Embracing Who They are Made To Be

Last Thursday I worked late, and when I got home, both boys were clamoring for my attention, both excited for me to hear their ideas, wow, I thought, this is a special moment! Guess what they were trying to share with me? Their latest adventures in their respective computer games, Civilization 5 and Spore! Now in the past I would have brushed them aside but now I listen, try to understand and try to get as excited as them, and now they actually want to share with me!!! (Guess what, the games are actually quite fascinating). I'm really learning to embrace them and their interests and quirkiness and teenage-ness, fighting against my mom-instincts of trying to influence (or coerce, lol!) them to embrace what I know is good for them. It's currently my parenting-thing, to discover them, help them find their own path.

I subscribe to daily devotionals from Daily Hope by Rick Warren (you can subscribe here) and there was one entitled Accept Your Kid's Uniqueness that really spoke to my heart. Here is an except:

"The same God produces every gift in every person." (1 Corinthians 12:6b GW)

As a parent, you have to recognize and value each child's individuality.

How can you tell when you've accepted your kid's uniqueness? It's simple: You stop insisting that they be like you. God made us in his image, and now, as parents, we want to make our kids in our image. So we say either overtly or covertly, "You need to be like me. You need to think like I think. You need to like the things I like.The things I was good at in school, you should be good at in school." The message comes through loud and clear to the kids: "You can't be yourself. The only way to get .. approval is to be like Mom and Dad."

Kids are not things to be moulded; they're people to be unfolded. Your goal in life should not be to mold your kids in your image. Your goal in life should be to help them discover who God made them to be.

I saw that I was unconsciously expecting my kids to be like me! No wonder it was getting harder to connect with them as they became teenagers. So now I'm learning to let go, but not just letting go, but giving them over in prayer to God. I'm on an adventure to help them discover who God made them to be!

Discovering Jared

Now he only ever took art classes when he was four, and though he has always been creative, I did not know that Jared had a real interest, until last year, when he told me he wants to apply to the School of the Arts. He didn't, but happily, is able to pursue his interest in his school's Art Elective Program. It is such a joy to see him actually taking to painting, learning art history, trying different genres, so happy he is enjoying it! He is not satisfied with these first tries, but I'm so proud and want to show of his painting of Ryan, and of himself (half portrait), so cool, aren't they?

Discovering Ryan

I can't post photos here, but we are really impressed of late, of how Ryan can be a fantastic host to Jared's friends. Jared has lots of friends over for projects and for fun, and it has been so nice to see Ryan serving them drinks and snacks, making sure all of them are having fun, or helping them when they need ideas for their projects. Considering how shy he can be, we are truly proud of the effort he is making, and how much he is winning over the lot of them :D  !!

Project Life:
Life in July is back to school, to more everyday-ness. Less of the fun and excursions of June, but no less of excitement, like the day we left soup cooking on the stove and it burnt the pot dry and blackened and smoke started billowing out of the kitchen. And we thought some neighbor was having barbeque!

Other fun stuff: Jared is taking Astronomy as an elective in school, and we all downloaded this cool app that shows and names all the stars and planets wherever you are! Try it - The Night Sky (Lite)

I didn't feel the need to print out more photos for highlighting in this month's physical PL, so instead I made a page of just words and stories!

Vietnam

Here are 5 more pages for the album. I've planned out the entire album, by sorting out all my photos into 25 photoshop files, there will be 25 double pages, and all of them will be in the 'One large photo' format! 

Here we were at the History and the Revolutionary Museums. Both are informative and very interesting. Quite inspiring and helps us to understand the people and their history, how hard they fought for what they believed in, and how that made them so resilient and strong. 

Here we are at the House on Stilts, which is where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked when he was prime minister and president.To us it really showed the mark of a true national hero in that he served the country selflessly, even insisted to live in the humble (but oh so lovely) house.

This is the Ho Chi Minh Museum, dedicated to the great leader. It was especially interesting to see war veterans and minority people visiting too.

Now this was where the boys loved most - all the military stuff were here, from both sides from the war. It was definitely fascinating for them!

Then here we are at the Temple of Literature, of Confucius, which has been associated with learning for centuries. On this day, a group of lovely young girls were there taking picture, we think they might be celebrating their graduation!

And here are the 5 templates in a set - find them in the store here!

Inspiration

And now I'm going to share with you all the most amazing layouts my lovely friends have made with Yin templates! They have different styles and it's so great to see how they have worked magic into creating their layouts. There were so beautiful I have to show you this huge bumper of layouts. Enjoy! 

By Christie Stearns - of her trip to Big Island of Hawaii. I'm sure this will be great inspiration for your summer pages :) Notice how lovely and coordinated and themed her backgrounds are!

By Kim. Like me, Kim also loves to put tonnes of photos of her beautiful family on layouts, and she is able to fit more elements in, more color, and more patterns, and still make it look balanced and beautiful :)

By Tawn of Homemakin' Girl - the super talented Tawn also has a photography business, that's why her photos are so stunning, no less the stunningly simple way she lays-out them!

THANK YOU LADIES FOR SHARING!

And here's the template for P365 for you!

download here

A Super Packed Month!

We have had a really wonderful 1 month June Holidays! Making the Holiday Manifesto together as a family was such a great idea and really helped us to max it out and make it count the way we wanted! Here is my completed Holiday Manisfesto layout. If you used this template to make a layout of some of your Summer or Holiday photos do share by leaving a link in comments! And scroll down for link to download the 'DONE' stamp :)

Not only did we pack in many activities, we also made time to just relax together, like this Sunday evening we spent walking at our local beach - I just love this photo! 

While squeezing in as much as we can during the holidays, on a separate note I was being inspired to focus on what I really want to achieve for my family in our family life. I have been reading this lovely gem of a book : LIVING SIMPLY by Joanne Heim. I've read many similar themed books but Joanne's style is so personable, her points so simple and lovingly illustrated, her principles so Christ-focused, it just speaks volumes to me. In her words (on her blog):

Living simply is not so much about the particulars of our lives as much as it is about the principles that govern them. Knowing what God has called you to do, and then doing it--that's living simply. 

I'm halfway through the book, slowly absorbing it, and one of the parts that spoke to me is that for my role in our family life in this season, I want to focus on making our home a refuge, the happiest, most cheerful, comfortable, safest place my family can imagine, where they want to run home to. I try to simplify by making choices that will allow me to move closer to this goal. For eg, I'm a bit of a control freak, so now I learn to listen more, instead of just doing what I think is the best for dh and the boys, or worse, making them do what only I think is important. I find that what they hope from me can be quite different! 

Like this afternoon, when Jared asked, and I actually agreed, and spent an entire hour playing Mindcraft with him. He was so delighted! And that was definitely time better spent than an hour cleaning his room! Even though I was definitely no good at it and got a headache and was giddy after playing (I'm sure that is a first in the Mindcraft world, LOL!) Or, I used to sweat over them finishing their breakfasts in the short time we have before dashing off to school, and that made all of us grumpy and frustrated, I've decided that even though breakfast is important, sending them off to meet their day in the happiest way is more important (refer my focus)! Thank you Joanne for your great example and inspiration! 

Now the thing is, when I started writing this post yesterday, I googled and found Joanne Heim's blog: The Simple Wife.  And I found out that she had suffered a massive stroke in January 2011 (gasp!) From what I have read, she is better and home now but has apparently lost function on her left side. I hope she is able to and will continue to write! After completing this post I'm going over to let her know how much her book is encouraging and inspiring me. Go over to her blog to find out more and perhaps join in praying for Joanne too.

Coming back to scrapbooking, I made this digital layout for the rest of June: we attended a Baptism at the beach (!), watched a few concerts, made pizza from scratch, got Ryan a tablet, attended a wedding, and much more!

Credits: Background paper by WMsquared (recolored), Memory sticker by Kate Hadfield, doodles by Valorie Wibbens, clock and timeline by The Tattered Pear, paint by Emily Merritt, alpha by Karah Fredricks

Then I included the Holiday Manifesto that was pasted over our doorway during June into my Project Life

 Also the June calendar that accompanied the Manifesto as we worked the activities in

And five pages of Project Life dedicated to our Rawa trip! I took Ali Edwards' Big Picture Class on ScrapBook On The Road, and was inspired to pre-print self made journllaing cards before we went. I  journalled daily while we were there, and when we reached home, all I had to add were the pictures!

Below were "Today I ..." prompts for each member of the family to fill in while we were there..

This is Paradise for us indeed!

Credits for the journalling cards :

And this page is from our visit to Universal Studios Singapore. The Transformers ride was the highlight for us that day, the boys went on it FIVE times!!

 June was also a month where we attended several concerts, a free one, an open air one, and a memorial concert. All wonderful. 

 Finally photos from our beach walks, Labrador Trail and Hike, and visits to the Science Centre.

Now what a month June has been! 

Finally, finally, I found time in July to start on our Vietnam Trip album - we went to Hanoi, Vietnam in Dec 2010, so if you think I'm so up to date on scrapping, think again, haha

This time, before I began, I asked dh if he had any ideas or opinion how he would like our albums to be. And he actually had one! He said, "I would like more large photos." Hhmm, now what do you think? He is right of course, my style tend to be multiple smaller photos, and he takes great photos! So I took his point, and decided to make the entire album with one large photo per layout. Here are the results: 

Our first sights of this fascinating city! Hanoi is new and old beautifully mixed together, full of life and every where even in the buildings you see the signs of life.

We went out to the Old Town where we were also staying..  so much to see

And we wandered the Old Quarter into the night - this gentlemen was hand-carving wooden stamps by the roadside - we customised many stamps with our names and images.. whimsical!

At night the city looks very different, there are areas that are high-classy with expensive looking shops, restaurants, art galleries all lighted up. The lovely by day Hoan Kiem Lake looked quite eerie at night with its neon lights though!

And the next day we visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, an unforgetable experience. 

More to come!

Credits for the Vietnam layouts: 

Layout 1: Background paper, epoxy by Gina Cabrerra, flower sticker by Pretty in Green, alpha by Designs by Sarah

Layout 2: Background paper by Genia Beana, scribbled curly by Valorie Wibbens, epoxy by Weeds and Wildflowers

Layout 3: Background paper by Dream Big Designs, flower and string by GenniferBursett, alpha by Laura Banasiak

Layout 4: Background paper by Elle Schreiber, buttons from Weeds & Wildflowers, shelf from Sweet Shoppe's Simple Pleasures, alpha by Pri Rocha Designs

Layout 5: Background paper by Haynay Designs, Hero plate and dial by Jen Wilson Designs, alpha by Sahlin Studios

And finally, here's a layout of photos from Rawa trip in 2011 found within a forgotten disposable underwater camera :)  The photos when developed were kind of off in colors, but some photoshop soon gave them this dreamy look :)

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

And last but not least, here's the "DONE" digital stamp I made for my Summer Manisfesto.

Download here, have fun getting them manisfestoes DONE!

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!