mikey is three!!!

my sister designed mikey's birthday invitation. it was awesome. we said, "whoa!"

sunday night was family night with garrett's family. we celebrated mikey's birthday then. 

mckay and sindi gave mikey this jake and the neverland pirates treasure chest complete with a sword. he now insists on wearing pants with belt loops. 

tuesday nana took mikey to build a bear, as she does with the grandkids on their 3rd birthday. what a special tradition!

mikey was a little overwhelmed at everything in the store. he fixated on ivor's backpack... until he woke up from his nap and then he fully appreciated ivor. [ivor is the baby's name on henry hugglemonster... one of mikey's new favorite shows. also, where we got any form of hugglemonster nicknames for henry!]

 mikey started preschool last week - before he was even 3! - and this is his teacher giving him a lil' present and singing happy birthday to him. 

grandpa was able to go read a book to the kids on mikey's birthday, too. what a special treat for me, him and mikey. 

 we had mikey's wall*e birthday party last night. grandparents and a few aunts and cousins came. it was fun. 

 mikey got a few REALLY cool airplanes! he is in hog's heaven!!!

 cars cookie cutters!!!  like we need another excuse to have more treats. as i'm typing this, garrett is making the dough! mikey is running around with a balloon in hand squealing in excitement about making cars cookies.

 this airplane came from auntie tiff and crew - its amazing. mikey built the airplane and can take it apart and build it again to his little boy's heart's content. it is seriously awesome! thanks, auntie tiff!

 we made cupcakes [complete with green plants a la my amazing & talented mother] in a cup. courtesy of buy-n-large. 

 the big boy blowing out his candle. you can also see a fairly decent shot of his wall*e t-shirt that we made. this will be a part of our family themed hallloween costumes, too. more on that later. 

auntie heidi gave mikey some water color and finger paints. with special papers. when he opened it last night, i said, "we'll do that tomorrow!" and this morning when we woke up, he had an agenda. we got down to business painting. we might be painting every day for the next while - maybe until we run out of paper or paint. another awesome present.

we didn't even give mikey his big present yet. cause we forgot until everyone was leaving and it was way past his bedtime. its a bike. and since we didn't want to torture the poor kid, we're waiting until tonight when garrett is done with work to give it to him. when they can go outside and play with it for a while. 

i love being his mom. he's a special kid. i am in awe at how fast he's growing up, too.

project life sales pitch :)

here's what you need to know about me, first and foremost: i'm not crafty. i'm definitely not a scrapbooker. and yet, my husband knows that if our house is on fire, he is to get mikey and these project life books out before anything else. my sister introduced me to becky higgins a few years ago when she was doing her first round of project life [back then it was still project 365, right hojo?] i was in awe, impressed and kept thinking - if i ever get married, i want to do that! then i got married & even got myself a baby... i blogged about our first year of marriage pretty thoroughly, but didn't start project life... decided when i got pregnant that i was going to do a book for my baby's first year. [when mikey was born, there was only the cherry edition offered] even started a new blog to help me keep up with journaling. [highly recommend that, i know from holly's experience that getting behind was a b!tch... my getting behind was only ever just needed to get pictures printed, getting the journaling actually printed onto the journaling cards - but it was done from the blog...] ok. so mikey's first year was up. i took a little bit of a break & decided to do 2012 on shutterfly, using the clementine edition. honestly, the biggest set back for me was using the digital elements at first. i had to get used to it, i had to build my confidence and patience, and then the other thing was just not having the actual book in my hands as i went. that is a huge plus for the paper. even though with the digital, i could flip through the book online, i wanted it in my hands. oh well, i survived. and now, i've just purchased the baby edition for him paper style & am dying with how cute it is. seriously, i'm overwhelmed with putting it all together because there is so much and it is so dang cute. and then i decided that i also wanted to do a family 2013 book. i'm doing a digital layout that i'll get printed and put into 12x12 pages and put in protectors and in a binder. i'm dying with excitement overall about doing this. so maybe i'm more of a documentor than scrapbooker...  i have to admit i like the creativity that is involved, even if my style isn't super specialized or developed. ok. on to the pictures:

cover:

 back:

thickness: 

 size comparison to mikey's baby book:

 and thickness:

 just some of my layouts. i designed these, using the elements on shutterfly.

 every single page is personalized... so it is all my style. 

every layout was a 2 week spread 

 there is plenty of journaling in here.

some of these pictures make my heart melt 

while 95% done on instagram, i did insert a few pages throughout the year with real camera pictures, typically special events... or photo shoots with hojo. 

 introducing the baby's book. this is just the title page & it makes me squeal. 

can't wait to fill these pages out & get some pictures put in there. oh dear! 

 seriously, the book is to die for cute.

when mikey saw me with the real camera out, he said, "take pictures of me? i cute!" i had to oblige. 

i am so thrilled tonight with this book. and excited about the baby's new book. and our family book this year. and the new baby coming. LIFE IS GOOD. document it!

"announcements, invitations & cards"

let me introduce you to my latest stroke of genius. yes, i'm tooting my own horn today, because i'm thrilled with what i just put together. my sister, holly, deserves a lot of credit for this idea - she kind of planted the idea in my head a long time ago & it has been brewing and she has done most of the work in this album, from photography to design.  i tell you - you don't need to be talented, you just need a talented sister! i welcome you to a mini-portfolio for hojo: 

i've saved copies of all of our christmas cards and other announcements. holly told me i should a long time ago, like when she designed mikey's birth announcement... so i finally decided to go get a little photo album at the target, and then i designed this title page with the help of aimee's generosity of freebies on her blog. then i just put things in chronological order and here we go...

 i love it. love. love. love.

 i took quick photos with my phone, so these are not the best quality pictures...

 i know you're jealous you didn't come up with this idea...

 i'm just excited that i've got all of these things still. now i just have to maintain upkeep.

 i've already got this year's christmas card across from the mickey invite, but since they're not out in the mail yet, you don't get to see that!!! i'm so tricky!

as holly said, "i love memory keeping!" it is true, i agree with her. 

the last 2 months in photos - not in order

 watching jake on my phone.

 playing outside during a november snowstorm

 snuggling dada

 mama likey the "fidge" as mikey calls it. he likes it too. 

 now, it is on the ipad. we might change his name to ted. 

 heather's, holly's and mine @ st. george temple

 thanksgiving afternoon during a rough game of hide and seek, hayden came down bleeding from the head. 

 i adore hannah. she's a lovely, sweet, beautiful teenager - a rare treat in my opinion. and not just because she was rubbing my feet. 

 me at 32 weeks preggers (yesterday), desperately searching for an outfit to wear to church. i texted this to holly for permission. i wore it, so don't tell me if it didn't work. 

 mckay and sindi got married at the beginning of november. 

 halloween - it was a lovely day.

 one sunday afternoon i think in october, we went to a park. it was a nice day.

 my mom, sisters and the ladies from "our best bites" during time out for women, our little over night/weekend away/ to celebrate my mom's birthday. it was so much fun to be with the sisters and parental unit.

mikey wanted to wear his costume over to show grandpa right before halloween.