Happy 9th birthday, Rileigh!

Ok, so today's post will be hard for me in two ways:

1) I can't believe my middle baby turns 9 today!

2) I can't believe I'm posting these pages!!!!!

When Rileigh was born, we were halfway into the digital camera craze that was beginning, but I still couldn't let go of my 35mm. I just loved getting a stack of pics back from the developer and seeing the crisp, glossy images. Nowadays, we all have the advantage of knowing what pics we've taken and going through them to delete the not-so-hot shots, but this was not the case back then. Therefore, when I wanted to find some pics of Rileigh as a baby to post, I had to turn to the old scrapbooks.

Now, back in the day, I kept up pretty good with the kids' albums. I plugged away at them day and night...but this was before they were in school and had crazy, hectic schedules. Now, I'm lucky if I can make one thing a day! I started out keeping 8 1/2 X 11 albums in 3 ring binders. I could document a whole year (when they got older...their baby albums were always two albums long!) in one album. Amazing! However, as scrapbooking then was nowhere near the hobby it is today (at least here on the east coast), the reason I got so much done: the pages were simple. Really, at the time, all we had around here were stickers and ribbon. Wire was a big thing 9 years ago, and paper tearing started becoming a popular technique. There were no crazy Prima flowers or metal embellies besides charms for jewelry. Jolee's was a big deal back then, and computer journaling was the way to go. Back then, there were 2 aisles at my local Michael's and 1 measly aisle at a New England craft store. Now, Michael's has a whole corner of their store near me devoted to papercrafting, 7 glorious aisles, and that small local craft store has 4!

Here are some of my early pages, *cringe* be gentle. This was, after all, 2002. I just had to show how cute she was when she was a baby :)

Rileigh and her sister (1 week old and 2.5 years old respectively.) Look at that curly mop on Andraia's head! I miss those ringlets. There's little, squishy Rileigh, who used to fit in the hole of the Boppy (I mean her feet didn't go past where the Boppy meets. She literally fit in the middle...my little preemie!)

Strips of patterned paper and embroidery floss glued to the corners...deco edge scissors...this is looking a little more modern (but I've still come so far!)

My favorite technique when I have a beautiful patterned paper I just don't want to hide. This is from an EK Success paper pack, quilted-looking papers. I still have some of these and use them :) Look at that adorable little girl, and that was my favorite hat! I wish I had saved it!

My favorite pic of the kids together is this holiday photo. And who can resist Rileigh in that basket? CUTE! The paper was simple, white cardstock stamped with Stampin' Up tree stamps, then some holly and a Christmas sentiment cut out and colored with my colored pencils. See what I mean about the "simple"?

Here's where I started to play with wire. I hand-bent that title (horribly) and the number 1, stringing beads along it for an interesting look. The wire "1" may be nice, but what was I thinking when I put all these papers together? Sheesh! That green looks so out of place!

Here's the final page of her 1st year album. I always include a stats page after each birthday, and this time, I used Fiskars baby themed punch out die cuts to simplify the task (and a load of bug stickers!) Isn't it amazing how different my pages are today? I love that I've grown so much creatively!

So happy birthday, Rileigh! You are such a smart, funny, beautiful little girl, and I hope you continue to grow into a kind and caring person who gets whatever she wants in life! This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, when Rileigh had a bit of a makeup party at a friend's house :)

I'm off to make her a quick banner, which I'll be sure to share later. I hope you all have a great day and get a chance to get crafty!