CSI: Cards, Stories, Inspiration Challenge and My first Scrapbook Layout

So here I go,  my first real post about my addiction.  I recently found a really fun site that create weekly scrapbook challenge.  Their prompts are fashioned as if you were a detective trying to solve a case file.  It's like CSI, but for scrapbookers.  This is the first time I've followed their challenge and posted to their site.  My layout is called Hanging Out and documents a trip we took to Maui last year.

Here's a good place to get into how I got hooked to this hobby, one of the most popular hobbies in America btw.  Last year I lost a pregnancy, my second child who never came to be.   I lost the baby 4 days before we were supposed to leave for a friend's destination wedding in Maui.  When we left the hospital, everyone including my doctors urged us to take the trip .  It's be a good change of scenery.  At the time all my body wanted to do was to stay home, but my logical mind told me "I should go, it'd be good for me."  I was at odds with myself.  Obviously we went, hence the scrapbook page. And it's all thanks to my hubby, because if it was up to me, I would've just slouched and stayed home.  Throughout the whole trip I was at odds with myself, God, everything.... but Hawaii is the most perfect surreal place to heal.... I was glad we went.

When we came back, we held a private little memorial for the baby.  I created a scrapbook page as a display for the memorial we had at the park.  I didn't have much, just my ultrasound picture and the hand prints and footprints the hospital took of the baby after he had passed.  They were so tiny.  I'm not sure why I felt like I needed to create a page for him, I've never scrapped before.  Maybe God put it in my head and sure enough he knew I needed it.  In my mind, there was so little I could do for him now that he's gone, I had to make something... that was all I had, all I could do for the little one...

It made me feel better as a mother to be able to give that to him.  It was the most simple page, from a novice, but I'm sure one I will never forget.  It was the first page I've ever created.

I think I'm ready to share it now...