Baptism, blog book, blues & browns, Busath

Alright, maybe I was trying too hard for the alliteration on that title.

We went to Parker's baptism (and Logan's blessing—way to consolidate, Cara & Rob!). Ellie has two Riley cousins born the same year she was, and it was fun for her to get to experience their baptisms before her own. The blog post about Ian's baptism is actually the second most-viewed post on my blog (right after Tex-Mex Egg Rolls). Probably people searching for prom pictures, since those are words in the title—I bet they're disappointed when they see it's really just a couple of kids, all dressed up. I wanted a similar photo of Ellie and Parker, and thought it turned out cute.

I looked through my photos, and have found that although there are 1,324 photos taken since this one, I really only have about a dozen things I want to blog about, so I'm practically caught-up! My plan is to not take one more photo until then, so I really need to be done before Joey's birthday in nine days. I'm feeling pretty motivated to blog after finally completing this:

Supervising From the Couch by Michelle Marsh | Make Your Own Book

All along, my purpose for this blog was a printed family "scrapbook" of not just the big events in our lives, but the day-to-day memories. I do like keeping in touch with the few people who read it online, but really envisioned a book that my kids could thumb through. I purchased a groupon for two Blurb books a few months ago, and found myself scrambling when I realized that the deadline was August 3rd. I finished Robbie's book first, on July 25th, and spent the next week madly working on the first year of my blog. Luckily I posted less frequently then, and I managed to finish and order on August 3rd! Rob told me that should be a lesson to wait and order the groupon AFTER my book is finished, but I'm pretty sure that without a deadline it just wouldn't happen. So it's time to order another one and get working on 2009.

One resource I found while working on Robbie's book that I wanted to share is Kuler. I've always loved colors, and it's been way too long since I played with oils or watercolors. This site allows you to browse or create great combinations. I used this photo of Robbie:

And it automatically generated this palette:

I tweaked it a bit to make the lighter colors readable:

Then I imported the colors into InDesign and used them for the text on the cover of Robbie's book.
I ended up not even using the photo, but love playing on and exploring this site. I recommend viewing the demo to see all the cool features if you're into that sort of thing.

One last thing. I got our Busath photos back from the frame shop early in July, and finally got them hung by the end of July. I love them.

These pictures capture a stage of life that I love—our family is complete, we have no babies (not that I didn't love that!) and no teenagers (I hope that will be great too...). All the kids can buckle themselves in, shower, get dressed and fix themselves something to eat. But they're not yet embarrassed to be seen with their parents, and like to hang out with the family. We love to play games, have family movie nights and travel together. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of bickering and chaos too, but this is the stage I think I'll miss the most when they're grown.