Family History

I think all of us scrapbookers are in one way or another trying to preserve, create, record, in our own form, our family history. So I was very excited to learn that Ryan had been given an assignment to write a biography of a family member. He chose to interview and write about his grandmother, my mom. We all watched three weeks ago as we set up cameras and tape recorders, and he asked her all the questions he prepared, and acted all adult and grown up as he prompted her, saying "I see", "How interesting", "i didn't know that!" ... in response. My mom was so happy and though a little uncomfortable at first, quickly warmed up to her first grandson's interview.
Anyway the biography is done, at nearly 5000 words - capturing a few things even I didn't know about my own mom, and helping him understand her much much more, AND preserving for future generations a bit more of our Family History. I WILL be making a layout out of it!
Ryan did not want to let me share the biography here, but I will tell you my mom singlehandedly brought my brother and I up after the early and sudden passing away of my dad nearly thirty years ago. And you can see a picture of us below taken when we celebrated her birthday which fell within the chinese new year period.
I've removed several photos from this 365 layout because they were full of friends and relatives whom I have not gotten permission to post online. I'm quite behind in my project 365! You can download the template for this below.

Now some overdue answers to comments and questions on my blog recently (I love reading them, then keeping them in my mail box, always planning to come back and answer them, but seldom finding the time, but today shall be an exception! )
Thanks to Cara for giving me the lovely award!
Thanks to Tess too for introducing me to the very interesting blog photo challenge, wish I had time to participate :P have to prioritise my time very strictly!
To Shawnyrvr, I loved to hear what you and your dh do for each other - HOW sweet and precious!
To Savannah Brentnall who asked if my templates can be used in scrap for others projects - the answer is YES - I should do up proper TOUs and post them in the store - another on my to do list!
Thank you Tink for your ALWAYS heartfelt comments.
To Karen, I know what you mean about taking forever to find the right colored kit or papers. I organise by printing out previews but am now behind in my printing. Still, for the two latest layouts below, I limited myself to searching within my printed previews, and managed to do both in two and a half hours each.
To Brenda and everyone who has been asking me about a sale - I've announced that I will have the bundle sale again in July once I have added more stuff to the store. But since you all asked, I'll probably hold a 20-25% sale in March or April - so do plan accordingly! Thanks for your interest!
To Sara, amazing that you've done 27 layouts this year already! I thot I was productive! :)
To Soffy, I will work on 365 templates soon, have sketched them out, just not had time to put them together yet.
And to Anita, your layouts are Beautiful! And so are your girls, how they have grown! Can I send everyone to your blog to check out all the lovely layouts here!
And Thank you everyone for taking the time to write comments for my humble blog.

Here are layouts I completed this week - am trying new styles for the last few layouts of my 2008 album - this one is inspired by a picture of a wooden board in a beach house where lots of pictures and knickknacks were haphazardly tucked and pinned onto.

I'll come back tomorrow to put up the credits.
And for this layout I wanted the look of spontaneous journaling in a children's note book!Again credits will be posted tomorrow, it's too late tonight!
And yep, as usual, templates are available in the store

I nearly forgot! haha! You can download this template HERE. Hope you like it.