FINALLY our summer is here! Today is our last day of school and I’m thrilled beyond belief! I picked the kids up, we’re home, and now the fun can begin.

This last month and a half have been crazy busy! During that time I’ve neglected my little space here, and I feel terrible about that. But lately, life has been list after list. Gifts for this person or that, planning Adam’s early birthday party, packing camp bags, and making endless trips to Target. Fortunately, it’s all coming to an end very soon.

The camp bags are being picked up next Monday! Then on Tuesday we’re flying to my parents in Missouri for one night, then all seven of us are headed to Vancouver! We’ll be in Vancouver for a few days, then we’ll board our ship for an Alaskan cruise. Ross’s mom and step dad are cruising with us too. I’m super excited to be traveling with Ross, the kids, and all their grandparents. It’s the perfect way to celebrate turning 40!

Yep, that’s right. On Father’s Day (which I’m moving to Monday because I’d like to have my own day) I turn 40!! This trip and being surrounded by the people I love is the perfect way to spend my day. I would love to be bringing along all my loved ones, but this will be good. I have some thoughts about turning 40, but that’s another post.

I’ve just started reading Susannah Conway‘s new book This I Know Notes on Unraveling the Heart. I’m looking forward to sinking further into this book in the coming weeks. It’s beautifully written and has beautiful photos. It feels like talking with a good friend and hearing her perspective on grief and loss. And though I’m not currently grieving the loss of a loved one (knock on wood) it’s entirely relatable because we all have experiences with loss and change in our lives. It’s a lovely book that I’m looking forward to finishing.

It is my goal to post some photos while we’re away on our trip. I also realize that traveling can be a bit hectic and that shipboard internet service is less than stellar. We’ll see how it goes.

I hope your summer is off to a great start with lots of fun things planned.

This week has gone by so fast! I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Bring on the weekend.

Documenting last week for my Week in the Life project was a BIG undertaking. I loved it, but I noticed myself needing to take a break and switch gears this week. I took A LOT less photos this week. I haven’t really journaled a thing and it’s just what I needed.

I started to work on getting some of my photos from last week into the Ali Edwards 8.5 x 11 templates. I even printed the title page here at home, but I don’t love the coloring in my printer’s output for these big photos. So I’ve decided to upload all those 8.5 x 11 pages to Persnickety Prints for printing. My printer works well for printing smaller photos (perfect for Project Life), but my printer and I often don’t get along when it comes to printing pages with text. I am not in the mood for a fight, so this will be much easier. Also, Persnickety is having a sale on photo printing right now in honor of National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday. The sale begins today and runs through Sunday. I don’t want to miss out on that deal!

I also found myself wanting to begin a new project this week. I was definitely wanting to work on something completely different…so I did a little prep work for a project that I’ll be sharing soon. I’m glad I took the time to cut some card stock, choose some patterned papers, and edit and upload some photos for printing for this next little project. But I also promised myself that’s all I’d do on that project until my Week in the Life album is complete. I do not want to put off getting that album together.

There are lots of ideas/projects percolating in my mind right now. So many projects, so little time…ya know? And summer’s coming! With summer on the horizon I feel a little (ok, a lot) more pressure to wrap up these ideas before the kids are out of school and our travels begin. Summer always means a lot of travel for us…so much fun!

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m in the midst of working on Week in the Life, and I’ll be sure to post my progress and the final product soon!

Happy Friday!

Jennifer

This week went by so quickly! I realized as I was documenting this week how much sameness happens in our life each day. But Sunday morning I also realized how much things can change in just a few days. This was the nest photo I posted on Thursday. I was so excited to find these beautiful little eggs!

Yesterday I decided to check on the eggs. Look what I found!

I was beyond excited to see these precious baby birds! So were the kids. And of course since there were three eggs, and we have have three children, each bird has been given a name. So sweet!

These little birds were the excitement of my Sunday morning. And Sunday ended up being a very busy day, like Saturday. Unfortunately we still had lots of rain to deal with, so there was no time outside like I’d hoped for earlier in the week.

The kids had a difficult time waking up. There were lots of complaints about having to go to religious school. While the kids were gone I had a chance to watch the first video presentation of Ali Edwards’ 31 Things workshop at Big Picture Classes.

In the afternoon I took the girls to see the middle school musical at our school. Adam and Ross went go-kart racing. Lately, Adam’s been super fascinated about the idea of scratch off lottery tickets (and the possibility of winning!), so he came home with a few of those. I think he’s cured of that because he didn’t win a thing.

In the evening Ross and I met his brother and sister-in-law for dinner. With all this stuff going on I didn’t take that many pictures. I ended up with about 30 photos for Sunday.

I mentioned earlier in the week that I decided at the last minute to participate in this project. That means I haven’t done a single thing to get my album in order. I haven’t thought too much about what the end result should look like or how I’ll go about putting it all together. I’m sure I’ll follow along with what Ali Edwards has planned, in some way or another. I love her ideas for her album structure for this year. I purchased her 8.5 x 11 templates (from Designer Digitals), so I know I’ll be using those. I’m just not sure about the overlays and divided pocket pages. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m so grateful for the community Ali’s helped to create around this project. It’s been wonderful to peek into other people’s lives and see how they’re documenting their week. My follow through with projects can sometimes be hit or miss, so I’m aiming to get this album done quickly and share it here. It will be such an accomplishment to have my week completed.

Here’s a look at the rest of our Sunday:

That’s it for Sunday. Here’s a look back at the week all in one place:

Week in the Life | Day 1

Week in the Life | Day 2

Week in the Life | Day 3

Week in the Life | Day 4

Week in the Life | Day 5

Week in the Life | Day 6

You can read more about Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project here.  Thanks so much for stopping by. Happy Monday!

Jennifer

Ahhhh! The weekend is here. There something to be said for the regular routine of our weekdays, but boy do I love the weekends! Saturday is always a day for waking up naturally, no alarms for anyone. Yesterday I woke up to the sound of driving rain hitting the window, which made it pretty tough to climb out of bed.

We were all over the place yesterday. Adam had a flag football game, which we weren’t sure would happen or not until the last minute. Mara had a birthday party at a friend’s house, and Lauren had lots of homework to catch up on since she missed three days of school this week. Usually our Saturdays aren’t this busy. Fortunately we had some time before our day really had to get started.

With everything we had going on, I ended up with about 60 photos for the day. I used my iPhone camera more today (I didn’t want to lug my big camera around in the rain) so some of the photos are not the best quality. Here’s a look at our Saturday:

You can read more about Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project here. I’m so excited to have made it this far into this very in depth look at our week. Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a peek into our life. I hope you’ll come back again soon.

Jennifer

I’m excited to have completed my first five days of Week in the Life! I decided at the last minute (because Ali Edwards’ thoughts and photos are very persuasive!) to participate in this project. I just printed my daily sheets last Sunday and I was on my way on Monday morning, not fulling knowing what I was getting myself into. I’m so glad I decided to do this. I’ve enjoyed the process so much!

I love all the extra picture taking.

I love that I’m getting those “in the moment” photos.

I love that I’m setting up photos I’d normally never take.

I love that I took the time to take pretty detailed notes about the happenings in our daily life.

I love that my children are really starting to understand I don’t want them to stop what they’re doing and “smile for the camera.”

I love that I learned that all five of us really enjoy our home and just being here, together.

The one thing that really stood out to me as I was looking at the photos for Friday is that we are not a super active family. Yes, the kids have their after school activities, but really we enjoy laying around the house. Ross definitely has “his spot” on the sofa and Adam definitely has “his chair.” We are not constantly searching for that next activity outside our house as something to do. I love that.

I ended up with around 40 photos for yesterday. Here’s a look at our Friday:

You can read more about Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project here.

No matter if it ‘s your first time here or you stop by all the time, WELCOME! I really appreciate all the comments this week. I’ve enjoyed connecting with you all. Thanks for stopping by.

Jennifer

I can’t believe how fast this week is moving along. Yesterday I was able to get about 70 photos and I did a good job of keeping up with journaling throughout the day.

I noticed a couple of things yesterday. One is that technology and its gadgets play a big role in our lives! I’m not sure if that’s bad or good…I do make sure the kids get outside each day. I’m definitely hoping for more outside time this weekend.

The second thing I noticed is how I’m struggling a bit to record the words that I’m hearing in the background. I’ve recorded a couple of conversations that have included me, but I haven’t done a very good job at noticing the conversations/arguments that are going on around me. I’m going to continue to work on this during these last few days of this week.

Here’s a look at our Thrusday:

You can read more about Ali Edwars’ Week in the Life project here. If this is your first time visiting my blog, WELCOME! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Jennifer

Wednesday was anything but typical around here. Lauren woke me at 5:30 saying she didn’t feel well. It only got worse from there. Poor thing. She was finally able to get back to sleep around 9:30, but having a sick child at home definitely shakes things up a bit.

I was still able to keep up with the journaling and recording part of this project, but I definitely had fewer photos for day 3. I think I ended up with around 70 photos…definitely still more than enough to work with. I went all out on Monday and Tuesday capturing our routine, and yesterday I found myself struggling to get “original” content that I hadn’t already photographed. I’m grateful for Ali Edwards’ thoughts on this in her post today where she points out the repetition of the things we do in our day to day life.

Noticing the repetition of our same daily activities made me think more about what I want/don’t want  to include as I continue to document this week. At first I wasn’t so sure abut having photos of the same things. But I think that’s what this week is all about, documenting our lives as they are, and our family (like most families) has definite routines set in place.

Some of the photos I saved from Wednesday are not great. Some are from Ross’s phone (I’m so thankful he’s part of this!), some are blurry and some are way off color, but I’m keeping them anyway. I like the photos and I’m willing to overlook their quality for this project. Mara has definitely had enough of the camera, and she wasn’t afraid to let me know. I got a lot of resistance from her yesterday, but I’m hoping she’ll be more ok with it the rest of this week.

Here’s a look at Wednesday in the Levin home:

You can read more about Ali Edwards “Week in the Life” project here. That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

I’m in the midst of Day 3 of my “Week in the Life” project, and I have to say, so far so good! I’m excited to be able to say that, too. I was a little nervous about tackling such a detailed and long project like this, but I’m truly enjoying the process.

Yesterday was another very typical day. The children are adjusting nicely to all the extra picture taking going on around them. I’m thankful for that. I ended up with a lot of photos yesterday…over 200. But, thanks to a lot of blurry and off-colored photos,  I was able to weed it down to 124 potentials to use in my album. I ended up with a lot because I decided I wanted to capture bits and pieces of our home (inside and out) in addition to our every day routine. So I’ve been making it a point to capture things and spaces in our home that I know I would never normally photograph. I think as the week goes on I’ll be taking fewer and fewer photos. I love what Ali said today in her Week in the Life Day 2 post about being more intentional with her pictures and thinking more about composition.

Here’s a look at our Tuesday, starting in the morning when one of the children was supposed to be getting ready for school, but instead was caught by the camera.

You can read more about Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life Project here. If this is your first time here, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you’ll stop by again soon.

Jennifer

I love the idea of this project because it gives me a framework to document our life in a way that I probably never would otherwise. This process is about our life but in a very unedited sort of way. It’s our every day life just as it is, right now. Recording life in this way requires more listening. More paying attention. More writing to record the things that are going on and being said. More attention to the tiny details we would normally find boring.

I started off strong yesterday with 152 photos. Many of those were duplicates (why can I not take just one picture of something??), and I was able to eliminate a lot of them. I ended up with 91 photos + a handful of photos from my iPhone to potentially use for day 1. Here are just a few:

I realize that one of my three children is not represented in these photos. I was able to get photos of her, but she’s becoming increasingly “not cool” with being a part of my posts. I’m ok with that.

Overall it was a very normal day for us, except for all the extra picture taking, which the children quickly picked up on. They may not love it now, but I know this Week in the Life album will be super cool to look through in another three or five years.

Jennifer

This month in February:

Our cousin Greg came for a visit.

Greg, Ross, and Adam went to Monster Jam.

The kids were off school for a week for President’s Day.

We drove to Orlando to visit Universal Studios and Disney World.

We rode rides.

Lauren tried on a hat or two.

We laughed a lot.

Greg had to leave us.

Ross and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.

I’ve already uploaded this collage to Persnickety Prints to have it printed in a 12 x 12. I’m very pleased with how my January collage looks and my overall experience with Persnickety Prints. I used them last week to print a collage for my Project Life album, and it looks great too. I’ll definitely keep using them.

I did put my January collage in a frame, but haven’t found a home for it yet. I’m thinking I’m going to wait until I have a few months of collages before I hang them anywhere. I’m really excited about the concept of this. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to look at 12 months of photos all together.

Hugs,

Jennifer