When I look at this little girl I see beauty, happiness, joy and so much more.  I love her more than I could have ever thought possible and I see in her all the good things I have ever wanted to give back to the universe.  She is the very best of me.

but lately my little girl has been having a hard time.

She tells me that she would be pretty if she had blonde hair and blue eyes.   She begs for me to straighten her.  She has a complete meltdown when she makes a mistake.  If she tries something once and isn’t good at it she refuses to try it again.

Her self-esteem has been shook and I can not figure out why. I am very careful about what we watch, who she is friends with and the words we use when we speak to her.  I have retraced steps and analyzed where she is and who she is with when she is out of my sight.  I finally realized that she will not be under my protection every hour of every day for the rest of her life.  I have to figure out a way to prepare her for those moments that will make her question what her true worth is.

I purchased this mini album from Becky Higgins at the first of the year.  Since it arrived it has sat on my desk waiting for the perfect photos to fill it. It wasn’t until Aubrey and I were sitting at my desk looking at old pictures that the inspiration hit me.

As we flipped through photos I made a special effort to point out something awesome about her in the photos.  About 15 minutes into this she was helping me point our her awesomeness.  I then decided to print the photos and have her help me journal about them and why they remind us why she is so awesome.

This is what we ended up with:

Each card begins with the words YOU ARE AWESOME BECAUSE. . . . the above photos are because you love animals and you were smart enough to teach yourself how to find LPS videos on youtube.

These photos represent because you like to get dirty, you like to sing, you are funny, and you are brave.

Because you are talented, beause you have beautiful hair, because of your smile and because you are helpful around the house.  I wanted to mention her looks but I didn’t want too put to much emphasis on it becaus I want her to know that beauty is so much more than looks.

This is just the beginning of the book and I plan for us to sit down once a week and add more photos and more journaling. I keep the book on the bookshelves in the living room and I told Aubrey that whenever she was having a bad day and wasn’t feeling so awesome that I wanted her to sit down with this book so it could remind her just how awesome she is.  She can’t read yet but because she helped me she will know what each picture represents and when she is able to read the cards she will learn so much more.

She asked me to record a video of her showing off her book – just in case you were wondering what she thought of it.

In case you are wondering when she mentions The Blue Cat or the video her dad and cousin made she is referring to this.

This week we welcomed Spring, celebrated birthdays and did some serious crafting!

This week we celebrated a lot of little moments.  I didn’t see a need to go into a lot of journaling so I decided to just use the LIFE card from the Kraft Edition and include photos with a short caption on them.  The caption reminds me of the specifics and the picture tells the story – that is all I need.

I started the right side of the layout with this adorable post card that Aubrey received inside one of her LPS packages.  Becuase it wasn’t exactly 4×6 I used some of the paper in the Kraft kit to frame it.  Beside the postcard is a title card, again from the Kraft Edition, with the dates stamped.  Across the bottom row is a photo from a birthday party we attended and a note that Becky sent thanking me for my help on the HSN layout.

For the middle row I used journaling cards and included a small amount of journaling about the specifics of each piece of memorabilia.  I also included one of the stock cards and printed the words THIS LIFE on it.

I actually really love this week’s layout.  It was one of the easiest I have put together but probably contains the most memories.

The Project Life Creative team has a video full of tips, favorites and other great stuff waiting for you on Becky’s blog.   See if you can spot a special 4 year old in the video