Project Life: Avery's First Year - Month 4

Month 4 - Spread 1 - with Avery helping photo bombing :)
A bunch of photos from our daily life: fun on the activity mat and Exersaucer, chillin' with his cool Brewers gear, his first experience with a fish tank.

I added a 8.5 x 4 insert with 6 pictures of Avery flirting with himself in a mirror :) 
(Some of my favorite Avery pictures!)

A close up of the insert - I just sewed the pictures into a page protector with my sewing machine and cut the excess off. As I was doing this, I realized how ironic it is that I use 'Avery' brand pages :)

A little journaling and some pictures from 'the accident' which kept us stuck in a cubicle in the emergency room for 10 hours. Some more date-stamp-on-fabric and sewn fabric pennants.

A fun memory we have of Avery (the green and blue background is cut out of a Kleenex box!) and a family outing to the 'Feast of the Hunter's Moon'.

Month 4 - Spread 2 - Avery's current sleep habits (or lack thereof), a visit from Grandma & Grandpa Stewart, & Avery's first letter!

Avery in his sleep suit, a page out of our 'sleep journal' (this month we were tracking all his night wakings trying hard to get him on some sort of sleep schedule...) Cards with cloth details and the little sheep is a scrapbook embellishment.

Avery's first letter from his cousin Emma in Maine! I just 3 hole punched the envelope and inserted it. I also stuck in a little note that my aunt & uncle sent Avery this month.

Our little outlaw. I had a couple of extra pictures I wanted to include on this page, so I just made a little double-sided pocket out of a leftover piece of page protector and sewed it into place.

A cute shot helping dad, a family photo in our matching SOA shirts :) and a shot of Avery and Max, all captions are on cut grid journal cards with little cloth details.

These are the only 2 spreads for month 4. I guess after I got smoked in the eye with a baseball, not much happened around here. (or maybe I just wasn't spending much time behind the camera!) That's ok though, because month 5 has a few extra pages to make up for it!

And if you need a little laugh to help lift your spirits (will it EVER stop raining?!), here's a little bathtime bubble fun with Avery - LOVE that belly laugh!  :)

Project Life: Avery's First Year - MONTH 3

Month 3 - Spread 1 - the smiling begins! :)

Can't get enough of these baby toes!

Avery's monthly stats, his favorite toy at the moment, 4x6 insert of a photo of Avery on one side and the thumbnail card that came with the printed photos on the other.

Our cloth diapering experience begins and Avery is getting so strong! I bought some cardboard sticker embellishments on clearance at a scrapbook store and cut them up to spice up some plain white 3x4 cards. The diaper & pin are also scrapbook embellishments.

Month 3 - Spread 2 - Fun times with Uncle Josh (and a sweet-and-shameless bathtub photo)

More pennant cloth embellishments (I just think they're so cute), journal cards and uncle cuddles

I did some daily journaling this week - seeing the cards again makes me want to do more!

Month 3 - Spread 3 - Avery's second time to the beach in less than 3 months!

Journaling of the day on a large paint swatch card from Lowe's. (I love these big swatches... I pick up a few every time we go to the store... you know, to help me decide on a color...)

Date stamp ON fabric! It works! (This brings my fabric-embellishment obsession to a whole new level!)

Some beach play under the umbrella with my Godmother, and one of my favorite weekly photos from this month

Daddy smooches, cousin play, and poor Avery being pushed around by baby Max while being my assistant during Max's 6 month photo shoot

Month 3 - Spread 4 - A trip to the battlefield and some very special 4-generation photos.

Avery's 3 Month 'birthday' and his favorite song (this is STILL his favorite song, 7 months later!) The animal sound words strip is another cardboard sticker found on clearance, and more cloth and date-stamp details!

A fun little photo shoot with Avery's daddy, grandpa and great grandpa! (This is one of my favorite color combinations so far, the olive green and the pattern blue. The green being more paint swatches and the blue being fabric)

More date-stamp on fabric (I may never stamp on paper again ;)  and a couple of shots of an Avery smile (I love adding photos like this to the book, it's almost like a mini flip book)

Project Life: Avery's First Year -MONTH 2

Believe it or not, I've been working on Avery's book quite a bit lately. I'm almost done through month 5, so stay tuned as I work through the photos and get them posted in the next week or so!
Looking back on these photos makes me a bit weepy... what a sweet little munchiekins!!

Month 2  - Spread 1 - 'Day in the life' updates

Sometimes I just have too many photos than pockets, so I added a small insert to sneak in 2 more 3x4 photos. Rubber duckies are scrapbook embellishments

Some 'milestones' and sweet baby Avery moments

Month 2 - Spread 2 - Trip to the beach! LOVE those little baby footprints in the sand!

Fabric pennant banner and journal entry card (I LOVE my date stamper!)

Cloth pennant detail (almost all of the cloth used for embellishments are scraps from the quilt I made for Avery) and a parking pass, appointment reminder, and Avery's first band aids (eeew?) to add to pockets

Month 2 - Spread 3 - Lots of love from grandparents and Mom & Dad's 3 year wedding anniversary :)

Lots of down time and snuggles and Avery really getting into the London Olympics!

Journal card, sweet quote and dreamy baby smiles from the bike trailer :)

Project Life: Avery's Birth - Month 1

Like I said before, I've been trying to get Avery's book up-to-date. I'm almost finished with month 2, which is quite an improvement, I think! Here's a look at The pages from Avery's birth day and his first month:

PAGES 12-13: Avery's Birth Day

PAGES 12-13: The little insert in the center holds the info. cards for both of the midwives we saw throughout my pregnancy. (Although Anne was the only one present for Avery's birth)

PAGE 12: Lots of photos of our first hours with Avery (Lots of 'firsts' pictures)

PAGE 12: Our first family photo and a timeline of the days events, starting at
3 am when I first started having contractions.

PAGE 12: Avery meeting his Aunt Janessa, just a couple of hours after he was born (she almost made it!) and a picture of Avery peering out of his bassinet in the hospital

PAGE 13: Avery's Apgar scores, our hospital bracelets and our first 'posed' family picture :)

PAGE 13: Avery's bassinet card from the hospital, a picture of him
in the cute pointy hospital hat and Anne's card insert

PAGE 13: One of my favorite photos of the proud new daddy and Avery's first bath (yikes!)

PAGES 14-15: More details about Avery's delivery, size, features,
and his birth announcement newspaper clipping

PAGE 14: Although it's not very cute, I wanted to make sure to include a photo of the nasty newborn rash Avery had while we were in the hospital. It only lasted a couple days and was gone by the time we went home.

PAGE 14: Some things we wanted to remember from the day, and Avery meeting Grandma & Grandpa Stewart on the night he was born

PAGE 15: Another 12x12 scrapbook page with a poem and some Instagram photos of Avery's first days

PAGE 15:  Although we didn't choose Avery's name for it's meaning (ha!), I wanted to document what it was - ironically enough, my paternal grandfather's name is Alfred. :)

PAGES 16-17: Both 12x12 layouts - and a small insert with Avery's first footprints from the hospital

PAGE 16: LOVE the date stamper...

PAGE 16: I used some scrapbook embellishments as a bottom border
on these pictures (he looks so tiny in his carseat!)

PAGE 17: I had every intention of doing this much earlier... but naturally it didn't get done until month 5. They're still cute! :)

PAGE 17: The back of the insert - a flyer we got in the mail documenting some current events

PAGES 18-19: A fun overview of the first year+ of Avery's life - already halfway filled in!

PAGES 20-21: Month 1 - I'm going to use the same 4x6 'month 1' card and 'this month' info. card for each month, just change the color and the info.

PAGE 20: Avery's weight, height and milestones this month (milestones = unique things we want to remember)

PAGE 20-21: The insert is a 8x10 page protector with a newspaper insert for Fathers Day

(I submitted a picture of Justin and Avery)

PAGE 21: Some of the visitors that came to see Avery in his first month!
(continued on the other side of this sheet)

PAGES 22-23: More visitors, important happenings and random facts that we want to remember
(like how Avery was a bit cross-eyed during his first few weeks - just like his mommy! :)

PAGE 22: A special photo of Avery, Justin and Grandpa Jim and snuggling with a proud Grandma Connie

PAGE 22: Some momma lovin' on Avery's 1 week birthday (which also happened to be my 27th birthday)

Page 23: We spent part of our July 4th at the studio that I worked at taking Avery's one-month photos. I love that my sister snapped the photo on the left at the same time I was snapping the photo of Avery on the right!

PAGE 23: Our first family walk and one of the most memorable (and stressful!) parts of Avery's first month,
his incurable diaper rash... (The 'diaper duty' is a scrapbook embellishment sticker)

PAGES 24-25: A few of our favorite 1-month photos and some more fun facts

PAGES 24-25: I sewed this insert onto page 25 to hold his cute 'yawning' photos on one side and his first reaction to his high chair on the other :)

PAGE 24: Notes of things that calmed Avery, which is what we spent most of Month 1 doing, feeding and calming, feeding and calming....

PAGE 24: A note on HOW we went about taking the photo (a fun memory :) and a note on the special song that Grandma Jodi picked out for Avery

PAGE 25: Justin doing his thing... he was the only one that could calm Avery by curling him up and walking with him :)

PAGE 25: Avery chillin' in his baby bath! (The little duckie is a scrapbook embellishment sticker)

As I finish up Month 1, I realize that as the months have gone on I've taken more and more pictures which is really going to make deciding which ones to use in the book that much more difficult. There are many super cute Project Life ideas out there that incorporate all kinds of fun design cards but I think Avery's story is going to be told mainly through pictures and I don't foresee me using many 'filler' cards as I'm going to be using every free space to stick a photo - and I'm totally ok with that. Now, to start sorting through the thousands of images filling up my computer... wish me luck!


Has anyone else jumped on the Project Life bandwagon?? Have you run into any challenges or come up with any fun new ideas?