34 weeks :)

Mike & Lauren {engaged!}

I am so excited to show you guys these pictures of Mike & Lauren! When we went home last weekend, I got to take their engagement pictures! We went down to the beach, and then to a state park, which was just beautiful! Here are just a few of their pictures while I'm editing the others!

Love their adorable smiles at each other in this one! 

 

 

Project Life Tuesday

I've been meaning to talk about my newest project for a few weeks now, but never have sat down to take the pictures of it! It's called Project Life.  {No, they aren't paying me for this- I just love it!} 

I've read about it on a few blogs that I follow, and finally bit the bullet and purchased one of my own.  I think it would have to be my very first act of nesting.  I knew I wanted our little one to be able to go through our family albums and see all the fun Michael and I had- but I also knew I didn't want to spend a fortune on supplies and scrapbook materials, and I also didn't want to have to spend a ton of time creating a scrapbook.  This is where I knew project life would be the very best option for me.  It's a binder with  plastic inserts for photos, and smaller ones for journaling cards.  Here's the design I picked out and what it came with: 

It's been perfect for me because all I've had to do is print my pictures, organize them by event, and then stick them in the photo slot.  It's also nice because those other special things, like tickets from our one year anniversary to the aquarium, the note Michael wrote me the week we met, etc.  can all be placed in there too- all in one place, and organized! My favorite!

I have a lot of pictures from college, etc.  but I chose to start out with the beginning of our story.  There aren't a ton of pictures from those first few weeks, but I did manage to save a lot of other things like notes, etc.  Then, the longer we dated, the more I pulled my camera out and documented things! I really want to get fully caught up on all these pictures before baby comes so I can stay on top of her baby book.  I have decided that I will continue to use the project life for our baby's book and then maybe even do a 'family yearbook' electronically to outline the fun activities our family does each year!

So, I want to join the wagon and try to do a 'Project Life Tuesday" to help keep me accountable and posting pages I've completed each week! I'm sure I won't be able to post each and every Tuesday, and I'm not going to stress out about it, especially because my class load is doubling for the next few months, but I do want to make sure I catch myself up so I can stay up to date when Emerson arrives!

Meet Tristan:

Today, I did something a little out of my comfort zone- I took pictures of an adorable baby- Tristan.  And not only did I take pictures of him- I watched him! Like, baby sat him! It was fun, and exhausting and I only had him for a few hours!We took a little field trip to Starbucks and Target this afternoon as well. He did great, and I'm pretty sure I did too.  Although, I think I pulled my shoulder carrying his heavy car seat around! Geeze, carry that thing around everyday, you'll have some amazing arm muscles! Okay, enough of my ramblings about me baby-sitting,  Meet the adorable Tristan: 

 

I know, his eyes will totally break your heart! And his smiles too! Oh, and his feet! Look at these adorable feet!

I love this one of him too.  Adorable little belly!

This outfit is so cute! It used to be his Mom's! I love special outfits like this! 

Don't you just want to snuggle up with him here! So sweet!

 

I must have done a good job, because he was tired! 

Well, just don't ask him...

Keeping up

So, it's probably obvious by now that I love pictures.  I love taking pictures, looking at pictures, and documenting all of our activities.  Michael always jokes that I am going to make the dogs and him go blind from all the pictures I take of them. Here's the problem.  I take all of these pictures, and post them on my Facebook, file them away on my computer- and that's it.  I know Facebook isn't going to be around forever, and it surely isn't a good way to see all the fun pictures we have taken over the years, so I have started creating electronic scrapbooks for each year.  I'm working right now on our 1st year of marriage book, including some pictures from our wedding, honeymoon, Christmas, snow days, our 1st house that we rented, plus some other fun stuff.  I used to love to scrapbook, but it takes forever- and is super costly.  This electronic scrapbook is still time consuming, but not nearly as much.  I'm not having to purchase a bunch of scrap-booking 'junk' like scissors, tape, glue, stickers, papers, ribbon, pens, I could go on and on- I know you've been into a scrap-booking store! :) 

The site I'm creating my year one book with now gives you all of those options- you can select your pictures, your layout, your design, your background, quotes, plus stickers, and other designs.  It's amazing.  I like working on mine while I'm on the phone with a parent that goes on and on about how smart their child is.  Oh the joys of a phone job!! haha.  

I'm thinking this will be a great way to keep up with our pictures and our activities, along with the pictures I post on facebook, and this blog! I'll let you know how it looks once I finalize my format and send it in to get printed. 

Plus, I'm curious- what do you guys do to keep track of your pictures? Do you have a huge Tupperware container with all of your life's pictures in there (ahem, mom!) or are they are neatly in photo-books?