Family Scrapping

The past two Saturdays, I've had the privilege of joining with other family members to do some marathan scrapbooking of family pictures. (I shared some of these old photos here a couple of weeks ago when we were in the process of organizing them.) We ended up with files of old pictures of my dad's growing up years, the early years of our family up through about 1977, separate files for each of us kids from babyhood through all the portraits of children and grandchildren (for the two oldest!), files for each of dad's brothers and sisters and their families, and also files of Troyer family events.

Last Saturday we had a good turnout and got the old ones taken care of, all the way through the aunt and uncles files. Galen was our VIP, with his vast knowledge of the past. We kept him busy labeling and writing about the really old pictures. It's really good to have an old guy around.

My sister Jean and niece Melissa did a great job at their station with the aunt and uncles pages.

I was so please that my beautiful"quilting glasses" were still at the house and Mom knew just where to find them. We had a good system going, where one person would lay out, one would tape down, and one would write. I do hope Mom isn't too terribly disappointed that she was out of her seat when this picture was taken. As you can see, she provided us with wonderful snacks as well as a delicious lunch, with our choice of two kinds of pie for dessert.

All the little boys were perfect as usual, entertaining themselvess and having a great time.

Yesterday there were just three of us, so we didn't get quite as much done, but the end is in sight! It was really fun even though I was rudely insulted by my little sister. I was laying out some pictures on some pretty blue flowered paper, which perfectly matched my bridesmaids dress when the folks got married back in 1973. Jean looked over my shoulder and cracked up laughing. "Mom and I noticed that paper and we thought it was weird looking - it reminded us of wallpaper. And here you are using it for her wedding!" We had a good laugh over it. I liked the way it looked, and the rebel within me made me stick with it! I enjoy reliving the past through pictures, or at least most of it. We agreed we wouldn't want to relive parts of it. Thank God, He always gets us through the rough times!