After a long long while

I finally able to create one digital layout after a long long while. I've been paper scrapping lately having organized my photos. I've created around 3 paper layouts in a week which is really an achievement for me. I miss scrapping.

This is my youngest son who shaved off his hair with a razor he found in my suitcase.

CREDITS: Scraplift from layout by Ali Edwards, BG paper -I think this is from Misty Cato but can not be sure :( ; barcode by CBender; Alpha by Miss Mint; J round alpha by Jan Crowley; word strip by Traci Sims; bug ribbon by Val Barbieri-Endora; fonts are Sylfaen and Alis Writing; staple wires by KSK

Photo Organization part 1

I 've been desparately wanting to organize my printed photos, sparked by an incident when I was looking for an old photo of me and Nestor and I can't find it. I've been reading the feedbacks on the Photo Freedom book by Stacy Julian (not the book, I wish) and somehow I worked on categorizing my photos. And then started sorting my printed photos first. I haven't touched my digital photos yet.

Categories
1. Travel/Outings/Places - places we visited, sorted chronological
2. School - anything school related to school of my 3 boys, sorted per kids, chronological
3. Birthdays - sorted by family member, by year
4. Events - family celebrations, gatherings, Christmas, anniversaries (not including b-day)
5. Family - anything related to each family member only
6. People - friends, relatives
7. Other stuffs - anthing about home, and things around us.

I first sorted the travel photos, also printed recent digital travel photos. Then the school pics, very few photos on this category. I also realized that there are special events that happened in the school like the 1st communion of Jerome - I'm thinking twice whether to file it in school or events but to simplify I put it under school. Maybe later I will change it to event but the thing is I don't want to over-analyze my categories/sorting.

Storage:
I bought 2 clear plastic CD cases to use as storage for the photos I pulled out from the albums and sorted. I used the excess invites from Justin's 1st b-day as divider (been keeping it that long coz I know I'll put it to good use someday) and labelled it with the event, date, place and number of photos.

I'm seeing good progress in my sorting and am inspired to do something about my photos so that my family can better enjoy and appreciate the memories.

Photo album:
I am still contemplating on whether to use 3-up or 2-up album. I want 3-up for travel since it holds a minimum of 300 photos, space saving and looking at the volume of the photos, I have plenty or took a lot of photos when travelling. But it is more expensive than the 2 up that holds 200 pics. So, I was like should I buy 2 2-up photos so that I have 400 photos to store for the same price of the 3-up 300 photos? The cons of course is that it took more space but is more weight -friendly in the long run. And beside I want to do photo album scrapbooking so I might buy 2-up for specific event, and the rest is 3-up, whichever is best value to my money.

By the way, I also bought a 5R album to hold my wedding photos which I pulled out from it's original bulky wedding album. I really hate my wedding photos and I hate the guys who took it. But nevertheless I'm glad that I finally found an album to organize it although the original photos still have the edges of the paper from the previous album. I hope I can do something with it before my 10th wedding anniversary which is about 1.5 months from now.

Okay, that's it for now.

Who is Who?

These are my 3 boys now, (left to right) Jason, Jerome and Justin. Jason, the 2nd child has growing spurts for a year now, and growing means more on width than height. He's now oftenly mistaken by others as older than Jerome. They are 16 months apart. Of course Justin is obviously the baby.

At this stage, they are physically distinct. If I am to describe them, here's what I will say:

Jerome: deep- set eyes, nice legs (really he has flawless and nice-shape legs for a boy), has the smoothest skin and fairest complexion of the three, wavy hair, huggable size

Jason: medyo singkit ang mata, hair that grows straight and wild when long, slightly dark skin, more huggable size

Justin: he looks medyo singkit, tall for his age, fair skin, a little wavy hair, lean size

So that is them today, they have some resemblances but still very unique. Now let's look at their baby pictures... Can you identify them?


The photo is really bad that I can not see the detail of the frames. Those are excess of Justin's 1st b-day souveniers. I pulled it our of storage and looked for baby pics that somewhat look-alike. I put it in the display cabinet in the2nd floor hallway and have the boys to identify who ar ein the photos. They obviously know it is them but can not easily point who is who? Jerome knew right away his photo but can not make up which one is Jason and Justin. Jason on the other hand thinks that his photo is Justin and Justin's photo is also Justin and Jerome is Kuya Jerome. Justin thinks those are all "baby jasin" photos.

So fun to be looking back on old photos of the kids. Makes me want to scrap but I am totally in a rut. Cheers!

Memory Bits #1: When The Big Boys are Out

Photo taken Jan 1, 2009

When Kuya JErome and Kuya Jason were at school, Jason spends or entertains himself watching catoons at TV5. Channel 5 overhauled their shows and have cartoon marathon from show opening at 6 am until 11 am. Literally all of the morning are cartoons. He'll wake up in the morning and just open the TV and wait for the programming to start.

He loves most is Dora and Diego. At 3&1/2 yo he knows the song of Dora. He learned English and some Spanish word (salta!) with Dora. He learned the animals with Diego. He can dance the Dora dance with the tune of "We did it! We did it" and end with a sounding "hurray".

And then there's Cat Dog or DOg Cat, Blues Clues, Jimmy Neutron (which he fondly says - Jimny utron), Bratz (huh did I say that?), Spongebob ( of course he knows Mr Crab), then THomas the Train and Bob the Builder. It's your morning routine. Even if you are not watching you always want the TV on. Before we know it, TV5 is just one of your daily word. Like no other channels exist in you world.

Sometimes your brothers would rather stay at home and watch with you than go to school.

I am a witness to this because I have the privilege to work from home. Sometimes when I comes out of the office/room, he'll take my hand and lead me to sit and watch with him. I would have love to do that all day but Mommy's got to work.

See those writings on the wall, that's courtesy of the boy in the photo.

I came to Realized

that I am not really posting any significant things into this blog lately.

I want to be productive s in productive in my attempt to record our lives, but all I have are plans and that is making me frustrated. ANyway, here are those plans:
1. re-organize my printed photos - this was sparked by a project I want to do this morning and I can't find the one picture that would make my photos complete. I have to look into my albums and photo drawers but no success. And while looking at the photos, I realized that no pne is really enjoying those tons of photos I am keeping, simply because they are kept. I want to do something with it really fast.

2. I want to organize my digital photos - so much too many I think. I need to have a real good organization system before it really overtake my hard drive.

3. I want to be creative and productive... pulleeeeez.

Top Secret Friends

Look at us, after 20 years of not seeing each other, it seems like high school days again. Last August 31, I met up with Jenny, Rose and Grace in CPK Glorietta - 3 of my Top Secret barkada from HS. We were actually a group of 7 girls but the other 3 can't joined, Lolit is already based in US while Haydie and Marisse we have no contacts.

It's really nice to see them again, our looks and lives may be different but seems nothing changed the way we are comfortable with each other. WE have talked topics that we would normally not discussed with current peers. It really felt different, like I am once again connected to my roots, to the stage of my life that somehow contributed to who I am now. High school is undeniably the most enjoyable phase of my studies. ANd these gals constitute 75% of that fun. We were classmates since day1 upto graduation. We did things together: drama club, cheering team, COCC, cutting class, cheating, eat together, overnights, watching movies on Saturdays upto collecting newspapers in Ayala offices for Lolit's campaign. We are definitely a group, as much as we like to have fun we are smart enough to keep our grades in good standing. WE are inseparable. There were times when some members would be in disagreement but it as far as I can remember, those time are far and few, can be counted in my fingers. That's the way we were until graduation.

We pursue different paths after then. Rose just is here in the Phils for vacation, she is now based in Italy; Jenny is a housewife who manages a salon and laundry businesses, Grace once a corporate manager is now a full time mom; Lolit is a nurse in US and me - a Proctoid.

But for this particular night, what we are now is not important. What I know I have fun again even for a brief moment with these friends of mine.

Before I was a Mom

This is based on the layout by Suzu Plentamura from Creating Keepsakes website.

A Quick Quiz
1. The hobbies I enjoyed most were cross-stitching and sewing. I finsihed several patterns while I was pregnant with Jerome and had sewn a couple of pillowcovers.
2. I usually spent weekends going to either Nanay's house in Bicutan or Nes' old house in QC.
3. My biggest dream was to have own house that I can decorate.
4. My biggest worry was I don't remember...
5. The aspect of motherhood I most looked forward to was seeing what my baby looks like.
6. A typical date night with my husband was to eating out.
7. The most defining part of my personality was , this is hard.
8. My cooking skills were really very basic.
9. My friends considered me to be kikay.
10. My biggest claim to fame was no idea.