Vintage Family Photo Heaven

My dear uncle recently entrusted me with a box of old family photographs. One goes as far back as 1911. This one I am absolutely in love with:

This is a photograph of my maternal grandmother, Alice Wentworth, taken in either 1912 or 1913. The dress....the pure innocence of the photo...I am so enamored by it!

I have a feeling that the history in some of these photos and the months of research my uncle spent on the Wentworth family tree will be pursued further by me as soon as I can find the time to do it. Unfortunately, there a lot photos with no dates or names noted so they may stay unknown -- which bums me out.

Here's a photo of my grandmother as an infant with a family friend in 1911 when  Ferndale Bridge in Humboldt County, California, was being built.

OK, on a completely unrelated topic: Who is watching "The Bachelorette" and who do you think Jake will pick in the end? :)

What the heck - - - I'll blog today!

I know. I've been avoiding this blog like the plague. I was doing so well with keeping up with my December Daily....until Dec. 15th. Then the holidays were upon me and I haven't had time to look back since!

I've been diligently working on finishing  my last few pages and decided to hold off on posting the pictures until it was done....hence, the lack of a blog post in a month!

I'm SO glad I jumped in and have the experience of doing the the daily but I'm not sure if I'd do it again. That's just me. I think I enjoy the journaling/scrapbooking process more when I don't feel a time constraint or an obligation to do it. Crafting is all about the freedom for me and I think I'm just going to stick with what works for me. Who knows, maybe it'll be a different story by year's end. :)

There are so many things to talk about but since we are in the ever-glorious CHA winter-release season why don't I share the things that I'm looking forward to adding to my craft stash?

7gypsies letterblock tray

How many of these can I justify buying? And what wall space can I find to hang them from? Oh, the possibilities of filling this lovely thing is endless!

I love this 7gypsies receipt display because it can be changed up time and time again. I love the re-usage factor! And yeah, it further complicates my wall space dilemma!

7gypsies dangling paper clips? Need I say more?

Who doesn't love vintage ephemera?!? Thank you 7gypsies!

 

Everyone together now: "Ooooooh! Aaaaaah!" Can't wait to play with this stuff! Tattered Angels has done it again!

Hambly papers. Divine!

 

Maya Road fabric and chipboard banners. I foresee banners for every holiday and season!

And what good would banners be without these fun little Maya Road mini chipboard alphas?

Sassafras Lass banner stickers. Are you sensing a theme here? ;)

Just plain ol' pretty!

Thank you Tim Holtz for bustin' out the vintage-inspired buttons. Cuz I can never have enough of 'em!

Metallic feet to display your newest work of art? Yes, please!

Tissue tape: yeah, it can be used on anything and everything!

So what are your faves from the CHA sneaks you've seen?

I plan to be back here again soon. I promise! I have so much more to share!

The Christmas Rush is On!

Only 10 more days until Christmas? Say it isn't so! This holiday always manages to sneak up on me somehow. This week is filled with a 2nd grade recital, a church recital, a haircut and color {badly needed by me!} and an appointment with a physical therapist for my {yet again!} pulled calf muscle.

I managed to overdo it a few weeks back when I was running up some trail hills in preparation for my half marathon and pulled a calf muscle. I was forced to quit running for a week and then tested my calf out on a treadmill and felt fine. Two days later I decided to do my run outside and at 4 1/2 miles I had to stop. Yup, I think I exacerbated my original injury. Great.

So I'm just a bit frustrated that I can't train for yet another week but decided to get some advice from a physical therapist so that I don't keep repeating the same mistake because my time is running out {no pun intended.}

Here are the last 3 days of my December Daily.

 

 

I crack up when I look at the photo of my dad holding up his "ugly" cookie. I had a last piece of dough that was too small to cut out one last cookie so I decided it was going to be his "lump of coal" cookie. I frosted it and added some sprinkles and a few chocolate chips and it ended up looking like a holiday skeleton! When he put it up next to his face for some reason I thought I saw a resemblance. LOL.

Darren was showing off his hand-frosted cookie. He decided to give his snowman a yellow shirt. So after spending 4 hours baking and frosting 137 cookies I succumbed to eating 3 cookies. One was broken and the other 2...well, I have no excuse. Ha! Ha!

December Daily pages 9 - 11 and a letter back from Santa!

Here are the past 3 days of my December Daily pages.

 

 

 

 

The Parents Club at Darren's school held their 1st annual Winterfest yesterday. All proceeds benefited the school directly so supporting the event was a no-brainer. The school was jam-packed! Kids were allowed to shop for their parents and siblings in a kids-only area of the cafeteria with high school student volunteers helping them with their shopping list. They were even provided with free gift wrapping with helpers to boot!  There were craft projects galore, a Scholastic Book Store and even Santa was in the house for photos! The line was too long by the time we got there but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Darren really enjoyed the opportunity to gift shop on his own {so to speak} and he can't wait for us to see what he chose.

Are you ready for the big news of the day?

This afternoon Darren received a letter from the one and only:

SANTA!!!

He was so excited to open it and read what Santa had to say. I know what I'm journaling about today but you won't be able to see it until tomorrow!

It's Back to School Time!

Darren finally broke his fever last night but was seen by his pediatrician anyhow. All is good except for a lingering cough so it's back to school tomorrow for him after missing an entire WEEK!

I'll finally be able to get back into my normal routine as well. I'm going to try to run on the treadmill tomorrow to test out my calf. Wish me luck!

Here are the past 3 days of my December Daily. I am really enjoying this process and am really trying to focus on telling my story through my journaling rather than the photo.

 

 

I still need to add my journaling  for day 8 but I'm going to add in a small page for it.

Oh, and I picked this up today with Ginger:

 

and yeah, she got one too!

Squeeeeee!!!

Sick Day #5 and Counting!

My poor little guy is STILL sick! If he continues with his fever tomorrow he'll be seeing his pediatrician. He is being a trooper though. The kid has been overdosing on Sponge Bob SquarePants and iCarly episodes as well as taking advantage of the freedom to drink as much Sprite as he wants. I love how he looks on the bright side of things!

So here is the reason for my getting behind in my December Daily journal:

 

Different variations of this snow globe are everywhere on craft blogs thanks to Holly Hanks' idea that has spread like the flu! It was totally fun to make and it's happily displayed at the entrance to our house.

Here are my December Daily pages 4 & 5. I'm currently working on yesterday and today's pages.

 

I am so anxious to get back to running because my half marathon is exactly 2 months from today. Ack! I pulled a calf muscle running up 2 1/2 miles of hills {see Dec. Daily page 5}so I guess Darren's illness couldn't be better timed. We're both out for the count for now...here's hoping for a healthier day tomorrow!

One Happy Gal!

Despite the fact that Darren is STILL sick with a fever, Bruce is working tonight and I'm cooking dinner as we speak, I couldn't have had a better birthday! Hubby scored MAJOR bonus points with this:

I am the soon-to-be proud owner of a new iPhone 3G!!! Woo-hoo!!! The gift card was inside of the card and when I saw it I was so confused. I thought hubby had bought me a gift card to the Apple store so that I could buy accessories or something.

I was like, "Huh?"

Poor Bruce had to explain that the card was for the iPhone 3G. He said he was tired of hearing me complain about how slow my 1st generation iPhone is and how great it would be to have video and photo zoom features as well as faster internet loading. Guess all that complaining paid off!

On a totally unrelated note, I am now 3 days {argh!} behind on my December daily journal because I've been tending to a sick child and working on a little holiday project that I'll post a picture of tomorrow.

I can't wait to pick up my new phone!!!