project life 2014

Ok, so let's talk Project Life.


What is Project Life, you ask? Basically, the amazing Becky Higgins has created a simple system for scrapbooking your photos. (You can read all about it here on her website.) For the past 4 years I have taken the photo-a-day approach. And I have loved it. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was able to capture and record soooooo many moments and memories through my daily photography that would otherwise have been missed. Our yearly scrapbooks are a treasure, and not something that I'm about to give up anytime soon!



For 2014, I will be simplifying things a bit. See, for me, after 4 years of trying to take a picture every single day (and pretty much succeeding!) there was an element of guilt and stress attached to it, too. That may sound weird, I mean it's just taking pictures. But obviously there were some days that I missed and sometimes trying to find something different to photograph everyday was hard. In my Type A head, I really tried my best to have all my pictures in the exact right order, etc, etc, etc...so the process became a bit too much WORK than I wanted it to be. (Hence how I gave up on posting my 2013 pictures after only a few months. *sniff*)



So for this year, here's the deal: I'm going to continue taking pictures of my kids and our life on a *somewhat* daily basis. Sometimes I'll use my real camera, and on most occasions I'll probably be using my camera phone (wink). No stress. No worries. No expectations. Just snapping photos when I feel like something is photo-worthy. My hope is that I'll continue to capture our everyday moments, but I'm not going to worry about attaching a specific day or number to each picture. THEN, at the end of every month I'll post a photo collage right here on the blog of a handful of our pictures. Sometimes I might share only 3 or 4 photos and sometimes maybe I'll share 20! Some months I may only share photos from one specific day or event, and sometimes I'll share tidbits of everything. I'm not going to set a specific standard that I have to meet every month, because then to me, that will eventually equal STRESS. Heehee. I just don't want any rules! I really want this year's approach to be simple and satisfying, while still capturing our daily life. :)



When it comes to putting all of our photos from the year into my project life album, I'm simply going to print all the pictures I want to include in the album, divide them into months, and pop them in the album. Done and done. I'm not going to worry about having a certain number of pictures/month...just whatever pictures I like from that month will be good enough for me! Whew...did all that make sense?? Heehee.



With all that being said, here is my January collage. All these perfectly imperfect photos were taken with my iPhone, which is just fine by me. Of course I way prefer pictures taken with my actual camera, but like I always say...any picture is better than no picture!



So here we go....1 month down, 11 more to go! (Thank you to Rebecca Cooper for this handy collage template!)

1. Miss KK having fun at playschool 2. Payton and Crewie playing on the computer 3. Gabby swimming for FHE 4. My chubby boy fast asleep in his Buzz Lightyear jammies 5. The 4 kids celebrating New Years 6. Cuddles 7. The Terry cousins celebrating Winter's birthday 8. The Littles just chillin' one afternoon 9. Skating with Payton 10. Green smoothie yumminess 11. Mommy and her babies

And just for fun...here are the links to my past photo-a-day blogs:


2010 Photo a Day Blog
2011 Photo a Day Blog
2012 Photo a Day Blog
2013 Photo a Day Blog

Where to Begin?

So, wow.

Where do I even begin? After not blogging for an entire YEAR, it's a tad overwhelming to attempt this again! But here I am...attempting to get back into this blogging thing.

To be honest, I've been wanting to blog again for a long time. But with the ease and convenience of Facebook and Instagram (right from my phone!), the ol' blog was quickly and easily replaced. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some social media! (wink) I love how I can post a cute picture instantly here and there, or share something funny that one of the kids has said immediatley after they said it...but in turn I've missed out on sharing and more importantly RECORDING the more in-depth stuff stuff about our little family and our little life.

Last Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me this book for Christmas. My blog. In a book. I LOVE it. My blogging had already slowed down quite a bit when she gave it to me and looking through it, I was AMAZED at all that I had captured and recorded over the years through my blog. What an amazing gift! I absolutely love flipping through the pages and seeing our life in print. The fact that this life of ours is captured like that forever really hit home for me...and so it's been nagging me to get going again. ;)

Now, in my defense, for 3 years straight I took a photo every single day for my project life albums. I posted those daily photos and shared a caption to go with each one (aside from last year...I kept taking pictures, but kinda fell off the bandwagon when it came to posting them online!)...doing that on a daily basis kind of took the place of my regular blogging as well. And I am SUPER proud of our daily photos...they are such a treasure and a gift for our family to have for the years to come. The kids love looking through our yearly scrapbooks, and it really is amazing to see how quickly and how much they change. (As a sidenote...stay tuned for what my approach to my everyday photos and project life album is going to be this year...I have a plan!)

Anyways...as always, it sounds like I'm trying to defend myself as to why I've neglected this poor blog of mine. Well, I guess I AM defending myself, heehee! With our 4 kids, my photography business and just LIFE in general, I kind of let it slip to the back-burner. So instead of dwelling on that, it's time to move on and move forward! It's a new year. Life is good. We are good. I love my crazy little family so much and this is why I want to blog again. I promise to be back sooner rather than later. And even if it is only myself that reads my little blog posts, I am totally ok with that. 'Cause it's all about the memories and I want to remember each and every one of them. :)

Kherington, Graham, Crew, me, Gabby and Payton | September 2013

happy love day!

 

 Happy Valentine's Day!



I made the cutest Valentine's book of my kids this year and thought I would share...I am anxiosuly awaiting this book in the mail, I cannot wait to see how it turned out! I made the effort to take Valentine's pictures of the kids, and like many of the pictures I take of them, they end up sitting on my computer and no one sees them...so I took about an hour one night and put this together. I just love these 4 so much! Oh, they are crazy, busy and....well, crazy...but they are MINE and I love 'em all.



I hope everyone has a wonderful day with their sweeties. Graham and I have decided this year not to worry about gifts and stuff for eachother...we love each other all the time, so we're good! I'm glad we're keepin' it simple. Thanks for stopping by!



xoxox

here we go again!

Well, we're back at it again!

We're already a month into 2013 and my new photo-a-day blog is finally up and running.

I have to admit, I wasn't sure if I was going to do this again this year. While I'm in the habit of taking pictures (almost) everyday, I found that I got behind in posting my photos last year and that got me discouraged. As I decided to get all caught up on my photos from last year, I quickly realized how precious all these memories and photos are. I'm not able to scrapbook the way I used to, and I absolutely LOVE getting all of our everyday photos into a cute album at the end of the year...it is so amazing to see our whole year from start to finish like that! AND...posting the photos on my photo-a-day blog helps me stay committed to this project, as well as it gives my family and friends a little peek into our everyday life as well. So....it's a win-win situation. :)

I kind of have to admit though, while any photo of my children is precious to me personally, I feel like my photos are so boring! We've a had a very cold and dreary January so most of my photos are inside of my boring house (wink). So I need to commit to getting a bit more creative with my photo ideas. It's good for me as a photographer to challenge myself, and also just to make things a tad more interesting to look at. But...at the end of the day, my motto really is, any kind of photo is better than no photo at all!

So there ya go...2013, here we come!

the simple things...

A "simple thing" from this past week.


This is Kherington. She is 3 years old.


She loves red lipstick. LOVES it.


I often find her rummaging through my make-up drawer in search of the pretty stuff that makes her lips "so beautiful".


I try to hide it but it never works.


She always finds it.


xoxoxox

and that's a wrap!

Well, I have no idea how, but I somehow managed to get TOTALLY caught up on my photo a day pictures for 2012. And I am so glad I did! Keeping up with this is a big commitment and not always easy...but in the end it is always SO worth it so see all of those everyday memories in one place.

My family loves this.

This is the third year that I've committed to taking a photo every day. (and yes...sometimes I cheat and skip a day...wink!) It is for sure a habit now and something that I think I just HAVE to continue on with for 2013. Graham and I have decided that the memories are just way too precious and like I said, as a family, we LOVE looking through all of our pictures from the year. I'll admit, near the end of the year, there are probably too many instagrams and camera-phone pictures, but I will happily take those pictures over no pictures at all.

I am so excited to get these all printed and into my 2012 Project Life album...that is the FUN part! I will share pictures of that when I am all done.

For now, go ahead and caught up on what we crazy Audenart's have been up to for the past 6 months (yikes! I really was behind!) and stayed tuned for our twenty-thirteen photo a day pictures!

happy halloween!

Well, it's that time of year again! As crazy as Halloween gets, I sure do love getting the kiddos all dressed up and lookin' cute. I dread the day when they don't let me have a MAJOR part in their choice of costume. Heehee.

So here we go!!

Our little monster....

A Mermaid Princess...

A Pirate Princess...

The Paper Bag Princess...

...and the attempt at all 4 together. I tried, right???

Holy cow, getting these pictures was so much work! I usually do the front doorstep pictures for Halloween, but this year it's cold and we've gotten snow, so studio pictures was the easier choice! Every year we go to Galaxyland (a bunch of rides at the mall!) on the Friday before Halloween so this was the perfect time to do pictures...and then when the craziness of all the Halloween school parties, dance parties and trick-or-treating hits, I don't even need to worry about pictures...maybe just an instagram here or there. (wink)



And last but not least in the Halloween preparations was carving our pumpkins last night for Family Home Evening! The girls had fun drawing their faces, and then of course, mommy and daddy had to help with the carving...but they were all pros and scooping the pumpkin guts out! Crew was right in there with everyone, we finally had to stick him in his high chair and just keep giving him food so he'd leave everyone alone, heehee. Poor boy!

Crew was much more interested in eating his pumpkin than smiling for a picture. :)

I hope this counts as a real blog post! My sister just moved to Australia and refuses to join Facebook (which drives me crazy...wink!!) so she doesn't see my daily updates and posts that I do there. I soooo miss blogging...I just need to get back in the habit! Oh, and I need more hours in the day! Have a safe, fun and Happy Halloween, everyone!!

motherhood on my mind

With Mother's Day just around the corner, I've had "motherhood" on my mind as I've been browsing online lately...I always tell myself I'm going to do a fabulous photoshoot with myself and my kiddos, and surprise surprise...life gets busy and it never happens! Yesterday I came across this wonderful photo checklist by Rebecca Cooper, and decided to give it a try. She suggested using the self-timer on your camera to get some snapshots with you and your kids ('cause let's face it...WHO exactly is going to take a picture with ME in it?) so Gabby and I sat down and this is what we got! These photos that took about 5 minutes in total to take have already become so precious to me. This is the last few months that I'll have Gabby home with me during the days before she starts grade 1 in the fall. While she is so ready to be at school all day like her big sister, I can't help but be emotional at the thought of her being gone all day and taking that next step towards becoming a big girl. Gabby is always full of kisses, snuggles and "I love you's"...I will sure miss our afternoons together. (When she's being a sweetie...let's not even talk about the meltdown she had on our driveway the other day for the whole neighborhood to see! Heehee.) So now I need to get that camera out and do this with all my kiddos! Thank you Rebecca for the inspiration!!!











(Also, come and see my "Motherhood" Board on Pinterest for all things mommy...quotes, tips, ideas, good online reads, and more!!!)