I made a quick little video that shows how I edited the weekly photos.  So many people have asked where I got the onesies for the 52 weeks, but here's the secret: they're fake!  Totally photoshopped.  I just use a plain white onesie, then add the weeks in using Photoshop.  If you are interested in doing a similar project but don't have Photoshop, I think you can still do the same thing using another free photo editing program like paint.  (But I haven't tried it so I'm not totally sure.)

Sorry if the video isn't entirely clear... I couldn't figure out how to add text beyond "titles" so the text is a little more vague that what I had initially planned on including in the video.  It also cut off the very top of my screen so you can't see everything I was doing with the top tool bar in PS, but it gives you the basic idea.  If you have any questions, just ask!

Oh- and there are stupid ads on it so you may have to "x" off of those in order to see the text.  :)




 

Now that our 52-week photo project is over, I've taken a little time to think about what I might do differently if there is a next time. I love having all the weekly pictures to look back on and am so excited to make them into a book! I've also thought about creating a poster with the pictures, too. I'll be sure to put up photos of that if I do it! Overall, I am super happy and proud of the way the project went. The main things that I would do differently all involve the fabric choices. So here are my thoughts about that:

1. Choose fabrics I LOVE. Most of the fabric I used for these pictures came from the Clearance section of the fabric stores. While that is great for our wallet, I'm not so thrilled with some of the selections. Some of the fabrics are too similar to one another; some are just odd. I liked them all at the time I bought them, but I didn't LOVE them all. Most of the clearance fabrics were $3-4/yard. It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I did the math and realized that I could pretty much have any fabric I wanted at Hobby Lobby if I used the 40% off coupon or got it when their calico prints were 40% off (which they are frequently). So even a fabric that is usually $8 or $9, I could get for just about the clearance fabric price. Now, fabrics at Joanns are a bit more expensive, as are more "name brand" fabrics like Amy Butler or Moda. But I think it might be worth it in the end to pay a dollar or two more each week to wind up with great fabrics. Another reason to choose only fabrics that I LOVE is because in addition to creating a quilt for Gia, part of the point of this project was to build up my formerly non-existent stash of fabric scraps so that when a project arose that needed fabric, I would have something on hand. Unfortunately, because I am not so crazy in love with most of the fabrics, I have found myself going out and buying MORE fabric for specific projects. So that's a bummer I didn't think about ahead of time.



2. Only buy cotton if planning to make a quilt. I was very indiscriminate about my fabric choices in the beginning. And being the novice (er, non-existent) quilter, I didn't even think about it all needing to be the same fabric. So while I love one of the seersucker prints I used in week 8, it can't go in the quilt. Neither can the weird gauzy heart fabric from week 23 (which happens to be one of my FAVES). So, next time I will definitely choose only cotton fabrics.


3. Choose a theme or broad color palette. I still think my quilt will look good, but next time I think I'd like to try choosing a theme for my fabric choices (like dots and stripes or flowers) or a broad color scheme (like teal and red, or all blues). I saw a quilt on Pinterest that was an "I Spy" quilt... all the fabrics had fun things on them, and you could use it to play "I Spy" with a toddler.


4. Always buy 1 yard of fabric. For the early pictures, I only bought 1/2 yard. Though that was all I needed at the time, it doesn't make for much leftovers to play with! That's all I can think of right now. We are right in the middle of moving across town, so I know it will be a while before I get to working on Gia's quilt. I still have to decide on a pattern too! I've pinned several ideas (some posted above here), which you can see on my Pinterest Board here. SHEY'S QUILT BOARD  So, anyone else planning on doing this project? Something similar? What do you think about the quilt patterns? Any faves?

HURRAY!  52 Weeks old and this Photo A Week project is complete!  I had my doubts about being able to do this project, but now that it is complete I can't believe how fast this past year has flown by.  I am glad I was able to keep up with it!

This past week has been so crazy with all the things Gia has been doing.  Its like all of a sudden, she realized the people around her really were her friends.  She's been much more social.  On Saturday, we had her big birthday party (a week early so out of town family could be there).  I was totally nervous about how she would hold up for the whole thing, but that child amazed me.  She let me walk around and play hostess while she was perfectly content to play with the other kids across the room.  When the party was over, I was going to hurry up and get her home for a nap, but she was still happy.  So I was able to stay and clean up- she never got fussy!

She is getting so cute with her little baby dolls.  She got a new one for her birthday that she loves- a baby Cinderella doll.  Its amazing to me how maternal she already is.  My parents got her a doll stroller for her birthday, and she is so sweet.  She cuddles the babies and the puts them in the stroller.  Gia is even getting a bit more cuddly these days- something she has definitely not been much of before.

As for walking, Gia hasn't really taken many more steps.  Just a few here and there.  But she is definitely trying and getting closer!  She is still saying "momma" and "dad" a lot.  She's becoming such a daddy's girl.  She can also say "All Done" when she is finished eating.  It is SO cute when she does that!  She's even started saying "all done" whenever she is tired of something... getting out of her car seat, playing with a certain toy, etc.  This little girl has such a mind of her own already!  Gia loves to sing.  She has such a sweet, angelic voice!  She sings in the car all the time!

So what's next?  I am planning to take monthly pictures of little Miss G from here on out... until she's 18.  :)  How many pictures is that?  194?  Yes, that sounds good.  Well ok, I guess I will just take it one year at a time.  I have an idea for what I am going to do, but I need to find a few things for it.  I'll keep you posted.  ;)  Thanks so much for following along with us this past year.  Your kind comments and encouragements have helped keep me going!

Oh, and as for what I am going to do with all of the pictures and fabric, I will write another post about that soon too.  But you may have to bear with me a few weeks because we are in the middle of moving craziness! Now for some outtakes:

This was a big week for our baby! She took three big steps all by herself!  And miracle of all miracles, Sean and I were both sitting there to watch it happen!  She just started walking towards me while we were eating breakfast on Saturday morning.  It was so cute.  She hasn't done it since, but I think its close.  Another adorable thing she's been doing this week is she has this big stuffed owl from Target.  Sean got it for her before she was born.  I always point at it, and say "whoooo, whooooo."  She likes to lay her head down on it and snuggle because its so soft.  I asked her the other day where her owl was, and she looked at it, then said "Whoooo hoooo."  Well, in her own little way.  But its clear that its her interpretation of the owl noise!  It is SO CUTE!  Now we're working on cat and dog noises.  We're not there yet, but working on it.  :)  Gia is still waking up at 11 or so then going back to sleep until morning.  I guess it works okay for us, but I sure would love it if she would just sleep through the night already!  Gia is really loving books now.  She sits and pulls every single book out of her bin, looking through each and every one as she does.  Today, she climbed up in my lap with a book in her hand and let me read it to her.  She is really growing up... I just can't believe it.  I am in a frenzy of getting stuff ready for her birthday party, which we are having this weekend ( a week early so family can be there), and we went to Hobby Lobby to buy her last two week picture fabrics.  I cannot believe this little year-long project is coming to an end!  We are so incredibly blessed.  Tonight, Sean and I were talking and both got teary-eyed just realizing how blessed we truly are with her. 

I took this picture last week but forgot to post it here on the blog.  I am sad to say that for the first time in 50 weeks, I don't really remember what happened this week!  Just a lot of the same... Gia still only has 4 teeth, and has started waking up again at night.  She wakes up around 10:30 or 11 p.m. to nurse, then goes back to sleep.  I can't believe my baby is almost 1!

Happy Easter! This past weekend was Easter.  Gia looked so adorable in her Easter dress.  Its hard to believe that this is her first Easter... she is getting so close to being a year old!  Sean got home from Baltimore on Saturday, then on Easter Sunday we headed to Cincinnati to see Sean's family for a day.  We had a good visit with them, though Gia is always a bit cranky in the evening and was ready for bed at 6:30!  We got to see our new nephew (Sean's step-brother's new baby), Daniel for the first time.  I'm pretty sure he already has more hair than Gia does at the moment.  On Monday, we met up with some friends from college.  They had let us borrow some baby gear (swing and bath tub) so we were returning it to them.  It was great to see them and catch up a bit!  The rest of the week just flew by pretty fast!  Gia is not eating much these days.  She is nursing more, but seems to be in no hurry to be off the boob and onto real food.  I guess that's ok with me for now.  Sleep this week was back to no good.  Oh, well... Good thing I wasn't holding my breath!

I've finally found a way to get Gia to stay still for about 60 seconds at a time... it's singing this line from a silly song on the Baby TV channel... "Oh my, my, its shushy-bye..." over and over.  Its annoying and gets stuck in my head, as that's all I know of the song, but it gets her to hold still for a diaper change AND I even got a couple of workable photos this week!  Sean was gone this week with the youth group.  He took some kids to Baltimore, MD for a mission trip.  I was really dreading being alone all week but it turned out to be a pretty fun time.  I had to take Gia to the doctor on Monday because she seemed to be having some tummy troubles.  (Turns out she's fine.) On Tuesday, her friend Ella and my friend Heather came over to play.  Then we went shopping a couple days and of course, went to the park a lot.  Every afternoon, we went to the YMCA.  Gia did so great in the child watch area and I was able to work out and even take a shower every day!  The ladies at the child care area are so great, and they even said that Gia is always happy!!  How awesome! 

47 weeks!  I really couldn't tell you much of what has happened this past week-- its gone by so fast!  Gia is finally working on some more teeth.  I can't tell exactly which ones, but the past couple of days she has been just miserable.  Though she did sleep all night last night!  :)  Easter is just a little more than a week away, and we are thoroughly enjoying the nicer weather.  Oh one fun thing that happened this week is that we started giving Gia her baths in the big bathtub.  Prior to this week, we've still been bathing her in the sink.  But after I bought a bath mat at IKEA last week, we figured she'd like the big tub to splash around in.  We were certainly right!  She LOVES bath time.  She splashed and plays with her little rubber ducky and cups and really enjoys it.  I think she will like swimming this summer, too.  She's done great at the YMCA child watch this week.  When I went to pick her up one day, a worker commented "She's so active!"  I said "Yeah, you're tellin' me!"  She's not walking yet but is getting closer and closer, especially in just the past couple of days!

What? A photo post actually up on a Thursday? Crazy, I know!  We've been pretty busy this past week and Gia has been such a great trooper, just along for the ride.  On Thursday last week, we headed to Cincinnati to see Sean's dad and step mom and sister.  Its March madness so lots of basketball was watched.  :)  Gia loved playing with Pop Pop & Gran's kitties... and they didn't seem to mind her TOO much.  Gia especially enjoyed chasing Buddy up the stairs.  This girl is a pro at climbing stairs!  On Friday, some of my friends from Indy came up to Cinci for a marathon shopping day.  We started off at the Gap Clearance center (Sean watched Gia for that) then headed to IKEA and Jungle Jim's.  Except for a few momentary meltdowns (one major one in IKEA), Gia was so great!  We had a good time shopping.  Saturday was St. Patrick's Day and we had Kyle & Anne and our friends Caitlin & Luke over for some corned beef & veggies.  It was a lot of fun!  Gia has been so sweet this week... she's been a bit cuddly and one morning when Sean went in to pick her up, she greeted him with a kiss!! We also joined the YMCA this week.  It has been great so far!  They have fantastic child care, and Gia has done pretty good going there every day. She only cries for a few minutes and by the time I pick her up, she's happy and playing.  I love the look on her face when I pick her up and she first sees me!  So sweet!  Today we are heading out to see The Pioneer Woman at her cookbook signing!  I made Gia another Oklahoma onesie and can't wait to see PW!

Spring is here! It has been absolutely beautiful in our part of the world this week! Gia and I have spent a lot of time at the parks... we have two great parks really close to our house.  She likes the swing and even tried crawling through the tunnel!  I was so proud of her for trying something new!  We went for a walk after Sean got home from work one day and she loved it!  She truly is an outdoor baby!  This week, we also put Gia in the nursery at church for the first time. She did really great and only cried a teeny bit when Sean first dropped her off.  It was so nice to sit in church with Sean without having to wrangle Gia!  Gia has so much fun personality blooming.  This is such a fun age! Except for one teeny thing.... she's started this screeching whenever she gets mad... isn't it too early for temper tantrums to start?  :)  Gia is on the go all the time, from the moment she wakes up! This week's photo shoot is no exception... here are some outtakes from our shoot today:

44 weeks!  I can't believe there are only 8 weeks left of this fun little photo project.  I am working on several crafty projects to wrap it up, that I will detail a bit later.  This week's fabric is in honor of Super Tuesday!  What an interesting Republican nomination primary season this has been!  This week has flown by... I really can't believe its already Thursday (or Friday) again.  Last Friday night, we had our small group and Gia was so great.  She just crawled around the living room while we all talked.  She is definitely coming out of her shell more and more. Last week, Gia also had her hearing checked.  We are so blessed with amazing friends here, and one of our friends is an audiologist.  She is the one who was very instrumental in helping Sean get his hearing aids.  Since Sean's hearing loss is genetic, she said that we should be regularly having Gia's hearing checked, so she did the first set of tests for us last week.  Gia did great for the most part... she sat very still and only squirmed and cried a little bit.  The tests were pretty good, but one of them she completely failed.  It could have been because she was congested, but they still should have gotten some kind of response.  So we are going to check that again in a month or so.  Then we will just keep checking her hearing every 6 months or so.  This is such a blessing that I never expected nor probably thought of on my own!

Saturday night, Kyle and Anne came over to watch the Duke basketball game with us.  Gia is warming up to them, too, which I am so thankful for!  I think Gia is hitting a growth spurt because the past couple of days she has been eating a TON.  She's over her little blueberry kick, though.  She doesn't even want to touch them now!  On Wednesday, we went shopping with Gia's best, Ella and my friend Heather.  I think the girls had fun riding in the carts while we checked out Target.  :)  Sleep again was hit and miss this week... we got two nights of Gia sleeping 12 hours (we slept about 8 hours), but its back to waking up.  Though I'm hoping that's just because of the growth spurt!

43 weeks!  Gia has been sleeping amazingly well this week!  One night, she slept for 14 hours straight!  And the next two nights she slept for 7 hours.  Of course, she's had a really runny nose and congestion so I think most of that sleep was because she wasn't feel well.  Whatever- I'll take it!  Once she was feeling better towards the end of the week, she went back to waking up in the middle of the night.  She still has some congestion and a cough... if she still isn't better after the weekend I think I will take her to the doctor.  Its been 3 weeks that she's been battling this crud.  Poor babe.  Sean was sick over the weekend, so I quarantined him in the bedroom for 3 days.  He took the Jr Hi group to a youth conference in Cincinnati and came home puking.  So far, Gia and I have averted that plague.  But, its made for a really long week doing everything on my own.  Thankfully, Sean is feeling better so we're looking forward to a good weekend together.  The rest of this month is craziness with Sean again working every weekend and us not getting much family time.  Just getting us ready for an even crazier summer!  If my parents still lived in the States, I'm pretty sure Gia and I would go stay with them for a month or two at a time this summer.  Oh, well... guess we'll have to figure out how to make do!  I'm hoping to go stay in Cincinnati with Sean's parents while he is in Baltimore for a week. 

I  love this fabric... you can't really tell in this picture but it has tiny little flowers all over it.  Kind of reminds me of Little House on the Prairie... a dress they'd wear or something.  I really feel like in the past couple of weeks, Gia has completely turned a corner- personality-wise.  She is much better with people, meaning she doesn't cry when a stranger looks at her.  (Though she did this once this week, but it was a guy at Wal-Mart who was talking to her and, well, he was scary.)  She is letting a lot of people at church hold her, and is especially taken with my friends Caitlin and Heather.  Though she has been teething the past couple of weeks, she is still generally happy.  One of the top teeth poked through last week and the other one is still (painfully) working its way out.  Her giggles are the best and she is giving us kisses more and more!  She's expanded her vocabulary beyond "Mamammama" and is working on a wide assortment of other sounds, most notably "da."  I know I am testing fate by typing this, but she's even been sleeping a bit better.  But that's all I'm gonna say about that until its happened more consistently for a longer period of time.  :)

This has been a busy week for all of us!  It started off Friday morning with a first for Miss G... a bloody nose.  :(  Poor baby was standing up in the kitchen, holding on to a chair when she fell flat back and the chair came down on top of her!  We called her dr. who told us just to watch her, and thankfully, she was fine.  But it was so scary/sad for all of us!  Her little nose was purple and red for the day, but that was about it.  Saturday was Whitney's birthday.  She would have been two years old.  Its so hard to believe its been that long.  It seems like just yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at once.  We went to a friend's birthday party, then planned to eat out at Olive Garden (our usual "Whitney" spot), but Miss G wasn't having it.  So, we got OG To Go for dinner... not quite the same.  I was a little sad we weren't in Fresno on this day, just because all of our memories with Whitney are there.  But, it was still an ok day.  On Sunday, Gia and I took off on a plane again, this time headed for KC.  My mom is in the States this month for my grandpa's 80th birthday, so of course we had to go see her!  Sunday morning flights are the way to go, let me tell ya!  There were less than 50 people on our plane, so not only did I get to bring her car seat, we also got a whole row to ourselves.  After the 4.5 hour flight to Phoenix a couple weeks ago, 1.5 hours was nothing!  We had such a great time there!  We went down to a store call Pryde's of Old Westport... its a really neat kitchen store on the Plaza that is very unique.  We also ate at Cheesecake Factory.  Gia was great the whole time.  She remembered my mom and warmed up to Grandpa & Momma Suzie really fast.  It was so great to see my mom, and we even got to see my sister and nieces when they came into town on Wednesday!  Instead of the girls chasing Gia, she was chasing them around the house!

40 weeks old!  She's been out of my tummy exactly as long as she was in it!  This week has been all about the teething.  Sleep has been iffy at best (for all three of us!), but even with multiple wakings at night, Gia's personality is blossoming like crazy!  She is getting more and more at ease around new people and she is talking ALL.THE.TIME.  Gia even got to go to Girls' Night with me on Tuesday, and she did great letting my friends (mostly Caitlin) hold her.  And she is on the go constantly... which explains why this picture isn't the greatest... she was moving like crazy, as usual! 

Here's a cute outtake from this week:


And btw, that's Sean's hairy arm holding the very hungry caterpillar, not mine.  :)

Seriously? 39 weeks? That's almost a full pregnancy! This was quite a fun week for me and little G... we spent the week in Phoenix with my sister and two nieces.  Gia had a great time playing with her cousins, but mostly she just watched everything they did.  She loved playing with their toy kitchen and kitchen utensils.  She did pretty good on the flight home, too... except for the part where she got really hungry before we even got on the plane, because our flight was delayed 20 minutes and messed up her eating schedule.  She was screaming bloody murder in the airport while we were waiting to board... I could see the people getting nervous!  Thankfully, it wasn't a full flight so I got to have her car seat with me on the plane, and once I was able to feed her, she did great.  She made eyes at everyone around her and even smiled at them!  She caught a cold, so her sleep has been interrupted by a runny nose and not being able to breathe very well.  But during the day, she is just such a ham!  She really was a great traveler.  That's a good thing, too because we are heading to KC in just a week and a half to see my mom and grandparents!  Compared to the 4 hour flight to Phoenix, I'm hoping the 1.5 hour flight to KC will be cake.  :)  Oh, one more side note... these pictures are getting so hard to take!  Hence, the blurry hand here!  I took so many pics and had maybe 2 useable photos!!  Sheesh, this girl is moving!