This week I have more than one photo on many days. Does this ever happen to you? You can't choose just one photo to represent your day. How do you decide?
In my album, if I have a day that doesn't have a strong photo - it doesn't tell anything new about our family, our habits, our home, our city, or the times we live in - I may skip one day and use two photos from one day. Other times, I will just print both and save one for scrapbooking another way at a later time.
Sometimes my deciding factor is the orientation of the photo. I like my photos horizontal.
I'd love to hear how you handle the 'more than one photo a day' dilemma. Do you have an underlying philosophy in how you choose your ONE photo? Please let me know in the comments.
Sunday, May 8
For Mother's Day, my kids made me a Power Point presentation in lieu of a card.
Monday, May 9
Now that our schedule has changed around a bit, I can watch all the boys' swim lessons on Mondays. I love that the pool is in our apartment complex - so convenient. So after I watch the first 15 minutes of this lesson, I go home and make sure dinner is ready when the older boys get home. They are both working hard, perfecting their strokes so that they can swim their personal bests.
Tuesday, May 10
Since I've started meal planning, I am surprising myself with all the cooking I am doing on a regular basis. This night while I was making dinner (falafel), I cooked up some marinara sauce from scratch in preparation for the lasagne I was making the next day! Most of those items in the picture I hand carried back from the States with me at Christmas time. The only items I bought here are the small bottle of dried basil (though there is a replacement from the States in my cabinet), the Extra Virgin Olive Oil & the balsamic vinegar. Yes, I even packed some iodized sea salt to bring back with me!
Wednesday, May 11
Paul had a work lunch this day for his staff and wanted to bring nicely decorated cupcakes made by his wife, but with all the schedule changes, in the end, he forgot to tell me the final date in time for me to decorate. He ended up, the morning of, pulling out all my decorating supplies, frosting the cupcakes I had in the freezer, and dipping them in sprinkles. Better than nothing!
Thursday, May 12
Nicholas is sneaking a taste of the dough.
Reece asked me to make oatmeal scones. I was already in the kitchen so I obliged. I don't mind making these because they have a good deal of fiber. I use half whole wheat flour and of course a lot of oatmeal because they are oatmeal scones. I also use canola oil spread instead of butter. They are still likely quite high in fat, but at least it is good fat, right? Even though I made many mistakes with these, they still turned out tasty according to the boys.
The funniest mistake I made was when I couldn't figure out why the dough wasn't sticking together. I had already turned it out onto my surface lightly dusted with freshly toasted oatmeal. Then I glance over and noticed, I forgot to combine all the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients! DUH! That shows you how much canola spread (butter) is in the dough! There was enough that it almost stuck together - it was crumbly. Of course I threw it back in its original bowl and added the wet ingredients. Then the dough was much easier to manage!
This is not the first time I've made this. I think I was just tired.
I doubled the recipe and still, they were gone within 24 hours.
#3
The nighttime view out our playroom window.
Thursday, May 13
Right after school on Friday, we had plans to go with one of Braden's friends to a place with a rock climbing wall. His mom was running a little late, so I got the boys a yogurt for an after school snack. Then they played at the playground right in front of the school.
#2
Braden's first time to try rock climbing. I was so impressed, he climbed to the top two times - once on the easy track and once on the next level up. He's very determined and athletic. The first go round he was motivated by his friend's success. The second time, he did it because he had confidence from the first time.
#3
When the boys can't settle down, we will have one of them fall asleep in our bed. When we were heading to bed this night, Paul sent Nicholas back to his room by himself. He was so asleep he got disoriented in the living room. Just stood there looking confused and wobbly until finally he settled himself in the chair and fell back asleep. The next morning he did not remember a thing!
Friday, May 14
Reece has this new habit (last several months) where he likes to tap his fingers in between his knuckles. It makes this loud rhythmic sound. It drives me a little nutty, but he thinks it is a cool skill he has acquired. And according to him his friends are all quite impressed. He even heard that some of the kids in the younger grades are trying to learn how to do this. So far, he is the only one with this gift in the whole school! I do my best to be tolerant but sometimes it just isn't appropriate (like at a restaurant) and other times, I just need a little silence!!
#3
I had to take a picture of this sign in the window of a cell phone store that we saw on our walk home. Angry birds is such a popular game these days. It is just as popular here in China as any where else apparently. My kids are very familiar with it although we do not own it. We don't do much game playing around our house especially now that our Wii doesn't work. There just is not enough time in the day. And we'd rather spend our weekends out and about or having a family game night with Cranium games, Rumikub, 5 State Rummy, Pictionary Cards, etc. The kids might not agree with us (though they do love family game nights), but they manage some how. We do own the app Plants vs. Zombies but as a consequence it got removed from my iTouch when its use was abused.
Man, I miss that view... and those scones!
Posted by: Sara | May 18, 2011 at 04:26
That view is amazing! :)
Posted by: Rachel B | May 18, 2011 at 07:30
Great pictures for the week. The view one is beautiful. I have some days that have a few good pictures and makes it hard to choose. This year I've decided to add more page protectors for that week to hold more pictures. Other weeks I try really hard to decide which ones really mean the most or ask the kids to pick a favorite and just use that one. I hope this helps a little.
Posted by: dawn | May 31, 2011 at 17:06