father's day review.

first, here's a look at the mini album that i finished the day before father's day. yay for being done early. ha.







i've become pretty good friends with the ladies who teach classes at the store where i work. i'm not big on taking classes, but i like to support my friends when they are teaching classes if i am able to. usually michele's classes are when i work so i can't take them, but this father's day class happened to be on a monday night so i was totally free to take it. i sort of did my own thing with the project, and thankfully michele didn't mind. :]

her album was green, but my dad's favorite color is blue, so i used blue crackle paint instead. there's lots of distress ink and stamping for a little extra touch that doesn't really show up too well in the photos, but looks nice in person.

i also changed out some of the papers to match my blue album, and i added those little chipboard embellishments because they matched the blue pretty well also. [michele used more tickets in her album, which i might have to reuse on another project. they are on my desk for now, so we'll see.] i changed my cover around because i wanted to use one of the chipboard pieces, so i ended up using metal letters that i inked up to match. nothing like staz-on all over your fingers to make people ask questions. ha.

i don't have tons of photos with my dad. that's something i'll have to work on. but it was fun to look back and pick the photos. when he opened the album and looked at the first photo, he said, "oh what a nice photo... except that i'm in it." apparently, he doesn't really like photos of himself either. welcome to the club, dad. :]

overall it is really a pretty simple album, but i tend to think that's how albums for guys should be. you know... minimal embellishments and not too much fluff. i generally put a lot of journaling into projects/layouts, but this one just didn't call for it. i had a lot of fun making it, and i think my dad enjoyed looking at it. hopefully it won't just get lost somewhere in his office. ha.

now for the update part...

my brother + amanda + baby victoria were up visiting for the weekend. such a treat.

it was amanda's high school reunion, so they were in carson on saturday, but came back up here on sunday afternoon for a father's day dinner and some hangout time before catching their flight back home. i so love soaking up baby time. she is starting to giggle a little bit and it's pretty much adorable. she's also found her feet and can *almost* roll over. oh and it's looking more and more her hair will be red. amanda said her hair was red as a child, so we'll see. :]

here are a couple photos:





1 = victoria + grandpa. [kinda weird calling my dad grandpa. ha.]











2 = victoria + daddy + grandpa. [again. kinda weird calling my brother daddy.]











3 = victoria + grandma. [see above comments.]











4 = love that look. i think somewhere there has to be a baby photo of me with the same expression. my sister has commented that i used to make that face. :]


and the good news is that mom + dad + i are heading down to vegas on thursday, which means more baby time. woot! james started work this week, so he can't come along. i'm a little sad about that part, but still excited to soak up more time with victoria and maybe do a little bit of shopping. :]

i'm once again drinking defense vitamin water like crazy trying not to get sick. james started feeling sick on sunday [just in time for his first day of work on monday] and today he was looking pretty miserable. he fell asleep right when he got home from work and really only woke up to eat some pho that i brought home for him and watch the end of ocean's thirteen with me while he ate. tonight my ears are hurting and my throat is starting to hurt as well. ack!