Project Life : Week 27/28

I love this picture from when we were in Colorado. Love Love Love. I have been wanting to make a page with a huge blown up picture ever since the first time I saw Elise do it. But I never seem to have the right pictures to do it. Since I already knew I wasn't going to include very many pictures in this layout, I found a favorite that just says "Colorado" to me and I blew it up to 12x12!



I added the Colorado text and the dates in photoshop prior to ordering. The right side just includes a few high-light pictures. I also included the two pictures that we had taken on outings (the Royal Gorge Railroad and the Denver Aquarium). Copyright laws being what they are, I wouldn't be able to include those in my Colorado Blurb book. Rather than take the chance of it causing an issue, I just included them here.

Project Life posts will probably be happening on Sunday from now on. It is just easier to get good pictures of my layouts on the weekend than it is during the week. Particularly as the sun starts setting earlier and sometimes I'm barely home from work before it is getting dark!

I love Blurb Books

I really love Blurb books. They are pretty and nice and so easy to make. I've made 4 books...I think. Well, I made 3 different versions of a 2012 book (changed out a few pictures based on who the book was for). I made my December Daily album for 2012 as a Blurb book, and I'm planning to do the same this year. I also just finished, but haven't ordered yet, a book about our Family Vacation to Colorado this summer. Here are a few of my favorite pages:



The front & back cover (well, the back & front cover). I love these two pictures. I have no clue where in Kansas we were what I got that one of the sun, but it is beautiful. The front cover was our view off one of the decks of the "cabin" we stayed at near Black Hawk, CO.



We spent the first few days in Colorado Springs. We were VERY busy for those few days - Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge Railroad, driving up Pike's Peak, and visiting the North Pole theme park. Lots of fun.



Once we got to Black Hawk we slowed down...a lot. I realized after I did the screen shot here that I put Blackhawk instead of Black Hawk, so I'll need to fix that before I order. Claire got sick on the way to Black Hawk so I ended up spending a lot of time dealing with that, including an hour+ drive to Lakewood to the ER - you know you aren't having a good vacation until you have to go to the ER! My brother had also brought a very lovely cold with us to Colorado, which after spending 2 days with 8 people in 2 hotel rooms or cars, we had all managed to share in his misery.



Obligatory visit to Rocky Mountain National Park! We did just a little hiking, not much because of the sick preschooler and the not much better pregnant lady (I was about 2.5 months pregnant at the time). Also, pregnant + twisty curvy roads + worrying about a throwing up child = LOTS of fun! We actually did have fun, I just like to complain. And isn't that waterfall/cascade thingy pretty!



Once Claire got to feeling better, we spent a day in Denver. We went to the Denver Aquarium which was pretty nice. Then most of the family went to Chipotle for lunch while Claire, Grandma & I went to the Denver Children's Museum which Claire thought was the most amazing thing EVER and would have seriously stayed there all day long if we would've let her! Later that day, we were all sitting around the cabin bored (probably watching HGTV), the closest park with hiking trails was Golden Canyon State Park, so I convinced everyone to load into my Dad's truck and we made the short drive to the trailhead and hiked part of the way up a hill before admitting defeat (for the sickly ones) and walking back down.

I may go back and make more pages. This one is actually 20 pages long right now, I just didn't share all of the pages. But I know there are other good pictures of some of these events that I might want to include. Particularly since this is pretty much the only way any of the 508 pictures that I took are actually being printed! Well, I suppose my mom & my sister-in-law might print some of them for their own projects, but still 508 pictures taken and only 52 are actually being used. Good thing I didn't waste any film! :)

* I have no affiliation with Blurb books (although if they want to, you know, that would be cool!), I just really like their books.

Vacation Day 3

Today we made the almost hour long drive to Powell Gardens on the other side of Kansas City from where we live. Then we went to a movie - Madagascar 3 - back on this side of Kansas City.

Powell Gardens

7 years ago this November, Justin and I got married in the chapel at Powell Gardens. It is a gorgeous chapel. I went there a couple of times when we were preparing for the wedding but I haven't actually been there since getting married. Today was the first day of their Butterfly Festival and they have Fairy Houses and Forts built around the gardens. This activity had potential to be a lot of fun, but then Claire decided her favorite word today was NO and that if something wasn't going her way (which was everything) she was going to scream about it. In general, that is not fun, it's even less fun when you're struggling with her out in the 85-ish degree humid heat. Also, Claire has a bit of love/hate feelings about butterflies, she LOVES to look at pictures of them, but show her the real thing and she flips out. This is actually kind of new because at the beginning of the summer there were a couple of butterflies that she would chase around the side of the house. Anyways, it was kind of fun, but it was hot and I had a screaming toddler with me (sorry everyone else). Within 5 minutes of getting in the car to drive back home she was sound asleep. I ended up sending Anaya into a Subway to buy us lunch because I wasn't about to wake Claire up.

Madagascar 3

I let Anaya choose which movie to see between Madagascar 3 and Ice Age: Continental Drift. We ended up at Madagascar 3 which was good. I think as a whole that series is easier for a toddler to understand than Ice Age. Claire kept wanting to talk during the movie and not in a whisper. But she was in a better mood for the most part. And she ate most of a movie theater bag of M&M's because she missed lunch since she slept from just after noon until 1:15pm while we were driving.

At Home

We spent the rest of the day at home. We watched one of the other Ice Age movies and played with Barbies. We ate dinner (pancakes, cantaloupe, fake sausage). Then I collapsed on the couch and Anaya played on the computer and Claire played on the iPad. I eventually dragged the kids outside again by giving them ice cream. Then we sat on the driveway and attempted to get Claire to play with the Cicada shells. And after Claire went to bed and I finally cleaned up the kitchen, Anaya and I made Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt. It won't be ready to eat until tomorrow but it looks delicious.

I think this is the end of our Kansas City Vacation 2012. I don't have anything planned for tomorrow and I'm not really planning to plan anything.

Vacation Day 2

Today was a lazy day. In fact, I left the house once for about an hour and Claire didn't leave the house at all.

Disney & Donuts

We started out the day laying around in my bed watching the Disney Channel and eating donuts until 10am. Did I mention that we were lazy? Then I made Anaya start her chores and I did a few things that aren't her chores and needed to be done.

Pedicures

Around 11:15am, Anaya and I headed out to get pedicures. I usually get one or two during the summer and Anaya has been asking me to take her with me because her mom hasn't been taking her recently (probably because it is freaking EXPENSIVE, I think my normal place has raised the price since May). But now my feet are all nice and soft and our toes have pretty little flowers painted on them. And sometimes you just need something pretty.

Homemade Ice Cream

Before my mom left for her trip that caused this little Kansas City vacation, I borrowed her ice cream maker. After sending Justin to the store for the 2 ingredients that I was missing, Clarie & I made Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream. It is so delicious. We made it about 3pm and by 7:30pm when we were eating it, it was still pretty runny. Hopefully it continues to solidify tonight/tomorrow. I think it probably needed to stay in the ice cream maker a little longer, but we had some issues and it stopped for some unexplained reason. But it's still delicious, it's just more like soft-serve ice cream which isn't entirely a bad thing.

Shopping

Anaya went birthday shopping with Aunt Kimbi. It sounds like they had fun. I stayed home with Claire and made ice cream and watched...something? I can't even remember what I did for the 2 hours that Anaya was gone. Except lay on the couch.

Vacation Day 1

We're having a Kansas City Vacation. Except it's even better because we get to sleep in our own beds at night and when we all get on each others' nerves we can go to our separate spaces.

Day 1 was Crown Center & Union Station. We had fun. But it was exhausting.

Science City at Union Station

Claire may be a little young for Science City. Definitely something I will have to remember for when she's a little older. I think some 3 yr olds would be fine with it, but not mine. Anaya liked pretty much everything, I think if we didn't have Claire with us, we probably would've stayed longer, but she was done and Anaya had seen everything even if we hadn't spent quite as long as she would've liked at some of the stations. I think Claire's favorite thing was this spinning table in the Astronaut zone. I really thought she would like the water table, but we could barely get her to look at it. It took us about 2 hours to see everything and if I hadn't already decided we were going to do a lot more, we probably could've been done downtown after that.

Crown Center

Since Megan at The Nerd Nest always talks about d'Bronx pizza and we don't have one near our house, I decided to take the opportunity of being at Crown Center to give it a try and it was MUCH cheaper than Crayola Cafe which is where Anaya wanted to go. (She ended up being happy with my decision and has declared d'Bronx her favorite pizza place.) Since we're being vegetarians for the week, I ordered a tomato, onion and green pepper slice (half of which I removed so Claire would eat it) and Anaya ordered green pepper and jalapeno. Then we went down the hall to their free Dinosaur exhibit. It was nicer than some of the other free children's exhibits they have had down there.

Kaleidoscope

Anaya specifically requested that we go to Kaleidoscope this summer. I have to tell you though...I kind of hate that place. And Claire seems to agree with me. But Anaya LOVES it so I managed Claire while Anaya ran around and made a ton of crafts from leftovers from Hallmark. I actually like the IDEA of Kaleidoscope, but in reality it's just too loud and busy and Claire was just not interested to the point that I was picking her up off the floor from a screaming and kicking tantrum TWICE. I could understand her frustration but she wasn't understanding the concept of just deal for 20 minutes and then we'll do something you'll enjoy. Anaya left with a bag full of crafts and Claire had a bag with a fish she colored, a piece of paper with Chipette stickers on it and a 2 black light drawings that I mostly did.

SeaLife Aquarium

What Claire was wanting to do when we were in Kaleidoscope was go to the Aquarium. We got season passes back in April and this is the fourth time that Claire has been there. She saw it earlier when we were eating and all she wanted to do was go see the fishies already. She was making fish faces at me and saying "please" and she just wanted to see the fish. Anaya did not want to see the fish, but Claire dealt with Kaleidoscope so it was Anaya's turn to deal with Claire's favorite activity. We flew through there in less than 45 minutes. (And I took only 19 pictures. I mean, it is our FOURTH time there, how many pictures of fish does one really NEED and we'd already been doing STUFF for 5 hours at that point - I was done.) Claire knew what she wanted to see and where everything was and would stop when she wanted to look but otherwise just kept right on going. Then we had to get cookies at Panera because that's what you DO after going to the Aquarium according to Claire.

So, I just realized as I was looking through my pictures for this post that I had left my camera on the P setting most of the day which lets it pick the Aperture and Shutter Speed and I really should've had it on Shutter Speed Priority because I have lots of pictures where Claire is doing things and her hands are blurs.