I love Ikea!!!! I remember when Ikea came to my town…it was a big deal! Not like my town has a shortage of big box stores! Ha!

We are currently getting ready to move in a couple of weeks and are in need of future…like an entire household full of furniture! We made the stupid mistake of getting rid of all of our furniture when we moved in with my mom a year ago. We are saving to buy a house and had the brilliant idea of buying all new furniture when that time came.

Big mistake!!!

So a couple of weekends ago we visited Ikea to price out furniture and other necessities. This sounds particularly routine but I must say, this was one of the BEST Saturdays I’ve had in a really long time. I shared on my YouTube channel through a process video called “Welcome Bree” that my spouse came out as transgender in June 2014. As one can imagine, there has been several months of adjusting to our “new normal” – mostly positive with regard to our relationship. But it took me several months to start feeling comfortable enough to go out in public and not feel guarded about how my family looks. In fact, most people don’t notice (Bree passes most of the time), while others may stare, a few make snide remarks.

I also had a hard time scrapbooking this change in our family dynamic. Documenting my family life is what I enjoying doing the most.

But what was particularly enjoyable about this day is that it felt like any other day when we are out and about, shopping, enjoying brunch, and having a good time.

And that felt good!

Bree and I joked in our normal fashion. Our little girl be-bopped along without a care in the world. I told myself that it is okay to feel proud of my family. Life goes on, the world goes on…I need to remember to live my life and love the one I with. I simply adore my family!

So, for this layout I used the This Life Noted Kit from the Scraptastic Kit Club. The kit includes 48 – 3×4 cards, about 10 – 4×6 cards, a small stamp set, fonts and embellishments. I wanted to do a bit of embellishing on each card, but keeping the embellishing to a minimum. In my opinion, pocketed scrapbooking is very simple…and I tend to make things more complicated than what they really are by over embellishing (and stressing about it)! I also wanted to use the cute stamp set that came with the kit.

I really enjoyed putting this layout together. I decided through creating this layout that I need to scrapbook more of our day-to-day living. Its fun to look back years later and remember the events and happenings of our lives.

Be sure to check out the process video for this layout on my YouTube channel! Enjoy!