Photo Book

I'd forgotten last year that I blogged about making a photo book. It was a bit of trouble because I ended up trying three different places before settling on one company. After deciding not to hand out the books to the grandparents at his birthday party and instead have the book include photos of this it got back burner-ed (I thought I just made that word up, but spell check put in the hyphen). We ended up not ordering them. Around Thanksgiving blurb.com sent out an email with a 20% off coupon code and free shipping! I'd been on their mailing list for a year and hadn't seen a coupon! I was so excited. We received it in time to give them out at our St. Nicholas Day get together!

At any rate, I said I'd upload pictures of the book when they came. Here they are! I can't recommend blurb.com highly enough. I'm not getting paid to say this, and I'm (sadly) not getting any discounts either.

What have we been up to?

Here is a December month in review...photo format.

My dad bought his own Christmas present early in the month. A Traxxas remote control car.

It is super fun to drive!

We always have a get together on St. Nicholas day. From his first December I told the grandparents that they didn't need to get Miles anything for St. Nicholas day, but if they did decide to we didn't want anything more than books. This year for St. Nicholas day we surprised both sets of grandparents a photo book of Miles' first two years. It was great fun to make, and even more fun to give!

Of course I didn't get any pictures of Miles opening his books. Jared and I gave him a compilation of Little Bear stories, and one called "Santa's Favorite Story." One set of grandparents gave him a book about St. Nicholas' life, and the other set gave him Growl Tiger!

We got our tree up, then wrapped presents.



We had some weather which didn't permit outside play, so we made do.




We also managed to make it outside some in little better weather.


I asked Jared and my dad about setting up a different
camera solution for Christmas morning, and they got right to work with a little help from Nicholas.

It didn't end up working out, but we are looking forward to using it on another get together.


Jared's mother's birthday is Christmas eve, so we always have a little family thing that day.




We have Christmas morning at our house.




Here is grandpa and Miles having quiet time before bed.



Fun the morning after Christmas.


Miles napping .


Nana and Grandpa took him to see a train exhibit on the thirty-first.



That and a couple of crafts pretty much sums up the whole month. We had fun, but it was busy. I also started working this month. What a blessing. Jared's mother had just offered to take Miles on Monday mornings when this opportunity opened up. For a couple of months I'll be able to keep it at one day a week. After that I'll have to work out care for him another day a week too, but that time will come.

Goals

I've given just a bit of thought to goals for 2010. So far I've really only come up with general areas in which I'd like to set a goal. Here are my thoughts...
* Meal Planning Goal
Continue meal planning - occasionally cook for the freezer
* Weight Loss
I have a goal for 15lbs in the first 3 months of the year. I need a plan.
* Cleaning Goal
Nothing specific here. I've done a very good job with the house over the past two or three weeks. I need to keep it up and probably set up a schedule or something.
* Daily Bible Study
Nuff said! I would like to read the whole Bible this year.
* Stop Biting Nails
I did a great job with this during this summer. I got a manicure with mom for her birthday, and didn't bite for about 6 weeks. I think after that I needed another manicure becauce I was getting hang nails etc. I'd like to grow just enough nail to not be embarassed about a manicure, then try keeping it up every 5 or so weeks for a few months to see how I do. I'd love to be rid of this one this year!
* Work Goal
I've started working again. It's going well, but I need to set up some child care for about one day a week. I want a goal in this area for hours to work/balancing time with Miles. I don't want to give up any of the good stuff with him, and I'd like to use the time away to come back refreshed if a little more tired. :)
* Picture Goal
I'm not sure what this one will look like. Before I've wanted to take a picture either every day or every day that Jared had to travel. I recently found the 52 weeks challenge. I'll have to think about this one. Right now I'm thinking I want to take pictures of most of the projects that Miles and I do, and have a picture of me every week for the challenge.
* Gardening Goal
Last year I resolved to make a garden. With Jared's help this one was done in fabulous style and in time for the summer garden. This year it's going to be about not missing a gardening season and using what I grow. Our winter garden is doing great.
* Budgeting Goal
We are working on setting up a budget in a few areas. We will have to both determine a budget amount, and then stick to it!
* Sewing Goal
I'm not sure what all will be here. I did no work on Miles' baby blanket last year. I took the quilting class and really enjoyed it. I have done a lot of the hand quilting for this, and would like to finish it. I may have the border done by machine. I'm also considering taking another class. I'd like to make some gifts by hand this year. This will need some refining.
* Organizational Goal
Simplify my space (I.E. have a closet with some space in it)

Shoot Me! #1

My mom makes calendars for the family every year with pictures of each family member. She goes all out and even puts little pics on the day square for the birthdays and pictures of the couples on their anniversaries. They are so fun, and new every year. She tries to use no picture older than 12 months. It's very impressive. This year she called asking for a picture of Jared and I together. Well....let me look...uhh...in the same picture? Come to think of it, there are very few pictures of me at all!

Shortly after that I found Forever in Blue Jeans and a meme she was just wrapping up She says "We are always the ones behind the camera, this is YOUR chance to get out in front and be in the pictures with our family. Now she has a picture of herself from every week of this year. What a great motivation to use your camera, capture what your family is doing, and manage to squeeze into a few pics yourself!

Although, I have to tell you, if I'm goint to participate in this, I've got to figure out how my timer works!

Not a great picture, but it's a start. We took it right after breakfast. Miles wanted to cut and paste, so he was doing that and I snapped a shot of the two of us!

Letter Game

Miles and I have started playing a new game. We got the printables here (a fantastic blog too). I printed out the alphabet, and cut out some shapes for him.


He loves this game. We play one letter at a time, and he loves figuring out which shapes to use. I'll tell him the name of the letter and the sound it makes before he starts and he'll frequently ask the name of the letter after he's done too. He's pretty quick with it too.

Here he is wearing the big curve shape (like for a "C" or a "D") on his head.

Bounce House

Today we went to a bounce house place. Miles had a lot of fun! Here are some pics.In the car on our way.

Peek-A-Boo

Up, Up, Up!

Here I come!

Weeeeeeee!

He spent a fair amount of time staring at this video game.

Sorry for the poor photo quality. I think (hope) it was the lighting.

What? It's been more than a month?

I wonder what I've been doing. I can't really remember because my camera broke again! Aghhh! My camera has broken twice in less than ten months. Frustrating. The exact same part broke both times. After a couple of calls to customer service I did get them to promise to fix it for free although I haven't gotten the refund on my credit card. We'll see though.

We've had a lot going on, but I have no pictures to show for it. We had a great Thanksgiving. As usual we went to my grandmother's and had actual Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. It was a lot of fun! They live out in the country, and have a bunch of goats. We opened the goat pen and let Miles go a little crazy! He had so much fun.

Jared's mom asked about taking Miles on Monday mornings and doing a little preschool. We are going to work together to figure out what we want to teach him. I'm hoping to start taking more pictures of Miles. It takes me a bit to get back in the swing of using my camera after I get it back.

Jared is out of town most of this week. He just left tonight, and won't be back until Thursday around noon. I'm planning lots of activities to keep Miles busy. Hopefully wear him out a bit. After we got back from the airport we did our usual routine, and I got him in bed. I still heard him in there talking almost an hour after bed time! Wow!