School Holidays after Manifestos

We are just back from our (almost) annual trip to Pulau Rawa - such a wonderful break as usual.

Compare that photo with this from a year ago:

Hasn't Jared really grown? Soon I'll be the shortest in the family. The island is as hot and lovely as ever. Lots to put in my June Project Life pages.

We are 3 weeks into our 4 week mid year school break - Inspired by Ali Edwards' Summer Manisfesto my family came up with our own Holiday Manisfesto and it has been such fun intentionally making our holidays count!

We have achieved some of our manisfestos and got to do some other fun things that were not planned - to motivate ourselves I did up a template and filled in the photos as we went along, here is my layout so far ... 

Like it? Scroll down to download the template :)

We are in June now and if you are like me and embarked on Project Life and/or Project 365 in Jan this year, you might have had moments or days where you're not sure what photo or what else to document that would be fresh, fun and worth recording. I love this project so much and I want to get the most out of it, and from time to time I visited some lovely sites and blogs like these for their wonderful ideas and lists:
Capture your 365, Creating Keepsakes, 53 Weekly Themes,  Katie the Scrapbooklady, Studio Calico, FatMomSlim, The Mom Creative 

Decided to draw up with my own list to inspire myself - 3 to be exact - so much potential for more authentic, fun, interesting, meaningful Project Life! 

Project LifeThemes/  Ideas

Thoughts / Reflections

Daybooks/Currently/Right Now - journaling

Quotes we like

Bible Passage/ Verses speaking to us right now

Prayers answered 

Things we're grateful for that week

Challenges facing or overcame that week

Schedules

Each of our schedule/timetable for a week (including school time tables)

Goals for the day/week/month

Daily life to remember

Favorite piece of jewellery/tennis racket/anything and the story behind it

Quirks that we have (or discovered/love/dislike)

Each of our Playlists 

New recipe tried out for dinner

Menu of favourite restaurants

Top ten – anything

Games we are playing, movies we watched ...

Map of some place special we went to

Stuff/products we can’t live without!

What each of us do at a certain (same) time of the day

365 Photo Themes / Ideas       

Us:

What makes us happy

Things that bother us

A close up shot of us holding hands

Our hands/our feet/profile/knees (all four of us in each shot)

Praying/bible studying together

Our stuff:

Our most prized possession

Our umbrellas (in the current sudden storm weather!)

Inside of our closet / storeroom (yikes)                      

Contents of our daily school bag/handbag/work bag  (yikes)

Things we hoard

Something new we love

Something old we love

Something we just learned how to do

All our mobile phones  (on home page)

Our mail pile
Our laundry pile

Home:

Clocks in our home

Shadows in our home

Colors in our home

On The Shelves in our home

Sentimental / Just  for fun:

Screenshots of kids’ facebook, favourite blogs, etc

One of the boys holding a ‘life’ tile from Game of Life
Us holding our wedding photo on our Anniversary

Us holding our baby photos on our Birthdays

Pictures featuring our One Little Words

Bits and Pieces of Life Ideas

Everyday Life

Label/Packaging from household products or favourite foods
Billing statement from monthly online grocery shopping, to look back on how much things cost...  
Newspaper/ Magazine clipping/cartoon strip 

Prescription
To go menus
Post-it notes

Special Occasions
Playbill/Theatre/movie/concert/sporting event ticket
Postcard
Money (coins from traveling, etc.)

Children School related
A page from the boys’ school daily planner (in their handwriting) 
School progress report/report card
School newsletter or newspaper

If I just get half of these into my PL album this year, it will be wonderful! :)

May Project Life
My May pages are completed. here are the digital pages (still using Template set 290)

Here are my physical pages:
Here's highlighting some occasions in May, my parents in law leaving for a holiday to Taiwan, celebrating Mothers' Day with my mom, and an unexpected lovely leisurely breakfast with dh one morning.

This page is dedicated to food revolution (courtesy of Jamie Oliver) in our family. We've been trying out cooking from scratch simple, new dishes made to look so easy and yummy  by Jamie Oliver. The boys joined in too and it has been a lot of fun!

I got my dear friend Chee to visit the  'In the Mood for Cheongsam' exhibition at the National Museum with me, because none of the men in my family wanted to. It was wonderful! We read every sign, studied every dress in detail, enjoyed the amazing forms the Cheongsam took over the years -  originally in chinese silk, then cotton (for the common people), lace, felt, organza, batik, in patterns that were influenced over the years - Art Deco, graphical, floral, minimalist, so interesting! The highlight were also the cheongsams worn by our past First Ladies, our War Heroine, some famous people, what a lovely afternoon!

If you followed my blog, you will know that dh and I had been against letting the boys have PSP, Nintendo, XBox, and the like, for the longest time. But recently we had a change of  heart, since the boys are constantly on their laptops or phones and it is so hard to get them away to talk or do things with us, we decided 'if you can't beat them, join them'! We thought Wii will afford us some great family time, and it definitely has! So much so that I've dedicated an entire page for it :)                  

I'm not showing my entire PL pages on the blog as some portions are of R & J's photos with their friends, or their writings and notes which are to be kept private. Increasingly they are asking me not to post this and that relating to them online :) I'm proud they are forming their own identities and opinions, have to be more discerning and sensitive what I share here :P

But this part below can be shared. Their school term reports came and I always loved to read their teachers' comments, this year I  typed them out and saved them in my PL. They are awesome. I'm so proud of them.

And here is template 309 which I used for my holiday manisfesto layout.

This is now available as part of Template Pack 7 in the store. Thanks for your interest!