My Baby Bella
She is ten months old and seriously getting fourth child treatment of not nearly enough pictures and documentation. Adam was poring over photo books from when he was little the other day and said wistfully, “I wish you would scrapbook again.” Me, too, buddy, me too.” I’ve always done it the hands on way, but I’m starting to think that I should turn a blind eye to the closet full of supplies and start over with a computer program because then I could do a page or two without all the mess. Any suggestions from your experience? Perks to buying a program versus doing something online? I’d love to hear what you like. Ease of use is a perk, but quality will way outweigh that so talk to me about printing, also.
So while my camera moments have been elusive, the darlingness has not. She is just a ball of squishy sweetness with a bunch of hair on top. 🙂 She’d be rich if she got a dollar every time someone says, “that HAIR,” when they see her! She hasn’t lost her baby hair and they just keep growing and growing. I trimmed them twice to keep them out of her eyes when she was little and finally decided to let them go. Now they’re once again down to the tip of her nose, but she reFUSes to keep any kind of clip in them for more than two minutes so she’s constantly having to tilt her head way back just so she can see! It’s hysterical! The worst of it is, she’s decided she likes to suck on them. She reaches back, grabs for locks, and pulls them forward to her mouth. She crawls around sucking on hair whenever she needs comfort. In fact, she loves hair so much that if she finds one on the floor you can be sure she’ll pick it up and try to eat it. Cue all the eww face emoticons!
She was a relatively laid back baby until around eight months old. One day she woke up and decided she wanted to be part of the world and she had opinions. Strong ones. Suddenly her movements were quick and decisive. Anything that crossed her got close to her line made her scream and throw herself backward instantly! But she’s also the baby who throws her head back, squints her eyes closed and does little baby snorts with the goofiest grin ever! When she sees something she wants while someone is holding her, her legs kick back and forth and back and forth and back and forth as though she’s sure she can get there if she just moves them fast enough. She’s crawling all over the house on her fingers (because she’s girly I guess and girls don’t put their palms flat on the floor) and practicing getting up on her hands and feet. She giggles and giggles when you help her practice standing.
She’s the first of our babies to think food is something to be scorned. 95% of the time she will push away the spoon and grimace and shake if you dare try to put food into her mouth. The other three loved sweet potatoes. Bella hates them. I finally threatened to put candles into breastmilk when she gets to her first birthday because who ever heard of cake being a first food? She must have heard me because that night she happily ate 1/4 can of baby food pears. Two days later she shivered and shuddered as soon as they made it to her lips. So no food. Except sometimes guacamole. But paper? Like a goat! Any scraps of paper on the floor are made to be eaten! I even found a small piece in her diaper one day. How can you gag and splutter over food and act like you have all kinds of sensory issues, but eat paper and attempt to eat hair?
She loves passionately …. all her siblings, but especially Liam, being outside, bath time, chewing on her toes, being carried, peek a boo, and toy trucks. We are so in love with her it’s almost ridiculous. Babies bring so much happiness to the world!
I’m identifying with how much you’re enjoying Bella. I don’t know if I’m forgetting how it was with my girls, or if being older and “wiser” makes me savor my Andrew moments more?!
And scrapbooking? I’m so far behind and out of touch with reality thinking I’ll catch up. But I’m still clinging to the hope at this point!
Out of touch with reality about catching up? Yep! Me, too! That’s for when we’re bored and waiting on grandchildren, right? 😀
I too have heard the statement from my oldest son, “You need to scrapbook again, mom.” I agree, but goodness the thought of all that has to take place to start…
I want to continue doing the old fashion way, I find it more personal. Waiting for the right time to get the table cleared n begin:-D
Your sweet lil miss is growing up. She is to cute:-* My lil chubs is jus about 9 mo. Hard to believe how fast they pick up on attitudes and behaviors. One day at a time…
Hey! I cheered when I saw there was a new post from you! 😉 lol Seriously, I think it is almost easier to do your scrapbooking on your laptop/computer/on-line than it is to dig out all the paper and all that kind of stuff. It is also cheaper, cause you can redo a page if you want to, later on, and don’t have to waste paper. Maybe you don’t have that problem tho? 🙂
I have a program that we found at a yard-sale a long time ago. I use it to do all most all my scrapbooking, and when I design my pictures. Then I print the pages on-line… Shutterfly is a good place. The program I use is called “Art Explosion Home & Student”. I don’t know if you can get it on-line or not… Hope this will help you a little bit. 🙂
Love your lil girl’s hair!! 😉 She’s so cute!! Can’t wait for the next “post”. 😉
I don’t usually redo (because I’m just so happy to have made progress) but I do think digital is almost my only option right now. Seriously, I used to set up for three days and not do much else besides cook dinner. These days? I’m lucky if I get ten minutes to do something! It would collect dust on the table. 🙂
Your baby… totally darling! I made the switch to digital scrapbooking several years ago and haven’t looked back. Instead of a huge mess of papers, stickers and assorted paraphernalia, all I have to do when I’m done working on an album for the day is walk away from the computer. I love, love that, and so does my family. 🙂 Another pro for digital albums is they’re not nearly as bulky. I’m working on printing one digital family album per year, and they will take significantly less space in our bookcase!
I’ve only tried two online sites: Mixbook and Snapfish. Both are user friendly, but Mixbook has way more options (stickers, layouts, backgrounds, etc.) and is some better with their print quality. Snapfish is way cheaper… I’ve used some Groupons for snapfish and have printed albums for approx $10.00 each. For that price I decided less than ideal print quality is okay, especially for albums that will be looked through a lot. If they need to be replaced eventually, it’s not a big loss. I do like Mixbook better, but for quick albums without a lot of stickers and add-ons then Snapfish works for me. You’re a photographer with beautiful photos, so I hope you find a site that does justice to your pics.
I have wondered how books look from Mpix. They do an absolutely fantastic job on prints, and I’m wondering if they wouldn’t have high quality books as well.
I know some people use Creative Memories digital scrapbooking, maybe someone can give you input on that.
Now this gives me the urge to get into the scrapbooking groove again. 🙂
Thank you so much for your recommendation! I have used snapfish for prints once and you’re right, their quality is just not up to par. That’s a good idea to do a cheap album for a little child who wants to look through it a lot. I wish there were a way to transfer my already made album from one company to another though because if I go to all that work, I don’t want to have to redo it. 🙂 I’ve seen nice birth announcements from Mixbook so they may be a good mid-grade option!