Creating a Family Yearbook: Tips from two Moms

I am very excited to introduce you to one of my oldest friends, Jessica, today as we are going to discuss our methods for creating family yearbooks for our families.  When I got to thinking about doing a post on the yearbook I created - I couldn't stop thinking about how disingenuous it would be to do the post without consulting with Jessica, since she was the one that encouraged and inspired me to put the effort into finishing.

For a little backstory, Jessica and I became friends in high school and spent our afternoons together writing in composition books about boys we had crushes on and sneaking to the mall to secretly buy compacts and lip gloss.  Thinking of those innocent, girly moments makes me so hopeful that someday in those awkward initial teenage years - maybe Gemma will find her own Jessica to share and giggle their way through that stage of life.

I started thinking about making a yearbook for our family after seeing this pin and also after looking at Jessica's yearly photobooks she creates for her daughters.  She is a Shutterfly girl (like me) and her books are so beautiful capturing all of the milestones and important moments in her girls' year between each birthday.  And shortly there after I realized that I have so many photos saved digitally but not really printed anywhere and that was the fire that got me started thinking about creating our own family yearbook.

I am excited to discuss this topic alongside Jessica since we have two different approaches to creating our yearbooks.  When I was feeling uninspired after my initial start - it was Jessica who talked me through some of her design layouts and templates that got my mind spinning again to continue working on it.  It's a daunting task; to look at your year's worth of photos and get them organized - but I think all you need is a little encouragement and proof that it can be done to keep going.

From the interviews below; I think it will be helpful to get familiar with each of our styles and figure out which feels more like your own -

Jessica's approach is simplistic with a focus on the pictures.  She likes symmetrical templates with clean, straight lines and even spacing.  Jessica keeps her book streamlined and flowing by ordering her pictures chronologically (highlighted with the date) and using minimal to no captions.  Her main focus is on the photos and the people in her family.

Tabitha's approach is similar to the layout of a high school yearbook.  She likes customizing templates by changing photo size and adding stickers.  She organizes the pictures chronologically but groups together common events when applicable (house projects, bathtime photos, etc).  Tabitha uses lots of captions and text throughout.  Her main focus is on the events and the things that her family does during the year.

Why do you make a family yearbook:
J:  I like to have photo sessions with the girls - I'd get them all dressed up and take like 150 pictures and pick 1 or 2 to display in the house.  I'd always have a bunch of goofy ones, that I wouldn't want to enlarge but wanted to have printed, but printing a bunch of pictures is useless to me - they just end up in a box in the closet.  So, my original intent for 2012 was to have the photo session in the book and sort of do a coffee table/'proof book' kinda deal.  As I started to make it, I realized I didn't want to skip the holidays or random candids (bathtime, playtime, dinner...) that occasionally would result in a really good picture.

T:  We do a lot of things during the year - that's how we mark time passing in our family; by the things we do and the places we go.  Outside of social media (and the blog) the pictures that we take throughout the year go almost nowhere.  Our kids don't really spend time looking at pictures, nor do we spend time as a family looking at pictures together of things we've done.  This makes me very sad - so I wanted a way that we can sit together to look back at all the things we do together as a family.

What is something you like to remember when you're making your books:
J:  I try to remember the purpose of it...I'm not entering a contest, so it does not have to be perfect.  It will be perfect for me, due to the content.  It's for me to remember when we were just a young family and how my girls' grow up and how we grow old.

T:  I try to remind myself that I don't need to include every tiny thing that has happened to our family throughout the year.  I remind myself not to stress about how to include all 64 pictures that I took during our 'mud pie' session this summer.


What size & type of yearbook do you have:
J:  8.5x11 Landscape Hardcover with a Padded option (additional $4.95, but it makes it look a little more professional)

T:  I went with the 12x12 Hardcover.  It's huge and at first I was little taken aback - but its since grown on me and I've come to really love the dominance of it.  It's size definitely sets it apart from any other book we have and makes it feel sort of magical.

How do you start the book (title page, beginning pages, etc):
J:  I start my book by totally skipping the first page in hopes that by the end inspiration will strike.  I started my 2012 book out by spending a few hours trying to describe what my intent was for the book...failure.  I read it a few weeks later and thought...who cares?  I know what my intent was...just put more pictures.  So I came back to the first page when I finished the rest of the book and put 12 pictures around the perimeter of the title page of pictures of the girls throughout the year (I think all of them were instagram pictures!) and I put them in black & white to look 'classy' - hahha!

T:  I start my book with sort of an introduction to what our family was like for the year.  So the title page has a picture of all four of us, followed by a page of Brandon and I that we answer a few questions together (like, What was our hardest challenge that year? and our favorite husband&wife moment..etc).  Then I even gave the pets a page with their own glamour shots (hah!) and the kids each get their own page with a bunch of my favorite pictures of each of them.  It includes a little blurb about their knicknames, likes/dislikes over the year & milestones.  (I totally borrowed that idea from Jessica's daughters' individual books - thanks Jess!)

How do you make transitions through the book?
J:  I start with choosing the pictures I want, and since I am doing it by date, it sort of has its own flow.  I try to make the 2 page spreads coordinate - sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.  I guess I am describing what I did with the date/chronological order set-up.  That really simplified things for me, and it put the focus on exactly what I wanted it on:  my pictures.

T:  It took me a while before I figured out how I was going to transition from month to month and then I started noticing that I had a few pictures each month of things we did or places we went that didn't necessarily warrant an entire page in the book, but they were certainly things I didn't want to leave out.  That lead me to making a month page at each transition to include a couple pictures from things we did that month and a little note about the day or trip.

What is something you wish you would have known when you started the book:
J:  The only thing I really wish I had known was that the internet is not always reliable and I should save more often than I'd probably like to (since that also takes a little time for the saving process to do its thing).  I did lose a page or two (or ten) and had to recreate them by not saving every 10 minutes.

T:  I think I would have made sure I was uploading pictures to the site regularly before I started making my book.  Especially now that I'm working on older years - so many of my pictures from years gone by are on various hard drives or were only partially uploaded to the site...I've seen it takes a lot of your focus and creativity away when you have to stop every few minutes to go try to locate a picture you want to use.  I'm working on uploading pictures more regularly now for my future self.

What do you like to experiment with when working on the book:
J:  My yearbooks are pretty simple, some pages only have 1 picture on them.  I also don't like to use a lot of words because I end up looking back at what I wrote and thinking - 'you are suck a dork.' hah!  To avoid that self-criticism, I only put the date on the page.  At the end of the book, I do a page or two of photos that I like but didn't make the actual book and I make every effort to completely randomize them.  Outside of that, I do really like the new photo effects that Shutterfly offers (vintage, fade, sunshine, etc).

T:  At first I was really hesitant to do any customization or use any of the embellishments that Shutterfly offers.  And then I just dove in head first and fell in love.  I love jazzing up the background to include stickers to highlight whatever the event or activity is on the page.  I'm surprised that I like stickers so much (who knew?!) but I really had to just jump right in and I'm glad I did - I think it brings a fun and silly element to the book.

monster hand stickers (left) and summer-y stickers (right)

still T:  I also realized mid-way through book creation that there are things that I write on the blog that don't go anywhere else (like posts from an important day, or about my kids, or Brandon, or about us) and I really wanted them to have their own place in print somewhere.  The yearbook seemed like the perfect place, so I included some of my favorite posts from the year on dedicated pages throughout.  Sometimes I had them on top of a picture (faded out a bit) and other times they were just stand alone with a plain background.

How often do you work on your book:
J:  I try to work on my book every couple of months so I don't get too far behind and overwhelmed, then I am not thinking about the page I am working on, but more about how much I still have to do!  Plus, I only get small chunks of time to work on it anyway.  When I start, I just try to pick the pictures and the order that they will be in the book.  I found that if I spend too much time on the background or stickers, etc - it's typically wasted since I end up changing everything over the course of the year.

T:  ugh - I'm the worst.  I waited to start my book in late December last year and didn't get the whole thing finished until mid-April of this year - hah!  I think I'll probably do the same thing though now, sort of just seems to work since then I am in the same creative mindset for the whole book.  I am going to try to stay consistent with uploading pictures throughout the year though so that at the end of this year - I only have the book to work on instead of both uploading and book creating.

What does a yearbook give you that you don't get otherwise:
J:  I now have something visual that I can keep over the years..the final printed product is nice compact, clean looking book that documents our year and I can keep it in our living room for visitors to enjoy.  No messy boxes of mixed up photos or photo albums filling up my closet...and I can share the select pictures without all the blurry or bad ones that for whatever reason I can't bring myself to delete!

T:  Happiness.  hah!  But it honestly makes our whole family happy to look at it - and we laugh at the funny pictures and memories.  I loved our 2012 one so much that now I'm working on one for previous years (2011 & 2010 at least) because there are so many pictures that Grey doesn't have access to when he was a little baby.  Its such a nice visual reminder of how happy we make each other as a family.

We hope this post helps other Moms see that a family yearbook is a completely attainable and worthwhile goal for your family.  Jessica and I both use Shutterfly - but we are not getting endorsed in any way for this post - we just use what has worked best for us in the past and have had great experiences with them.  There are lot of different options for book-making (like Blurb) or some folks use photoshop, and there are certainly people who do better with the traditional scrapbook with real materials.  Whatever works best for you - and maybe it will take trying a few different options out yourself.

As a sidenote - if you need a reminder that YOU (the mumma) should be included in your yearbook now matter how you might not look your best or if you're still carrying around some extra baby weight (ahem, tabitha), or you're making a really weird face in all the pictures from the fourth of July...READ ONE OF MY FAVORITE POSTS by Allison Tate and then get yourself in there!!

Lastly, your yearbook doesn't have to look any particular way or be some extravagant thing - it only has to be manageable and realistic for what you can do (in both time and creatively).  There are so many possibilities and options - but the only thing that really matters is that its about you and your family.

You can do it!!

Good luck Mummas; the treasured memory keepers :)

Kitchen facelift project

Brandon and I love starting projects.  We love the planning, the envisioning, and the initial super-excited-we-can-do-this-whole-thing-in-a-day feeling.  So all it took was a shared 5 hour energy at the Home Depot one afternoon to decide that we were going to give our kitchen a much needed facelift.

Our kitchen really isn't in bad shape outside of the obvious cosmetic needs.  The kitchen has remained largely untouched since we moved here in July 2011.  It was the last room in the whole house still containing painted stencils (!) and it seemed like it was sort of a either 'go big or don't do it at all' situation.

the MLS picture for our house!

the MLS picture for our house!

the MLS picture for our house!

 But after our energy jolt - we decided we could give it a little update without gutting the whole thing and starting from scratch.

after we first moved in....um, nothing changed?

high table, cafe curtains, blinds, etc

The main issues we had with our own kitchen was that it felt very unorganized and cluttered - we always had unopened  mail and paper cluttered on the table, my little kitchen desk was a dumping zone of post-its and clutter.  Not mention the kitchen felt outdated with the hardware, stencils, and light fixtures.  And truthfully, with no back-splash  it felt a little unfinished.  All in all, it just wasn't a reflection of us (at all) but up until this point, it hadn't bothered us enough to do anything about it.  (We generally like tackling big projects that we rip walls out, and install wainscoting .

So, we surveyed the room briefly and noticed a few things that needed to change to assist in our kitchen beautification project:

• remove the cafe curtains from the windows
• remove the blinds
• curtains?
• knock out the desk in the corner
• remove the glass door cabinet (above the desk)
• change out the high table in the nook
• remove bread/toaster 'garage'
• change the cabinet hardware
• clean the cabinets
• consider a back-splash
• paint
• change the light fixtures
• new counters?

My mom was visiting that day and was a big help - she got started removing the curtains and blinds while Brandon and I tore out the desk and removed the glass cabinet without harming it. 

holy empty space, batman

As soon as the blinds were removed from the windows, we were all in shock.  It was almost criminal that we had not had those windows open wide to see our view and soak in all that natural light!

And while we were moving up my in-laws old kitchen table (that was being hoarded in our basement) to replace the high table we have been using for the last two years - I started looking up pinspiration and found this pin that was captioned " Airstone backsplash. Easy to DIY! $50 for 8 sq ft at lowes!" got us intrigued:

Source: Uploaded by user via Leslie on Pinterest

After a trip to Lowes, we were ready to start puzzling together our new airstone backsplash.  The pin was correct in both the price and the 'easy to DIY' part.  We were able to finish a whole section in just one evening.  And the following day, I worked on getting the hardware changed out between calls and emails.

stencils still intact!

The next morning, my Mom got to painting over the stencils in a color we picked out two years ago (Hearts of Palm by Sherwin Williams)

Over the course of a few evenings (and some nights well past our bedtime), Brandon and I continued to work away with the airstone laughing while we made up our own terms on how to put them together ('I need a little nugget one' and 'This one just needs a little shave off, please').

I got to hanging some long curtains (Lowes) around the nook (I use this method which makes it so easy) and Brandon and his Dad changed all the outlets from beige to stainless steel.  We decided that we'd airstone the entire empty space from where we removed the desk and glass cabinet - which we think was a high impact decision.

We've finally finished up the project and have been enjoying it so much.  This is not a home design blog  - so I figured the best way to display our new facelifted kitchen was to show some pictures of us living in it (dirty dishes, smudges, and all)!

After all those changes, we realized our countertops don't look half bad, and we're going to hold out on changing that for awhile.  We've also been eating most of our meals in the kitchen now with our bigger table and has actually also cut down on our clean-up time.

We are so happy with our kitchen facelift project (and also happy that it's done!) I think best of all, we love that it feels like us - and feels finished.  Can't really beat the view in the morning either, when I sneak down all by myself with a cup of coffee and my laptop and see the fog hovering over the valley.  It's really sort of my favorite part of the day.

And now for the big comparison:

Happy Mother's Day

I've been forgetting all this week that it is almost Mother's Day.  Mostly because I'm not expecting any sort of special day for myself because I know there's no such thing as a day off from being a Mom.  Not that I even want one (although ask if I do right before naptime or bedtime when Gemmi is fussy and Greyson is whining - you might get a different answer out of desperation!).

So even though today is Mother's Day I know that it will look and feel very much like every other day - I'll still have diapers to change and snotty noses to blow.  Bruises to kiss and hugs to dole out.  Sticky hands to wipe and requests for snacks and milk to fill.

In short, I have been feeling a little jaded about Mother's Day.  Not at all like, 'Boohoo for Me' or lowering expectations - just more like feeling like I don't really need a day where we have to add this layer of non-routine to our life because that sort of just seems like more mess to clean up.  I know that sounds bad, but its honest.

And then yesterday, when the kids and I were running errands, suddenly it dawned on me that Mother's Day has a greater purpose.  You see, as we were leaving the shop - I had just scooped Gem up in a fit because she wanted to run wildly through the parking lot and Grey held onto the hem of my shirt saying again and again, 'I want a snack,' and my purse was sliding off my shoulder and I was in the middle of saying, "Okay guys, let's just try to get home now."

-when I heard someone sweetly say, "Happy Mother's Day."

When I looked up to say thank you - I saw that it was another Mother.

And I realized in her voice wasn't the sound of sarcasm or judgement.
It was the voice of recognition.
She was really saying, "We are in this together."

For all the days that I see other Moms struggling with a screaming child in the grocery store and I try to give a smile that portrays understanding instead of judgement but don't say a word.  And for the all the times that I am red-faced and apologizing in church when the kids are kicking the pew.  And for all the days I feel guilty that other mother's can seem to juggle motherhood better than me.  Maybe on Mother's Day - we strip all of that judgement and condemnation and guilt away.   And we see each other as Mothers.

Maybe Mother's Day is really about celebrating each other.
I see me in you if only because we each care about a child more than our own life.
No matter how different our version of 'care' may be from one another - I celebrate and commend you - another Mother.

So Happy Mother's Day to you Moms - from another Mom.

I feel honored to be in this group with you.
And I am endlessly relieved to know that I am not out here alone - smiling and crying my way through motherhood.

We are in this together.

I hope you get to enjoy this day with the knowledge of that in your heart.

Wedding Party Plunge

It will be our 5th wedding anniversary this year in October, so I am hoping to recap a few wedding details of ours to help pinterest beef up on wedding ideas - since there is just so little wedding pinspiration....HAH.  This post's timing is based off of the fact that it's almost summer and also that some pinners are posting our beer Olympics with the caption of "co-ed bachelor/bachelorette" or "Wedding party" and it makes me happy to see that I'm not the only bride who wanted to get the whole wedding party together and making memories before the actual wedding night.

B and I have the most amazing friends, this is no secret.  But when we asked our bridesmaids and groomsman to be in the wedding (and we had a BIG wedding party, 18; not including the two flowergirls and two ring bearers!) we realized that they were scattered from all the different parts of our lives and didn't necessarily know each other.  So although each person is awesome - come wedding day, we didn't want there to be a whole bunch of awkward introductions and weirdness for lack of mutual experiences.

So we decided that the summer before our wedding, we would hold a party for just our wedding party to create some common memories.  This way, when it was taking 100 years for Brandon and I to take all of our lovey couple pictures after the ceremony; we would know that our wedding party wasn't sitting in awkward silence on the party bus trying to make small talk.  They'd already have some mutual memory to laugh about saying, 'Remember this summer..."

Since we were having a party in the summer, and since we were having the party at B's parents' house/pool, and since I think I'm very clever; We decided to hold a Wedding Party Plunge.

We spent the initial part of the party being all weird and awkward (like everyone would have been at the wedding without the plunge) and easing into introductions and spending time with the people that everyone already knew from some other shared past.  It was fun because it was good people and good food and summer...but there was still the element that not everyone felt totally comfortable.

But in true Tab-fashion, I had some plans up my sleeves to put everyone into friendships - hahh.  We spent the afternoon playing games* (no alcohol involved at this point) for our wedding partners to become familiar with each other.  I'm the best.  HAHAHAHAHhhaha.

For our wedding partner pairs, I had purchased different colored handkerchiefs and we had the partners wear matching colors to distinguish them as a pair.  In the case where one of the partners wasn't at the party (because they lived waaay out of town or worked that day - we enlisted the help of other family/friends to step in place).  Then we started out with a few partner style games:

Water Balloon Toss:  partners start by standing about 3 feet away facing each other.  Toss the water balloon back and forth and with successful catch, you each take a step back.

Three-legged Race:  Tie the partners inside legs together and have them attempt to skip/run/hobble to a finish line

For our winners, they received a choice of silly dollar store prizes like gold (plastic) medals, shape-sunglasses, or fake gold teeth grills.  

After our partner games, we split the whole wedding party down the middle and had a spin relay race, because dizzy grown ups that have trouble running is maybe one of the funniest things on the planet:

Dizzy Relay:  Have participants cross one arm to hold onto the opposite side ear and loop the other arm through the elbow of the crossed arm.  Bend down and spin 10 times.  Attempt to run around a marker and back to the start line to tag the hand of the next participant.

And then because I know that the only way to get rid of any 'we just met and its sort of awkward'-ness is to play three games that are so hilariously intimate that there is just no more room for awkardness afterwards.  (these are our three favorite, non-drinking, party games.  They're entirely inappropriate but absolutely hilarious.)

Neck Orange Pass:  Place participants in a line, have them pass an orange from the front of the line to the back of the line using only their necks.  If the orange falls, they must start back at the beginning of the line.

Knee Cucumber Pass:  Place participants in a line, have them pass a cucumber from the front of the line to the back of the line using only their knees.  If the cucumber falls, they must start back at the beginning of the line.

Toothpick LifeSaver Pass:  Place participants in a line, have them pass a lifesaver from the front of the line to the back of the line using only a toothpick that is in their mouth.  If the lifesaver falls, they must start back at the beginning of the line.

After all that is over, its almost impossible to be weird anymore.  Plus everyone is hurting from laughing so hard that it was smooth sailing for the rest of the party.  We all enjoyed dinner and loosened up.

If you noticed, the girls are all wearing matching shirts - my Mom surprised us all with tank tops that said "Tabitha & Brandon" and our wedding date in a heart.  It also included the role that my girls had in our wedding (ie. Maid of honor, bridesmaid, MOB and MOG, and flowergirls)

As the sun started to set, the drinking started (as it normally does with us) and we set up Groomsmen versus Bridesmaid flip cup:

And a massive beer pong tournament that lasted long into the night:

And as they do, the fun and laughter grew naturally because we were spending time with all of our friends who now knew each other enough to let loose and enjoy themselves.

MIA's Paper Planes was very big during our Wedding Plunge

We closed off the evening with a fire and some music (a la Justin on the guitar) before falling onto my in-law's couches and floors to sleep (or calling in the DD's for a pick up)

It was really such a fun party and a great way to informally get our wedding party introduced to each other before they had to stand for us in the fall at our wedding.  Because these were not only the people that will stand with us during our wedding day but because they had been standing with us all along.  These were the people that had given us advice when we were having hard times and hugged and celebrated with us when B and I were having good times.  Weddings are all about parties to celebrate the bride&groom - but the Plunge was a party to celebrate the people who had helped us get to the Wedding in the first place by supporting and loving us through our relationship.

Even now 5 years later, we love you guys so and depend on you to help us celebrate and look to you for guidance.  Thank you for being there all the times before, and still today.  We are so blessed because of all of you.




*perhaps its due to my past as a teacher and people feel easily persuaded to follow my direction.  Or maybe its just because my voice is louder than everyone else's - but I never have issues organizing funny children's games and getting grown adults to participate.  This is also why the Beer Olympics work.  If you are nervous to ask people to participate in games, remember these two things:  a) people are always eager to be competitive (even if the game is childish) and b) people make friends faster when they are put in alliance with one another for a common goal.  Don't be afraid, people might moan about it for 1 minute and then everyone forgets about how silly it is and has a lot of fun - I promise!

Recap: Screen Free Week 2013

We made it.  Well, mostly I made it.  That's the real accomplishment here, let's be  honest.  We made it through our first ever Screen Free Week and lived to tell about it. I promised to cover our week in a tell-all post- so here it goes, embarrassing soul searches, cheats, and all!

The good.

It was a lot easier than I was expecting to be - like a.lot.  Clearly, from my planned out maniacal themed days of the week post-its that I had plastered all through my planner last week, I was expecting the worst.  And we literally did maybe one activity a day (if even!) because it was so much easier than we thought it would be.  Grey asked to watch tv one time.  ONCE!  On Wednesday morning and when I told him the tv was still broken he said, "oh, okay."

No tv after dinner meant for the first time in a year (!) we didn't have to negotiate bedtime with Greyson.  He was ready for bed at 8:30p every.single.night.  (He still wakes up in the middle of the night to come into our bed every night but) there was no complaining, no bartering for later bedtimes, just a kiss and up he went to lay with whichever parent he picked that night.  It was insanity.

The bad.

We cheated.  Not the kids.  We - the parents.  We cheated a few times because we are totally lame and have no backbone apparently.  I had to pin-lookup a recipe one day.  By Wednesday, I was justifying glancing at my personal email just in case I needed to answer something urgent (hah! who was I kidding?) and refreshing my blogger page just to see if life was going on without me (um, duh)  And Bud checked facebook on long drives (super safe?!?)

It took about 1 full day to realize that Screen Free Week had almost nothing to do with the kids and about 95% to do with ME and a measly 5% to do with Brandon.  The kids hardly noticed and I was practically climbing the walls without screens in my life.  (ugh, shameful).

The things we got to do just because it was Screen Free Week...that maybe we would not have taken the time to do otherwise:

• took three days off this week from work to be totally focused on the kids and having fun with no particular vacation or event planned otherwise
• made a sock puppet that Grey named "Ni-jo" and who has made our kids laugh at least once a day since

• made pancake bites and meatloaf cupcakes
• created art on the windows with contact paper

• read the book A Bear and His Boy so many times that Grey knows all the words, including "running around like a maniac!" which makes us all laugh every single time
• read the book No, David! so many times that Gemma now says, "No, no, no!" as she flips the pages when she's playing alone
• caught up on our March Kindness to make cookies for the local Fire department (because we hadn't done it yet!) and delivered them
• hosted my first ever Mom's group event at the Quemahoming Dam and spent the afternoon running after kids and talking to a real life grown up Mom (hi, Angie!)
• Learned the Grey is big enough to pull Gem in the wagon himself and learned that Gem loves being pulled around in the wagon
• took these pictures of the kids on the trampoline with their faces painted on Friday afternoon

The unexpected.

We, the parents, were thoroughly exhausted.  What is the deal that once you put the kids to bed and don't have tv or computers to distract you that you just go to bed and (gasp) fall asleep?  We were in bed and asleep almost every night by 10p.  It was seriously great to get that much sleep, but we were also going above our normal activity level (both physical and emotional) by entertaining the kids more than normal - so we were super tired too.

The learned.

I have almost no ability to just relax my mind without screens.  This is an awful thing to admit to you all - and clearly a big red flag that I need to get more serious about mediation.  But honestly, without screens to help me just zone out (scrolling through pins or statuses, or flipping on the tv), it felt like my brain was running a million miles an hour.  And although that was awesome for a few things (like getting a jumpstart on our maids of honor speech! and brainstorming games and plans for beer olympics) it was also making me very tired and have low-grade headache.

The things I missed.

instagram
writing my blog
reading your blogs
The Good Men Project
Googling anything that comes into my brain

The things I didn't miss (all surprising to me as they are daily regulars).

Pinterest
Facebook
tv (except Dawson's Creek on Netflix because I'm still secretly 15 years old apparently)
youtube
new movie trailers

The serious soul-searching stuff

So, brace yourself for some dramatics.
Monday was exciting and new.  I didn't mind and it was sort of a thrill to catch myself about to mindlessly tap instagram and then stop myself smiling like, 'na, na, no - mumma.'  Tuesday was more difficult and super tempting.  I wanted to keep googling things from my restless brain, I was starting to wonder what was happening out there in social media land.  This was the beginning of the realization that I don't know how to turn my own brain off without the use of technology.  By Wednesday night I had moved into contemplating existential questions about myself and the true meaning of my involvement in social media.  The conversation with Brandon went something like this:

Me:  when I was blowing bubbles in the yard today and the sky was so perfectly blue and the kids and dogs were running all around to pop them I thought to myself - 'this is a moment that I would instagram on a normal day'  What is that about?  Why do I think I need to instagram my every waking moment?
B:  um.  you want to brag about your life?
Me:  oh God - is that it?  I want to brag?  What does that say about me?  About the fiber that makes up my soul?
B:  I don't know.  I think its a pretty normal thing to want to brag about your life.
Me:  Do you not care that I just said aloud without any hint of joking, 'the fiber that makes up my soul?'
B:  no.  that's pretty normal tab-talk
Me:  uuuuuuughhhhh.  Why do I even blog then?
B:  okay drama queen, go to bed.

The dramatics passed in my sleep and by Thursday - all the way through Saturday - we were accepting of our no screen status (with the addition of gmail checks and blog refreshes of course).

But by Sunday we were back into the glazed look and DearGod-when-will-this-week-end phase.  We almost caved for the kids just to catch a moment of peace.  After a seemingly never-ending ballad of 'Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa!' from Greyson and Gemma putting her entire foot into the dog's water dish - B mouthed to me, 'movie?'  I caught a glimpse of the clock and saw that it was nearly Gemma's naptime and said with full dramatic flair, "B - if we don't stand for something, we'll fall for anything." to which he rolled his eyes and laughed because it really made no sense in relation to Screen Free Week but it sort of felt like a substantial enough pep talk for the both of us to make it through the rest of the afternoon without caving.


So the short of it was that we survived a week without screen (well, mostly without).  The kids day a whole lot better than us (so much so that it's sort of embarrassing that I thought it was going to be more for them than for me).  We learned a lot about ourselves and our own tendencies to plug in more frequently than we are generally conscious of and we'll be implementing a few changes into our daily routine (at least initially) to see if it helps make a difference in our lives - like no tv after dinner and before kid bedtime.

It may continue to get more difficult for the kids as they get older and have a real interest in screens (their own facebook, their own 'shows') but for now - our kids thought the week was a piece of cake, while we struggled and were more reflective about ourselves than we ever expected.  All in all - it was a great and challenging week that we will participate in again....in a year :)



Anyone else participate?  Anyone else as dramatic as my Wednesday night of self-reflection?  hahha, let's hope not.