Scrapbooking Sunday: May Lay Outs

My Mother's Day lay out. It was an assignment for the Dimensional Details class and we were to sew on our pages. It was a first for me since I am not a sewer, but the theme of handmade, ugly stuff goes along well with my sewing job. If you look closely, by clicking on the image, you'll see that I tried to sew a border around the page, zigzag stitches across the bottom and a free hand heart right on the photo. 

I plan to do another lay out for this theme using the photos taken by the professional photographer who followed us around that day, but we haven't seen those yet. These are just some of the photos I took, which explains why I am not present in any of them. It was another assignment for the class, and we were supposed to make a title using some method we had not used before. We also had to do more with grouping our embellishments. I found these cool flowers at a local Indian store and decided to use them here.

I needed one more Hokkaido Family Trip lay out and decided to do a funny one regarding my amazingly huge sunglasses and some of the funny/ironic things about the trip. I used a lace doily piece that I found at our local craft store, and I printed some brushes (in photoshop) onto a transparency. Using transparencies is a great way to add layers to your lay out without covering too much up! I love doing this now.

Look familiar? It's because I made a very similar lay out a few weeks ago. Since it is about Ailin's former daycare teacher, I decided to just show it to her since we had recently been talking about my scrapbooking hobby, and she said she was curious to see some of my lay outs. When I brought it to to show her, she misunderstood me and gladly accepted it as a gift. I was stunned, but what could I say? I immediately started calculating in my head how I was going to make time to produce a very similar lay out for myself. Check this link to see the original.

In preparation for Luka's 1st birthday, I was busy taking photos of his newest developments. This lay out uses some boyish elements such as small metal frames. 

My Boy's Birthday

I'll take a break to tell you all about Luka's 1st birthday!

Luka turned 1 on June 3rd, and since we were not planning a big birthday party for him, I just made sure to take lots of photos of his everyday life, including some of his new skills.

Just Mama & Luka: Happy we got through one whole year in one piece!

Clap Clap Your Hands, Clap 'em just like this. Luka's first word is "clap" pronounced more like, "cla, cla, cla"

Getting ready for a bath. 

With Papa in the morning. Often, Papa is delegated to getting Luka dressed in the mornings.

Happy Happy Boy

Eating birthday breakfast of chocolate chip steamed muffins & yogurt.

Waving Bye-bye

About to dig in to his birthday dinner of cream stew & french bread.

And, about that cake! This was my failed cake, but everyone ate it very obligingly. First off, when I de-panned it, the top of the cake got scalped! I patched it back together, and then stuck it in the freezer. Didn't solve the scalping problem though!

Then I frosted it (with Ailin's help!), but I over-whipped the ganache frosting and ended up with this very strange texture. (It's supposed to be a flower!)

I employed my mother-in-law with the task of making the bugs. I bought a kit at ToysRUs and realized when I got home that the bugs needed to made from scratch! She had to use ingredients like coca cola, apple jam, grape juice, etc. Of course, all are edible. I thought it would be fun to have this cake for Ailin's sake, but apparently, she was totally grossed out and wouldn't eat the bugs or the cake that had been touched by the bugs.

The traditional "first piece of cake" for a one-year old's birthday didn't go over so well with my Japanese family. They all cringed every time he dropped a piece on the floor or squished some up to his mouth. It's wasn't the most jovial atmosphere in the world.

Presents: Thanks to Shannon for sending some gifts over. We still haven't gotten any from my side of the family. We gave Luka a wooden fire truck, an activity cube, and his first pair of shoes. Shannon gave him some toy trucks, a remote control toy & another toy which we are waiting to open (don't remember what it is at the moment!). Aunt Nanako sent over some towels and wash clothes which will be useful for daycare. Then, she surprised us with a special delivery from a balloon store - 5 helium birthday balloons and one has his name on it! Grandma Yuki gave him some packaged food that will be useful for when we go out to eat ... sometimes the restaurants don't serve food appropriate for young children.

Working Mom Wednesdays: Our Needs Met Last

If my kids get sick, my first thought is "take their temperature." Then, decide whether we should go see the doctor or not. Then, take them in and go through the whole process. It takes time and may mean that anything we had scheduled will be postponed or even canceled.

If I get sick, my first thought it "what do I have to do next?" In other words, keep the schedule running as normally as possible and don't let on that I am suffering.

Granted, this is not always possible. There have been cases when I was so extremely  and acutely ill that my whole world stopped spinning for a few hours while I tried to recuperate. Yes, you read that correctly - a few hours, not one whole day, not a few days, not one week, but a FEW PRECIOUS HOURS.

Yesterday, while getting ready for work, I was suddenly crippled with shooting pains in my back that escalated whenever I tried to pick anything up. The pain was on the left side of my upper back, just in the place I cannot reach. I was yelling out in pain which of course caught the attention of my husband.

Rather than rush to my side and help me, he was more concerned about the fact that HE might possibly be put out. The kids were not quite ready to go yet. Somehow, they would have to get to daycare. I had to make a decision of whether to call in sick or not.

I lay there, frozen in one position, thinking about the logistics of it all. I had a first period class, during which I would be evaluating 20 informative speeches that the kids had been working on for weeks, and my partner teacher and I were anxious to "get them over with!" Later in the day, I would have my Everyday English class, for which I had no specific lesson plan and didn't really want to bother other teachers with the task of having to teach it. The bone doctor, the same one I see once a month for an unrelated ailment, always has a full waiting room and there are certain strategies one must employ if he/she doesn't want to sit there waiting for the entire morning. It was already too late to employ Step One of that strategy.

Yosh! Decision made. I will go to work today. I'll roll off of the bed, put my shoes on, drag the kids' bags out the door and make my way out to the car. By this time though, Ailin was really upset because she could see something was wrong with her mama. Yusuke was still moaning and groaning about the possibility that he might be "put out" by all of this.

My back did eventually loosen up enough to drive the car and to carry Luka up to his classroom at daycare. I got through the workday without having to see the doctor. Yusuke came home with some special medicinal patches for my back and he stuck them on for me in the evening.