it is all about simplifying for me. so i decided to simplify my blog. to refine it a bit. to polish it up. and to change over to using my name. so now i will blog at www.tracy-larsen.com/blog. i will continue to tell my stories and share my photos. i will be more of me. and i will share it all.

please click over to my new blog and tell me what you think.

and don’t forget to subscribe by rss feed or subscribe to receive email updates since i won’t be posting on this blog anymore.

one last photo to say thank you to this blog for all the love. my quinn, almost 5 years old…

who doesn’t love a summer 4th of july celebration? this year it was just about the simple things.

we took the boys swimming in the pool. and we ate some traditional summer food… turkey burgers, hot dogs, my mom’s potato salad (my absolute favorite), baked beans and corn on the cob. and we watched fireworks. the boys did not like the loud noise that accompanied the beautiful colors that lit up the sky that we could see in every direction as we sat in my parent’s backyard. but i enjoyed watching them with my mom and my grandma while mark went inside with quinn and tate.

it was a day well spent…

see what red, white and blue looks like for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Michelle, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Jessica, Amanda, Amanda, Sara, Lesli, Janet, Naomi, Rhonda, Rose, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Amy, Liza, Veronica, Jean  and Kristi.

i read this blog post from angie. and i was inspired by her honest writing and encouragement to get on the other side of the camera. i have been where she is. and i often still feel that way. not good enough. not thin enough. not pretty enough. not comfortable in front of the camera. so i have very few photos with my boys. but after reading angie’s words and seeing the photos of her with her baby girl quinn (yes, same name as my quinn!) i was ready to do something more than just wish and dream about having some precious images of me and my boys.

so i emailed ali. she is my friend + photography mentor. we met through a mutual friend just after i bought my first dslr camera and she selflessly shared all that she could to help me become a photographer. i am so very grateful to her for all that she has given to me. so lucky am i to have such a friend.

ali and i excitedly agreed to photograph each other with our kids. just a mom + kid shoot. casual. fun. no rules. in the heat of florida in the summer. with a few cooperative kids. and some not so much. two photographer moms and five kids. we made it happen. and had a bit of fun in the process.

ali has done so much for me. it is so heartwarming to finally be able to give back to her. here are some of my very favorite shots of ali with her jake, cami and reese…

jake is now taller than his mom, so he made her take off her {cute} shoes to prove it. and a silly little 5 year old couldn’t help but pop into the photo.  reese’s silly faces made their way into more than one photo. heading off to get some well-deserved frozen yogurt after indulging mom in her photo time…

ali has blogged photos me and my boys, so be sure to go here to check them out. she is such an amazing photographer – and friend!

check out the lighting experimentation for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Michelle, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Jessica, Amanda, Amanda, Sara, Lesli, Janet, Naomi, Rhonda, Rose, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Amy, Liza, Veronica, Jean  and Kristi.

see what swing looks like for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Michelle, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Jessica, Amanda, Amanda, Sara, Lesli, Janet, Naomi, Rhonda, Rose, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Amy, Liza, Veronica, Jean  and Kristi.

so today i wanted to get back to my photography. and post a few images from our father’s day. it included family, swimming + ice cream cake.

and a little something i helped quinn make for mark – inspired by pinterest…

i finally did it. i have a book of my photos printed and in my hands!

back in december, i committed to doing picture the holidays with paper coterie. it was a picture a day project. one holiday photo prompt emailed to me every day in december and one photo taken by me.

i found the time to take these photos everyday during the busy holiday season, but for some crazy reason i just could not get it together to create and order my photo book.

until now.

i have been on this kick of getting things done lately. more specifically, getting photos done. and edited. and put into books. and ordered. so i dropped my photos into the picture the holidays photo book template from paper coterie and ordered it last week.

and this little beauty just arrived…

{the cover image was the very first image i shot for this project and it is one of my most favorites.}

it is an 8 x 8  hard cover photo book containing my very own images printed on the pages! they are not my very best photos, but they are mine. and there is just something so sweet about seeing them on paper. bound in a book. knowing that i created them all with my imagination and a camera.

better late than never, right?

and only he could build a little x-wing star fighter lego ship from scratch for quinn’s show and tell for the letter x. he made one little boy so very happy.

see what father looks like for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Michelle, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Jessica, Amanda, Amanda, Sara, Lesli, Janet, Naomi, Rhonda, Rose, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Amy, Liza, Veronica, Jean  and Kristi.

i’m working on week 23 of project life right now. i’m almost half way through the year and i’ve kept up with this family journal. i can’t really believe i’ve done it. i am definitely in a good groove with my process. it has become an easy part of my everyday. taking photos + writing down bits and pieces of our life.

truth time. i have not been on top of project life every single week with printing photos and journaling cards. i do not always have completed weeks done “on time”. but i have kept up with what i do every week so that when i sit down to work on project life, i can easily put together what i need to get caught up. some weeks i keep up fine. and then there are times that i have about three weeks to get done. but i make it work. and i don’t get frustrated. i just make sure that i am taking pictures every week with either my big camera or more often, with my iphone. (oh how i am drooling over the new iphone 4s camera!) i also make sure that i am writing a few things each day in my day one journal app on my computer. then i have everything i need to put it all together when i have some time.

i am taking to heart that the premise of project life – that it is an easy and simple way of documenting our life. i do not over complicate things. i do not worry about getting super crafty. for me the focus is on the photos and the stories. that is it. and that is enough. that is exactly what i want to have in our family journal.

so here is how i approach project life each week and how i make it work for me:

• prepare. i took time before i started project life to set myself up so that i could keep up with this throughout the year.
• i decided that my weeks will be monday through sunday so that i get a complete weekend in. i use the calendar program on my mac (ical) for everything going on in my life – family to-dos, appointments, projects, dinner, etc.  so i set it up for the entire year to show which week i am in on every monday. (it will say project life week 23.) this makes it easy to see at a glance where i am – especially on the weeks i am behind.
• i take photos with my big camera and my iphone and i import them using lightroom. i name the files with the date they were taken and the sequence number. (it will save as may 11, 2012-102.nef – i shoot in raw with a nikon so it is a .nef file.) this is so helpful because i always know which week the photos belong in. i also keep all of my photo files in chronological order. everything is kept by month and year.
• i use the dropbox app to transfer my photos from my iphone to my computer. i set up files in dropbox on my computer for each week (pl week 21, pl week 22, etc.) so all i have to do is pick the photos, pick the file and upload them right to my computer. (cathy zielske has a great video tutorial about using dropbox here.) i still use lightroom to import all of my iphone photos each month. but i use dropbox for the iphone photos i process with instagram and plan on using in project life. the best of the best if you will. a quick + easy way to have access to the instagram photos i use each week in project life. i don’t process every single iphone photo i take. but i keep them all because i will be using some of them in our yearly family photo book.
• i am keeping on top of editing my photos so they are ready for me to order and print when i need them. i am not overshooting and taking a million pictures. i can tell a story in just one photo. less to edit means less work in general. that’s a good thing.
• i still use and love the day one app on my mac. i have it set to pop-up a little box on my computer screen each day to remind me to write down a few things from the day. this is probably the one most important thing that has helped me stay on top of my journaling. once i write it down, i just go back to the day one calender journal and copy + paste onto my week in review jouranling cards or smaller 3×4 jouranling cards. now come on, who doesn’t have 2 minutes to jot down a quick note from the day or a silly story?
• if something funny or memorable happens while i’m away from home, i send myself an email about it and add it to my day one journal later.

by keeping on top of taking pictures and writing down life everyday , i have everything i need to make project life pages when i have the time to sit down and work on it. i just pick the pictures and order them online from my local sam’s club. (i have considered using an online lab like persnickety prints, but i just can’t wait to get the photos when i place my order. i’m way too impatient.)

right now i’m about two weeks behind in printing. i’m not worried or stressed. i’ll just take some time to pick my weekly pictures and put together the journaling cards and i’ll be caught up.

here are my project life pages from april:

week 14 included a picture quinn drew of “the whole family”. i just scanned his drawing, re-sized it to fit in the 4×6 pocket and added some words about the drawing on the bottom. there is also a screen shot from my iphone of the running program we did this week, some instagram pictures of our run, tate’s messy face after eating chocolate and some other photos from our week.

it was also easter week and full of fun activities for the boys. we painted easter eggs, went to a local easter egg hunt and had easter lunch with my family.

i found the cute “happy easter” printable sign on pinterest so i just re-sized it to fit in the 3×4 pocket and printed it. (all of the 3×4 cards that have quotes i found on pinterest. you can follow me on pinterest to find these printables and more.) i am still using these great free templates from paislee press to make small photo collages onto 4×6 pictures.

i took lots of photos this week so i included an extra 6×12 photo page insert that holds six more photos.

here is the right side of the album with the extra insert flipped over to reveal more easter photos.

week 15 included pictures from our family trip to the beach and a little road trip to meet kelle hampton. i captured a screen shot of kelle’s blog that had a photo of me and the boys meeting her at her book signing and i printed some words on the bottom of the photo to explain what it was. i love the photo of quinn hugging tate. now that quinn knows that the pictures i take will end up printed in our family project life album, he asks me to take their picture.

this week also includes lots of instagram pictures, my sausage soup recipe with a few pictures and a fun blurb about how quinn likes to steal paper from our printer to draw on.

week 16 included pictures of tate’s little arm with a bandaid where he got his 2 year old shots, mark’s real estate license that arrived in the mail and mark and quinn on the couch.

i included an instagram picture of quinn eating his new favorite treat and a little story about how the boys are really starting to play together now.

this week also included some scanned sports drawings that quinn made with markers and stickers, a note from mark and some photos from our everyday life.

week 17 was the week i did ali edwards‘ week in the life project. i documented everyday for seven days with my camera. so i decided to keep it super simple for project life this week. i included my very favorite photos, our week in review journaling card and a 3×4 journaling card printed with a free word art from ali edwards (even though it says “one little week” instead of “a week in the life” i still love the simplicity.)

the only other journaling card i included listed all of the new words that tate has started to say. his vocabulary has exploded this week and i wanted to record that in project life.

i am still working on putting together our week in the life photo book. it is coming along a bit slow, but i am making progress. i will share the printed book when i get it done.

are you documenting your world with project life? please share it with me! i love to see how other people design their own life memories.