1 – 39.
AJAXed with AWP