photos {this and that}

here are just some random recent photos...

spencer working safety patrol (in the rain)

coleman loved looking at the rain from his carseat - he was just a'laugin and a'smilin
isn't he super cute???

we're just so proud...

our gamecocks in their baseball jerseys

photos {st. patrick's day}

here are pictures from our st. patrick's day (which was actually a three-day affair). we had our "traditional" green pancake dinner. the leprechauns visited over night, leaving the house a wreck, but giving spencer and coleman some gifts. you can see all of our spd photos here.

me and spencer - all decked out

matt & spencer
coleman with a shamrock on his butt :)

coleman's first saint patrick's day outfit

spencer with his gifts in the morning

photo {walking with coleman}

it probably goes without saying that it's been really awesome to have tara to share this exciting time with - going through our pregnancies together, then childbirth, and now maternity leave. every day that the weather is decent, we take the boys on a walk. we need the exercise and adult conversation. as you can see, the boys are just all excited about it too (yeah right!).

{coleman is one month old}

this picture was taken on coleman's one month birthday (last tuesday). he had his one-month checkup the next day. He weighed in at 9lbs and 6oz. His length was 22.5". He's a growing boy!
He got a clean bill of health, but we changed formulas for his acid reflux. The doctor thinks his eyes will stay blue. It is so hard to believe that he's one month old already!!! The time is going way too quickly.

layout {3D @ 38wks}

This is a page from my pregnancy album. I completed it before I had Coleman, but forgot to scan and share. I still have a few layouts to do to make this album complete, but I haven't had much time for scrapbooking lately :)
It might be hard to tell, but this is the first layout that I did machine stitching (using the sewing machine I got for Christmas). Mom, aren't you proud???

LOM {Lesson 3}

Yesterday and today I got caught up on Lesson 3 of my LOM class. We had worksheets to fill out for the main Category Drawer categories (see photo): All About Us, Things We Do, People We Love, and Places We Go.

We were supposed to pull out 100 photos from our Storage Binders to put in these 4 areas. I am sort of skipping this. When I got the Photo Freedom book, I got a head start on the Category Drawers. Though the photos didn't come from the Storage Binders, I definitely have more than 100 photos in them already. And I'm behind on my Storage Binders, so I couldn't pull more photos right now even if I wanted to.

The last part of the assignment was to make a photo connection from the photos we pulled (and do a layout if we choose). I'm putting this aside with the layout assignment from Lesson 2. I hope to go back and do these, but am more concerned about getting caught up on the lessons right now. (This week is a "break week" which is good!).

LOM {Lessons 1 & 2}

Adding little Coleman to our world, obviously has slowed down my participation in the Library of Memories class. I think I'm 4 weeks behind (but whose counting). Just thought I'd provide an update on where I am and what I have accomplished - even if it's not much :)

Lesson 1:

- We are supposed to print 5 years of photos and put them in storage binders. However, I'm working with digital prints that I haven't yet scrapbooked, so it's only 3+ years (2006, 2007, 2008 and YTD 2009). I have made my way through 2006 and 2007, digitally purging. I'm currently working on 2008 and haven't printed many photos at all yet. I think I've done a pretty good job of paring down photos to scrap.

- I finally ordered some actual storage binders (4 from Costco). My thought is to have one binder for each of the years mentioned...at least to start. We'll see if I'll need more. Stacey's max of 15 binders isn't relevant for me because I simply don't have that many photos to manage.

- I am also working on gettting all photos stored on my EHD and I haven't made as much progress here as I'd like. This lesson will continue to be a work in progress as I try to work on the remaining lessons as well.

Lesson 2:

- I used the supplied sticky notes to go through a few different scrapbooks. I found that "Things We Do" is most definitely my most common type of layout (mainly because I do so many event pages). "Places We Go" and "All About Us" are tied with about the same number of layouts. "People We Love" falls into last place by a large gap. This makes perfect sense and I wasn't very surprised by the findings.

- As for the 5 Ws, I found that I thoroughly cover the What and When on my layouts. Who is covered pretty well, also. Where and Why are the areas lacking. The "where" is usually just a matter of not noting that these photos were taken at our home, or something relatively obvious. To me, the fact that "why" is lacking is much more important.

- I filled out the provided worksheets for this lesson and basically have committed to better capturing the full spirit of my life and my family's, focusing less on the "events" and much more on the important details of who we are and what we do.

- Though I'm trying to follow Stacey's instructions pretty closely, I did opt to skip part of this lesson. She wanted us to create a layout that covers the least covered area and W from our exercise. Since I'm so behind, I'm not doing this.

{happy shamrocks!}

Make a Smilebox greeting

photos {coleman's quirks}

i think this picture is hilarious!!! he is yawning, but the way it came out, is just a riot! he looks like a little alien baby :)

he lays and sleeps like this a lot. i always says "touchdown" when i see him doing it.

photo {son of a scrapbooker}

We found this onesie at a scrapbook store in Charleston while I was pregnant. His Grandma Sharon bought it for him. Ain't he precious??? (Matt just rolled his eyes when he saw it). Oh, and the outfit came with a miniature version to include on the layout!

photos {coleman's firsts}

OK, here are the last few of Coleman for a while. Some of his *firsts*...

his first outing (that wasn't a doctor's office) - at Fatz with Aunt Sherry

First Snow

First Bath (not loving this so much)

First Gamecock Outfit

First Walk

photos {and even more coleman}

tummy time...

spencer's first time feeding him
so sweet...

mommy and coleman

coleman meets his neighbor/friend, colton (left) - he is 2.5 weeks older

photos {more coleman}

Here are some more pictures of Coleman's first few days of life...

2 days old

coming home from the hospital!

daddy and coleman are both pooped!

in his carseat - headed for home (three days old)

photos {art space studio}

this past saturday, my sister and her family came into town to meet coleman. on saturday, we decided to go to art space studio to capture coleman's handprints. that didn't exactly work out and we had to settle for footprints, but i think it will come out cute (will post a picture after i pick up the finished piece). unfortunately, we didn't get any photos of the actual footprinting process.

maggie and spencer had a good time as well, each painting a piece. maggie did an ice cream bowl and spencer did a gamecock jar. i was actually surprised that spencer seemed somewhat excited about going back - maybe he hasn't quite outgrown this yet :)

photos {end of basketball season}

basketball season has come to an end. the boys all got trophies and a little celebration after the last game. it was a rough season as far as actually winning, but i think spencer enjoyed playing again (after taking last year off) and that's what really matters.

photos {author day}

A couple of weeks ago, Spencer's class had "Author Day". The earlier part of the year, they worked on creating a book that would eventually be published - it is very cool! Author Day was the big reveal of these books. This is Spencer with his book and his homeroom teacher.

{welcome coleman rhea}

I am super slack, but here it is - two weeks late - the official announcment of Coleman's arrival.

Coleman Rhea

February 24, 2009 @ 4:27 p.m.

7lbs. 13 oz ~ 20 inches

Here is the labor/delivery story, Reader's Digest style: My water broke around 3:30 a.m. on my DUE DATE (way to go Coleman - nice and punctual!). Matt, Spencer and I headed to the hospital, arriving around 5:30. The first few hours were relatively uneventful. They gave me pitocin to start contractions and I eventually had an epidural (waited a few minutes too long on this). Mom drove into town and Sherry, Dad & Cynthia came on up to the hospital. Everyone got there about the same time. After the epidural, I thought we'd have some relaxing downtime (I was feeling good at this point), but before I knew it, it was time to push. Unfortunately, that last longer than I would've liked :) Three (very long) hours later, Coleman entered this world (with the help of some spectacular nurses and a doctor with a vacuum).

The pictures below were all taken on his actual birth day.

Coleman & Mommy's first photo together - hard to believe he's really here!!

Getting weighed...

Our newly expanded family!

Seriously - could he be any more perfect???