Kenley at 9 months

Kenley, we’ve been joking that you’re going to skip crawling and go straight to walking because you have no interest in being on your tummy at all. Whatever you decide to do is fine with me, because you’re just a pleasure to be around. You are content to sit and play with your toys while we work and play around you. You also love the jumperoo and the exersaucer for standing up and playing.

One big development is that you are doing much better in the “going to sleep” department. Carissa (your babysitter) and I worked on a new routine of reading, rocking and singing and then laying you down in your crib for naptime (one in the morning, one in the afternoon). The first week or so you would fuss and cry for about 15 minutes before falling asleep but now you often just quietly fall asleep on your own. It has made a big difference in the amount you sleep at night, too, although you still wake up once or twice overnight.
I admit that I’ve been a little lazy in introducing new foods this month, but I can tell that you’re ready to branch out into more finger foods. It is fun to watch you reach out and carefully pick up a single Cheerio or other snack. You are definitely interested in eating whenever everyone else is sitting down to eat. I still breastfeed you four or five times a day (including once in the night) but you’re spacing those times out as you eat more solid foods.
When we’re out, people often comment about what a calm and serious baby you are. You really inspect the new people around you. When you are comfortable at home, we hear all sorts of sounds, including your trademark growl and recently mama and dada sounds. Today we were all in bed together and you rolled over and said “dada” straight to your dad, I’m sure of it.

We just got back from a week long spring break trip and you were a super traveler. When we went out to dinner each night, you spent most of the time playing with a spoon and/or a straw. You loved the extra attention from your nana and pop po and cousins and you were interested in feeling the sand and shells on the beach.

At the beach

WIP - Hipstamatic monthly album

I love my iPhone (who doesn't?) and one of my favorite apps is the Hipstamatic photo app. I capture many moments from our daily life with this app - A) because I always have my phone with me and B) because it is fun to experiment with the different films, lenses and flashes.
I am not attempting a daily Project Life album this year (like I did in 2010) because I did not get farther than the summer months in that project (although I have good intentions of still completing it, since I did take daily photos through the end of the year). I wanted to come up with a yearlong project that could document our daily lives in a similar way, but in a low-maintenance format.
I have also been learning about digital scrapbooking via a class at Jessica Sprague's website called "Up and Running with Photoshop". I've had PS Elements since last year and I'd like to be able to use it to create projects and pages. I don't have any intention of giving up my favorite paper-scrapping hobby, but I do think digital scrapbooking adds another interesting layer to my memory-keeping.
Using my new (and still quite limited) knowledge of Photoshop Elements, I used a template to create these pages about my favorite Hipstamatic photos from January and February. I plan to make a pair of digital pages at the end of each month, then at the end of the year have them printed in a 8"x8" (or 12x12?) book.

What makes this great is that I have the template and formatting saved on my laptop, so when I want to make a new page, I just have to drop in the photos and text. Easy Peasy.

Here are the supplies I used:
In Stitches Layered Template by Robyn Meierotto
graph paper from this Neutral Paper Pack (part of the supplies from my PSE class)
month stamps are from Robyn's Dated Months and Days 2011 kit
(I also downloaded her Kraft Fun Day kit, it is sooo cute, can't wait to use that!)
font is Constantina

linking up with Be Colorful's "Motivated Monday" again:



Happy Monday everyone!