2013 in 13 photos

January - helping wash the truck

February - waiting for the 20 week scan

March - rainbow cupcakes for school

April - a gift for bubba all the way from England

May - my gran came to visit for my mum's 60th

June - Sophie arrived safely (although quickly)

July - we did lots of baby-passing

August - we explored

September - birthday celebrations are exhausting

October - I had lots of car troubles

November - Steve was awake long enough to have some time with me

December - the enormous pile of presents from my mum and sister

Happy New Year from all of us!

{linked up with Everyday Snapshots} and {Give a Girl a Blog}

month in numbers | may

linking up with Notes On Paper
card available here

project life | week one, dec 31- jan 6

I've been very quiet about my plan to do project life this year, only mentioning it briefly on my monthly goals post, and over at And Sew We Craft. I haven't even told Steve what I'm doing, because we all know how my plans end. Unfinished.

But I figure that as long as I remember to write in my diary/journal and take photos, then I can pull it together later.

Core kit I'm using the Seafoam kit, designed by Elise Blaha Cripe, in digital format, available from AC Digitals. {There is a PDF of printables in each kit, so you don't need to know anything about photoshop!}

Supplies I'm sticking with the American Crafts Modern albums for now. I've currently got a pink one going, but I might change colours if I can find them in stock anywhere. I have a large assortment of plastic sleeves from my attempt at project real life, so I'll mix and match until I need to shop again.

Equipment Most of my photos are taken using the ProCamera app on my iphone5, but I'm also trying to remember to take photos with my Fuji Finepix S3400. I decided to print at home, using my HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format printer.

Time I'm running my weeks from Monday to Sunday, with the plan of putting each spread together the following Monday when Riley is at daycare. During the past week, I regularly uploaded photos from gadgets and cameras, making the job of choosing the photos much easier (although I didn't print on Monday like I planned, as I was feeling unwell.)

Spreads This week, I only did a one page spread. I have pinspiration overload, and I'm really not sure what my style is at the moment, so I'm going with a summary of the week, photos, and an insert if something interesting happens. No memorabilia {yet}, no fussing or fancy stuff. This may or may not change as the year goes on.

I tried to keep the photos in order of what happened during the week. The insert is from our first trip to the drive in on Wednesday night. I'm sure by the end of the year, I'll have figured out how to photograph the pages with a lot less glare!

Are you doing project life this year?

one little word | choose

In Christmas week 2007, I discovered Ali Edward's blog. From stumbling and reading that week, a love of choosing a guiding word each year was born.

In 2008, I chose PLAY. 2009 was CREATE. 2010 was about CHANGE. 2011 was the year of COMMUNITY and WELLNESS, and neither really stuck. 2012 saw me DOing more.

Usually, as the year draws to a close, my word starts whispering in my year, but with everything that's been going on, I wasn't hearing it.

Until I got an email from Big Picture Classes for Elise Blaha Cripe's new class, I Choose. Choose had sort of been whispering a couple of months ago, but I'd shut it down with uncertainty. But as I read through the class (you didn't think I was going to pass it up, did you?) it started whispering louder and louder, until I embraced it as my word for 2013.

It sort-of feels like an extension of this year's word DO. Because I can CHOOSE to do something, anything, or not. And that's just what I need right now.

I have yet to decide if I'm signing up for Ali's class at BPC. I signed up the last two years, and struggled to get much past May in either year. But I like the idea of new prompts, so I might peek in.

Have you picked a word for 2013? 

I'm also writing about my craft goals at And Sew We Craft today.

If you have never taken a class at Big Picture Classes, use this link to sign up, then when you register for your first class, we both get a $US10 reward certificate!

baby#5 | 12+4

I haven't recorded anything about this pregnancy anywhere yet. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. But I wouldn't be true to me if I didn't record something somewhere, and because I can't be bothered creating another pregnancy journal, the blog is the place to be.

it isn't easy to photograph film

This whole journey has totally thrown both Steve and I. We were quite certain, and had been for a number of months, that we weren't having any more children. Our group of four was just right for us, and they are all becoming independent and enjoying time together.

So discovering I was pregnant (and having no concept of {when} it happened) threw us. And within a couple of days of discovering the pregnancy, morning sickness set in. I was unable to keep food or water down (I've lost 5kgs in the last 6 weeks, not the best way to do it), and had no energy to move from the couch, cook meals, write blog posts, live life.

In the few days since Christmas, that has eased. Now I just have a constant nausea and feeling of ickyness. I can feel a bulk shop of Gaviscon coming on soon!

In Australia, it is common for women to be offered the Nuchal Translucency scan at twelve weeks. It's a scan that I have avoided previously (it wasn't standard practice when I was pregnant with Chloe, and I refused on principal with Natalie and Riley because I was already being labeled a "geriatric pregnancy") After a conversation with some friends, and a discussion between ourselves, Steve and I decided to have the scan this time.

And I kind-of wish we hadn't. Because the results came back with a high risk result for Trisomy 21. So my doctor has started the ball rolling on an amniocentesis, a process that once again puts me in a high-risk category, even if the results are normal. And everyone I've spoken to is confident that the results have come about purely because of my age, not because of any issue with the baby. But we're heading down the path of "what if" in our discussions.*

* Everyone has their own opinion when faced with this discussion. Please be respectful of mine when we walk this path.

hello change of plans

not the 2013 I had planned
{but thank you Kate Middleton, for making people aware of hyperemesis gravidarum}

linking up to Twinkle in the Eye and My Little Drummer Boys