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Capturing Parenthood

About

Hello! I’m thrilled that you’ve stopped by the Capturing Parenthood blog! My name is Stacey. I’m a wife, first-time parent (to a now 6-year-old daughter), former full-time working mom, turned stay-at-home mom, guardian of two energetic and loving dogs, enthusiastic baker, decent cook…and now…blogger!

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I have loved writing since I was a little girl — a passion that carried me through college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. Photography is another love of mine – I find peace and happiness behind the camera lens. But my biggest passion in life is my family. Welcoming my daughter into the world was one of the most special, surreal, amazing, and beautiful experiences. She captured me – the very moment I first held her in my arms and looked into her eyes! And in turn, I am capturing our journey on this crazy adventure we call parenthood!

I invite you to join me as I share the ups and downs, the celebrations, the disappointments, the lessons learned, the laughter and tears, and the frustrations and joys. With everything from pregnancy and motherhood, to our favorite recipes, books, activities, and arts and crafts projects – not to mention ideas for planning and executing fun events for special occasions and holidays!

My goal is to capture and share my parenting stories and experiences, make you chuckle, and give you that occasional, reassuring feeling of, “Oh thank goodness, my kid is not the only one who does that!”

As parents, we are all in the same boat…trying to do the best that we can in loving and raising our children to be kind, inspired, educated, and respectful human beings.

A little bit more about me…
  • I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Colorado – a state that (after residing in a few other places along the way) I am still proud to call home. I grew up in the snowy mountains, but I don’t particularly enjoy skiing or snowboarding. I do, however, love exploring the great outdoors…hiking, camping, and backpacking. Autumn is my favorite season!

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  • I met my partner in this parenting adventure back in the 7th grade. While we “went out” for one day (yep, one day) during the summer following 8th grade, we did not start dating until my second year of college. And we just recently celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary…it is crazy how fast time flies.

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  • I am an avid Denver Broncos (Super Bowl 50 Champions – WOOHOO!) and Colorado Avalanche fan.
  • I love to read, and will occasionally share a book review on our social media accounts. To Kill A Mockingbird is my all-time favorite novel.
  • I love sarcasm and feel that it is a necessity in life!
  • Traveling is one of my favorite pastimes – I have a whole bucket-list of places I would love to go! So far, my favorite places are Lake Powell (Utah + Arizona) and Rome, Italy. My next international adventure will hopefully be to Scandinavia!
  • I never thought that I would be a stay-at-home mom, and yet it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. I guess that is why they say “never say never.”

When my husband and I welcomed our little nugget, my best friend (and mother of two, at the time) sent us a card with a note that read:

“Congratulations Mommy & Daddy! Welcome to the parenthood club…spit up, dirty diapers, and no sleep for awhile. You have officially started the most difficult journey of your life, however, it is the most beautiful one you will ever take.”

She could not have been more on point. Being a parent is such a humbling experience. It truly is the hardest, most stressful job, yet also the most rewarding. Not a day goes by where I am not awestruck and impressed by this beautiful soul…

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She has taught me more about myself and the person (and parent) I want to be, than I could have ever imagined possible. And while we will go through many battles (we already have some now…but, I imagine the teenage years will be quite a hoot), my love for her is everlasting.

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I hope you enjoy the blog!

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Ok...@artwithmrs.e Haunted House project is hands- Ok...@artwithmrs.e Haunted House project is hands-down the best Halloween-themed art project out there! 🙌🙌🙌
We had a blast creating haunted houses for homeschool art this month! 🧡
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We followed Kaitlyn's extremely helpful Haunted House Drawing Guide (you can find it over on her Teachers Pay Teachers account) and completed the project over the course of 3 lessons.
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During our first lesson, we sketched our houses in pencil, and added some eerie exterior landscaping. 🪦🦇
We popped in a few spooky characters (ghosts, spiders, pumpkins, and a vampire). 👻🕷🎃🧛
And then we traced over our pencil lines with black Sharpie.
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During our next lesson, we used a coloring technique that we learned from Kristian @friendsartlab ❤️ We colored our pictures with oil pastels...and then painted over the top of the oil pastels with baby oil...it causes the oil pastels to bleed and blend together! 🤩
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During our final lesson...we added more spooky characters to the inside of our house...that can peek out behind the doors and windows. 💀🧙‍♀️👻
To do this...I used an X-acto knife and carefully cut around the outside edges of the doors/windows (leaving the hinge sides intact so that they could fold open and closed).
We placed yellow construction paper in the background...and added witches, ghosts, skeletons, a mummy, and a Frankenstein! 😍
This step made our haunted houses really come to life...and we just can't thank Kaitlyn @artwithmrs.e enough for sharing this awesome lesson and drawing guide! THE ABSOLUTE BEST! ❤️❤️❤️
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It was very evident how much our daughter loved this project...as we worked through each step...but the thing that solidified just how much she enjoyed it was - one weekend morning I walked downstairs to find her and her dad sitting at the table - and she was very excitedly teaching him how to draw his own haunted house - while she drew a few more herself (scroll to the last picture in the carousel)! 🥰
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#hauntedhouse #hauntedhouses #hauntedhousedrawing #directeddrawing #spookyart #halloween #happyhalloween #halloweenart #halloweenfun #elementaryart #homeschoolart #homeschool #homeschoolfun #capturingparenthood
I decided that these six little pumpkins needed a I decided that these six little pumpkins needed a permanent place on our feed...because WE GREW THEM OURSELVES!!! 🎃
That's right...first-time pumpkin-growers over here...and it was all actually a bit of a surprise. 😃
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You see, when we went to prep our garden beds this spring, we noticed a plant that had already started growing. We assumed it was a cucumber plant, since it was in the same place we had cucumbers last year.
We left it alone and planted a couple of other cucumber plants nearby. 🥒
At first, the leaves on our mystery plant looked very similar to the leaves on our other cucumber plants.
But a couple of weeks later the plant had grown A LOT bigger. It was now obvious that it was not a cucumber plant. But what was it? 🤷‍♀️
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And that's when it suddenly dawned on these exhausted parents, that our daughter had spontaneously tossed seeds from her pumpkin (last Halloween), into the garden bed. 🤦‍♀️ The mystery was finally solved...and by the looks of the large golden flowers that were emerging all over the vines...we figured we might have a few pumpkins come fall! 🙌🎃🙌
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It was so much fun to watch the pumpkin plant grow! 🤩 We had to cut down the wire on one side of our garden bed to let the vines out...and they ended up growing 6-10 feet long in both directions! 😳 It was crazy!
They put out the most gorgeous flowers...that the bees absolutely loved! 🧡 And soon enough, we spotted a few round gourds growing at the base of some of the flowers. They grew quickly...and then turned a beautiful shade of orange! 😍
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Needless to say, we are now officially pumpkin-growing people! 😂 My husband can't wait to plant more next year...and he's already looking in to different varieties - hoping to grow some larger jack-o-lantern style ones next season! 🎃
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#pumpkins #growingpumpkins #ourpumpkinpatch #homegrownpumpkins #homegrown #homegarden #pumpkingrowing #gardening #fallharvest #happyhalloween #timetocarvesomepumpkins #gardensurprises #gardenfun #capturingparenthood
Free the Frankensteins from the Frozen Rainbow Bra Free the Frankensteins from the Frozen Rainbow Brain! 😬🌈🧠
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Yesterday, we shared how we made this colorful, frozen rainbow brain - full of Frankenstein mini erasers…and today we wanted to show you what became of our beautiful brain! 😃
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We popped it out onto a tray, grabbed a shaker of salt, a bottle of warm water (colored red for added effect), and some tongs.
And then it was time to Free the Frankensteins (our daughter coined the phrase)! 😉
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This spooky activity provides chilly sensory play, motor skills practice, and scientific exploration (salt and warm water speed-up the melting process)! 🙌🙌🙌
As an added bonus…you also get some color-mixing! And the addition of the salt makes it extra sparkly too! 😍🤩😍
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Eventually, all you’re left with is some mini erasers floating in a pool of colorful water…and a happy kid! ❤️❤️❤️
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#frozenbrain #rainbowbrain #frozenrainbowbrain #brains #freethefrankensteins #halloween #happyhalloween #halloweenactivities #halloweenactivitiesforkids #halloweensensoryplay #sensoryplay #sensoryexploration #motorskills #motorskillsdevelopment #scienceforkids #kidscience #funactivities #funactivitiesforkids #halloweenfun #capturingparenthood
We are definitely getting into the fall and Hallow We are definitely getting into the fall and Halloween spirit...so during a recent homeschool art session, we decided to make some air-dry clay pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns! 🎃🎃🎃
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Back in 2019, Lauralee @2art.chambers shared several colorful, air-dry clay pumpkins that her students made...and after rediscovering the saved post, I decided that it would be a perfect October art lesson for us too! 🧡
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We used various colors of air-dry clay, and rolled each color into whatever pumpkin shape we wanted...and then we added our lines/indentations using the side of a credit card. 💳 The stems are just small, broken pieces of old crayons (another genius idea from Lauralee). 🖍 And we topped our stems with pieces of pipe cleaner, to create the little curly cues. 😍
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Once we had our pumpkins...we decided to change things up a bit, and grabbed our stash of googly eyes. 👀 (Most of) our fall pumpkins then transformed into Halloween jack-o-lanterns! 🎃
We pressed the googly eyes into the clay, and we used a few small tools (that came with our box of air-dry clay) to add their mouths. 😃
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And now we have a cute and colorful crew of clay pumpkins adorning our mantle! 🎃🧡🎃
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#pumpkins #jackolanterns #claypumpkins #airdryclay #airdryclaycreation #airdryclayart #airdryclaypumpkins #elementaryart #fallartprojects #fallartprojectsforkids #halloweenart #halloweenartprojects #halloweenartprojectsforkids #homeschool #homeschoolart #homeschoolfun #halloween #happyhalloween #capturingparenthood
Andrew from @elementaryarts shared a patterned, bl Andrew from @elementaryarts shared a patterned, block letter name project a couple of weeks ago (I'll share the post in stories today), and I immediately added it to our list of art projects to do this year! 😍
But we decided to switch things up a little bit! Instead of using our names, we each picked a color that we like...wrote the name of the color in block letters on our paper...and created our color patterns using at least two different shades of our chosen color. 🖍
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This colorful project ended up being a lot of fun, and also very relaxing...as we all quietly focused, and zoned in on adding the color patterns around all of our letters. It was actually a bit hypnotizing! 🤩
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Needless to say, we are really happy with the way our block letter color project turned out! 🙌 We even had a special guest who wanted to join in on this art project! ❤️
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P.S. We also used Andrew’s free TPT handout on how to make block letters! The bundle includes bubble letters, cursive letters, graffiti letters, and more! 👍
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#blockletters #blocklettering #colors #color #colorful #artproject #artforkids #kidart #elementaryart #artactivity #artactivities #artactivitiesforkids #colorfun #homeschool #homeschoolart #homeschoolfun #capturingparenthood
We created self-portraits for our first art projec We created self-portraits for our first art project of our homeschool year...and we are pretty obsessed with them! 🤩✏️🤩
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I love the idea of doing a self-portrait project at the beginning of the year, and then again at the end of the year...so that we can see how much we've grown and changed.
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We used Kaitlyn's @artwithmrs.e Simple Self-Portrait Drawing Guide and it was so incredibly helpful (especially for this new homeschool teacher who wouldn't necessarily list drawing as one of her stronger suits). 😉
We actually purchased her entire Guided Drawing Bundle (over on Teachers Pay Teachers) and we highly recommend it! 🙌🙌🙌
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We looked through the self-portrait drawing guide to get different ideas for our eyes, nose, mouth, and hair. 👀👃👄
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Now...if you caught our stories earlier this week, you know that our daughter recently made a pretty big change to her hair (that included a partial side-shave and bob-length cut - she also dyed it blue). 💇‍♀️
She was used to drawing pictures of herself with her long, blonde locks...and her new hairstyle proved rather difficult. But she persevered, and ended up with a self-portrait that she was truly proud of! 🥰
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When we were finished drawing our likenesses, we decided to cut them out and create a special background to glue them onto. I went with random black and white designs...and our nugget decided to draw various things that she loves (her family, winter, candy, books, dolphins...and more)! ❤️
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It was such a fun project...and I can't wait to see what our self-portraits look like at the end of our school year! 😃
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#selfportrait #selfportraits #homeschool #homeschoolart #elementaryart #artactivities #artactivitiesforkids #artforkids #kidart #homeschoolfun #capturingparenthood
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