Sharing My Love of Photography with Instax Mini 8 ~ & Giveaway!

I have been looking for ways to share my love of photography with Talia. Like most kids "these days", she is experienced with taking photos with a smart phone or a digital camera but we rarely print those photos, so there's not much of a project or feeling of completion that comes from that. Sure they can take a photo and look at the screen to see what they've created, but that's where it ends most of the time!

When we visited my sister in Utah, Talia's cousin had a Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 camera that all of the girls were extremely excited to use! There was something special about being able to see their creation in print, and to see it so soon after snapping the photo!

When I was thinking about birthday gift ideas for Talia's 11th birthday, I kept thinking about an Instax Mini camera because it would give me an opportunity to share my hobby with her in a way that would get her excited! I was right, by the way...

She has her very own camera now and she couldn't be happier with it! There are seven different colour options, so we went with raspberry because her favourite colour is red. 

This is the photo that got me thinking about getting her this camera:

Katrina's Baptism Photos

Katrina turned 8 years old a few months ago which meant that a very special milestone was approaching for her: she would be baptized! I've written in more detail about baptism in our church (why we wait until age 8, baptism by immersion, etc.) in a past post about Talia's baptism. If you aren't familiar with our beliefs, you might like to check it out. In today's post I want to share some photos of Katrina in her baptism dress.

Just like we did with Talia, we took photos earlier in the year (because our girls have cold weather birthdays) so she wouldn't be miserable getting some outdoor photos! I love this portrait of her, shown below, (it reminds me how important it is to get out and get some good quality portraits of my kids at LEAST once a year, so that I can look back on these years this way).

March 2017 Sharing Time

Welcome to the March Link Party!

Teaching Children Financial Literacy

Ken and I have often reflected on the possibility of required classes in school for children and young adults that would teach them about managing their finances; we all need to know about how these things work, regardless of what we want to do for work!. As it is, it’s particularly important for us as parents to teach our children financial literacy. I put together a list of some ways to do that with your kids. Some of these we have done, some we are about to do and others we are looking forward to doing as our kids get older.

I’ll break the ideas up into three groups based on age.

At an Early Age

From a very young age, children can learn about money and why saving is important. Talia received her first piggy bank at a baby shower just after she was born, and that was the start of her financial learning! As soon as she knew what money was and received a little bit of it, we taught her about keeping it in her piggy bank and saving it for future use.

Digital Sketch Charades

While we were on our Florida vacation, we had a couple of "down time" days in our rental home. We had been walking Disney for days, so lounging around and resting our feet was an important part of our time there! Ken had his tablet with him and we had already found one really fun way to use the stylus at Disney World, so we were excited to try Ken's next creative idea: his version of digital Pictionary!

We figured out how to get the sketches up onto the T.V. and it was so fun to watch them appear! Here's how we did it:

Quick Zip Sheets Review

Here's a thorough Quick Zip Sheets review for you!

Did you know it's recommended that you wash your sheets weekly? My least favourite thing about bed sheets is changing them! I hate it!  I hate folding fitted sheets when they're clean and dry. I hate trying to get them around the mattress properly. I've always wished there were an easier way! With something as old as sheets, I think it's pretty impressive when someone comes up with a new, creative way to make them work better and that's what I'm blogging about today! I've been using QuickZip Sheets for a couple of months now and I'm excited to tell you about them!

They may look pretty typical at first glance, but these are not your typical bed sheets!