August, September ,October, November and December Challenges - 2013

Well it's been a long time since I blogged, but hey life often gets in the way nowadays. I have less time for crafting, in fact less time for everything. I'm not sure why, work is pretty much the same as last year although now I am classroom based.

Still onwards and upwards - here are the pictures of my 3 LO's (hopefully in the right order).

August was Holidays, the pictures for this one are a mixture of large and small circles, the reason for this is that when I planned it I had a completely different theme in mind - the size of album I chose means that I now have the opportunity to re-do this challenge in a 12x12 format later when I have more time. The background for the layouts was made using a photograph I had taken in Woolacombe this year after a day full of huge rainstorms, the evening was warm and sunny and we had an amazing time on the beach.

The journalling around the outside says when we were away and where we went.

September was Back to School, I used the same format as the tag challenge from the previous year as I loved the idea of using an 'old style' blackboard as the main base. The pictures show Harry on his first ever day at school and also his first day at secondary school, I can't believe how quickly the years have passed. The second pictures show Reece (wearing glasses) and George on their first day back with both of them in KS2. I couldn't find the pictures of their first day at school so I used pictures from their time in Nursery.

All of the boys are doing very well in school and are 3 very smart little cookies.

October was Autumn - a few years ago we went to Legoland to celebrate Reece's birthday in the middle of September. It was a lovely warm day with just a hint of autumn in the leaves, the boys had warned their auntie not to keep eating their crisps, she had her own but was teasing them by pretending to eat theirs too. So they decided to show her what would happen if she took any more of their food! The journalling on the leaves says "Don't eat our crisps!" and also " You were warned!"

I love the texture of the packing cardboard as the base, I also used some of my very limited wood effect papers and the rusty shiny paper to compliment this.

November was a choice of Winter, Fireworks or our Best Moment/Day of the Year, so I chose the last option. We had lots of amazing days throughout the year but everyone said one of the days we spent on the beach in Woolacombe was the best. We arrived early and like the day before the boys chose to make our 'camp' near the inlet which was flowing well down to the sea. After building lots of sandcastles they decided to dig trenches to join these all together with a series of moats. This worked really well until another family next to us decided to join in too and between us we flooded the area, a quick repair job was needed before other families returned to their piles of things on the beach! George decided he didn't want to spend a long time in the sea so he made himself a little island with a deep moat and sat in there happily playing for hours until a HUGE seagull came to try and share his crisps, after growling and yelling at him, which had no effect on the gull George decided to throw his spade at it and then chase it across the sand, much to the amusement of his dad and me, until he realised another gull had stolen the rest of his crisps! Our memories of the day are journalled on the back of the pages so that we can look back at them in the future.

December was Christmas and as I was so far behind with the challenges I used pictures from this year, the boys still sit on the top stair to find out if 'he' has been in their new pj's. My son always tries to find different ways to wrap their gifts and this year was no exception with Harry receiving a large cracker with a variety of socks, pants and other gifts inside.

Thank you for looking and any comments you wish to make