Memories from 2025: January through June

I love to preserve memories with digital scrapbooking. It is a joy to live in the present, focusing on the people and events right before me, and then later, it is also a joy (and a fun hobby) for me to preserve those memories. I love to be able to share some of the scrapbook pages here on my blog, and also in the albums I have at home with the printed-out pages. So many, many memories, more and more each year ...

Though 2025 was an extra busy year for me (less time for digital scrapbooking), I do want to share a few pages of our memories from the first half of 2025 ...

Above are memories from one year ago! Our second precious great-grandbaby was born on the other side of the globe, in Japan!! Such a joy! (We were able to meet this great-grandbaby boy, Micah, in February 2026, about one year after his birth ... and those photos will come later!)

In March of 2025, our youngest granddaughter turned 13! Eva is a sweetheart and so creative ... it was a joy to drive to McCook to celebrate her birthday!

May 2025 held graduations for three of our grandkids! Two of our granddaughters graduated on the same day, which kept us from being at both graduations, with one in Nebraska, and one in Texas! We were able to be with Ali as she graduated from Conestoga High School on May 10th. And then we traveled to Texas to see Brianna five days later, and spend some special time with her, as well.

Our trip to Texas on May 14-18 also gave us opportunity to celebrate our grandson, Luke's, graduation from Dallas Baptist University, with two degrees: a Bachelor's Degree and also his Masters, both which he was able to complete within five years!

June held a very special event with my dear hubby's birthday #81. It is crazy how fast the years go by! We had a quiet little celebration, having had a bigger celebration with most of our family with us the year before when he turned 80!

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A joy to share these memories with you! There were many more happenings the first half of 2025, but these are just a few glimpses of some of them. We have so much to be thankful for in this season of life that we are in.

NOTE; for those who ask how I create these pages: 

About fourteen years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking to digital scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Adobe Photoshop Elements. (I currently have the Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022 version).) You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is probably a quicker way to learn than the site that I used fourteen years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, or Amazon. (Added Note in 2025: It was a lengthy process for me to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, but I do love it! A simpler way to create pages like this would be to use one of the multiple companies online where you can create your pages and then pay for them to print out your scrapbook. One of our daughters uses Mixbook for her scrapbooks.)

From the Archives: January Memories

I thought it would be fun to pull up some posts from the past. After all, I've been writing here at Pursuing Heart since 2010, sixteen years ago now!

These posts bring back memories for me, and maybe will bring some encouragement and inspiration for you as you read them. Click on the link below each photo to view and to read ...

Jan. 2025: Starting Out the Year with Good Books

Jan. 2023: A Collection: January Books and Cozy Winter Decor

Jan. 2021: Starting Out the New Year : In the Kitchen

Jan. 2019: In the Kitchen: Make-Ahead Dishes

Jan. 2018: Quieting My Heart: In Memorial

Jan. 2014: When it's Okay to be Helpless

Jan. 2013: Digital Scrapbooking/Mid-January

A Collection: Sabbath Rest, In the Kitchen, and July 4th Memories

One of my favorites ... a little collection, a quick glimpse of a few of the many things that have given me joy recently. Life goes by quickly, and it is good to pause and to thank Him for His gifts to us ... 

The books pictured above have been capturing my mind lately, the bottom two I read in May and June, and currently I'm reading The Rest of God. It's quite evident that I am drawn to books on rest, on Sabbath Rest,  and on cultivating a Sabbath heart these past few months. So much to learn, and I am thankful. My husband and I are continuing to intentionally set aside a day or two each week, and pockets of time within the rest of the days of the week, for life-giving rest and soul-feeding. This is needed even in our retirement years, as we continually have a lot on our minds! 

A few great quotes from The Rest of God:

Without rest, we miss the rest of God: 

the rest He invites us to enter more fully 

so that we might know Him more deeply. 

 Be still and know that I am God. 

Psalm 46:10

Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness.

It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. 

Click here for more thoughts on rest in a recent post.

My kitchen has been filled with more baked goods than usual this past week as we are preparing for some special family days coming up soon! Pictured above are delicious Sourdough Blueberry Muffins. 

Also, I made two kinds of bar cookies, my favorite ones to make during  summertime. I probably have been baking these at least once each summer for quite a few years now. We love these Blueberry Bars, and S'mores Bars.

It's always a joy to use my sourdough starter each week for bread, and this Classic Sourdough Bread is my favorite. I make it most every week, and here's my most recent one! My preferred way to bake it is in my oval-shaped dutch oven. So delicious ...

And this digital scrapbook page that I completed this past week captures some of the joys from our first full week of July ... our beautiful growing veggie garden, the first grilled meal on our new grill on July 4th, some time with our granddaughter Ali on her 17th birthday, and time with daughters three days in a row at grandson Cruz's baseball tournament over 4th of July weekend!

Much to thank God for, and most of all, for His faithful love and presence through all the things of life, the good and the hard. Our greatest gift: His presence with us, each day all the year through!

Digital Scrapbooking: Memories from May and June

May and June held some significant events for us, and what better way to preserve them, and also share them, than through digital scrapbooking! And such a treat for me to scrapbook a few pages again, after a much longer break than I had thought. I started up again after about a six-month break, with these memories ...

We traveled to our daughter Cristy & Mark's home near Dallas the very end of April to see granddaughter Brianna in a school play (she did amazing!), and then again the end of May we made a quick three-day trip to TX again! This time it was because our oldest granddaughter Abigail & her husband were there with their sweet 16 month-old daughter (our great-grandbaby)!! And because they live in Japan and were just back very briefly for a wedding, how could we resist seeing them?! We had to squeeze the trip in between several severe thunderstorms with tornado warnings, and were so very grateful that God blessed us with this trip to spend time with family.

Back home we enjoyed a relaxing, fun month of June, caring for our yard and gardens, and also celebrating Father's Day together.

And a most significant event took place on June 23rd ... my dear hubby turned 80!! How can it be that that number belongs to us now? Together with my birthday coming up in Sept. when I turn 75, we call this calendar year our 75/80 year! We have much to be thankful for, and look forward to celebrating our birthdays together with our family in July!

Note for those who ask how I create these pages: About fourteen years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking to digital scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Adobe Photoshop Elements. (I currently have the Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022 version).) You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is probably a quicker way to learn than the site that I used eleven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, or Amazon. (Added Note in 2025: It was a lengthy process for me to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, but I do love it! A simpler way to create pages like this would be to use one of the multiple companies online where you can create your pages and then pay for them to print out your scrapbook. One of our daughters uses Mixbook for her scrapbooks.)

A Collection: A Summer Heart Check, More Digital Scrapbooking, and Summertime Reading

Do you need to pull aside periodically (often?) as I do, to take care of your heart? Whatever the season is, there are just some days when I just need to push the pause button. Maybe even for the whole day. In our retirement life, pausing for a whole day can actually happen. In other seasons of life, it needed to be for a shorter time. I also remember well when our kids were little, my husband would routinely give me an "evening off". Time to pay extra close attention to my heart. Those times were life-saving for me. 

And these times of pausing continue to be life-saving for me. I recently had such a day. It was at the start of a new week, and I had lots (unending) things to do. But I knew ... I needed to choose the better. Time to pause, just sit and spend extended time with Jesus, time to let Him care for my heart. My heart is completely connected with everything I do. And I desperately need to have my heart watered and cared for. Even day-by-day, and even moment-by-moment. And sometimes I need to pause for extended life-giving watering of His love and grace. 

I am so thankful for His love and grace. Always available as we soak up His Words of Truth, as we choose silence and quiet above the noise, and as we open our hearts completely to Him. Maybe your heart is calling for the same at the end of this month of June. 

More Digital Scrapbooking ...

What would we do without photos? I'm so very thankful for photos to help us hold memories close! It was a joy to have our granddaughter Abigail and Addison here from Japan for a visit the first part of April. And ... to be able to  meet and hold our very first great-grandbaby in our arms! Lily was three months old at the time they were in our home. Here are two of the five digital scrapbook pages I put together recently of their brief visit with us, including some four generation photos! The time went by too quickly; I am thankful for these photos that helped us to capture that treasured time together.

Summertime Reading

Whatever the season, it's a treat to read good books. I love to be continually reading an inspirational book, one that I can learn and grow from. And, also, I love to have a fiction book to relax with. My choice is most often a historical fiction book, where besides reading an engaging story/plot, I also can be learning of another time period from the past.

One of the two fiction books I've been reading this month is Judah's Wife, this one set in Biblical times. It was a great choice! I've been reading through the Bible chronologically, and recently completed the Old Testament. I did some extra reading about the "400 Silent Years" between the Old and New Testaments before continuing on with the chronological reading of the New Testament. I also was quite pleased to find a fiction book to read, as well, giving great insight into that time period that we usually hear so little about. From the book's back cover: "To be silent would be to deny their God. To defy would bring the wrath of the king. The miraculous story of the courageous Maccabees is told through the eyes of Judah's wife, who learns that love requires courage ... and sacrifice."

(NOTE: the beautiful setting for the photo above was at the home of one of our daughters, near McCook, NE. We recently spent 10 days there caring for their home and animals while they were on vacation. The perfect place to relax with a good book! (Thanks, Carrie, for the fun of being at your & Tyler's beautiful place!)

Digital Scrapbooking: Highlights from September 2022

I needed to take a break from digital scrapbooking all of this last fall and most of this past winter, and now have been very, very slowly going back to cover some of that time period. As you can see (below), we were gone from home the whole month of September 2022! Here are two of the ten pages I was able to digital scrapbook a few months ago, from our Trip to Oregon in September 2022. 

It was the first time for us as four Siebert siblings to all be together since our father's passing in January of 2018. What a joy it was to be all together again ... one brother & his wife coming from New York, and Gary & me from Nebraska, to join another brother & his wife in Gresham, OR, and another brother in Portland.

The highlight of our time together, was just to be together again!! The scrapbook page above captures some of the beauty and joy of our time together, as we spent a day along the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. 

The majority of our time was spent working together to prepare for our youngest brother to make a big move. And now he is back here in Nebraska, at an Assisted Living place just two blocks from our home for six months, and more recently, at a residential-style home that offers quality, individualized care just a 30-minute drive from us! It is so good to have him close by, especially as his Parkinsons disease has worsened in recent years.

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Note for those who ask how I create these pages: About eleven years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking to digital scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is probably a quicker way to learn than the site that I used eleven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.

Digital Scrapbooking: Preserving Memories

It's the end of the first month of this new year, and I'm thankful that I could take some time to preserve some of the memories from this month in the form of digital scrapbooking. A fun hobby for me ... maybe I can try to share a few pages at the end of each month during 2020?

Here are just a few of the nine pages that I have scrapbooked with January memories ...

Yes, if you read the words on this scrapbook page, you will see that we celebrated our Family Christmas in January! If it doesn't work out in December, it's just perfectly wonderful to celebrate in mid-January! I actually loved keeping our Christmas decor up into the new year, and didn't take them down until this past Monday!

We celebrated Family Christmas on Saturday, Jan. 18th! A beautiful snowfall the day before gave us a "White Christmas" that was special in every way! Four of our six (grown) children - and their families - were here in our home ... 23 of us in all! So very much fun as we had our big Christmas Dinner together, opened gifts, and played games.

What an absolute joy to have all these sweet grandkids in our home (pictured above)!! I can hardly even take in all the love and joy ... so thankful for these photos!

And this photo (above) captures our fun evening the next day, on Jan. 19th. What fun to enjoy a snack/appetizer spread together, with the amazing help of our four sweet, wonderful daughters! We played games, and also had a very special time together as family honoring our oldest granddaughter and her husband before they leave soon for Japan as long-term missionaries with World Venture. 

So many, many memories to preserve! There are no words to explain the joy of having family home, and I'm thankful for photos that help to capture the memories!

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Note for those who ask how I create these pages: About nine years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is a quicker way to learn than the site that I used nine years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.

Digital Scrapbooking: Summer Memories

I'm back again with a digital scrapbooking post! It has been awhile! Life has been full, and I just have not been able to take much time for this hobby of preserving memories in digital scrapbooking form very regularly for the past half year or so. 

But I did put together a few pages over the recent months ... and here are a few to share.

From May ...

The page above captures memories from a beautiful spring day when three of our daughters and their families were here for a special picnic together, also celebrating a birthday!

From June ...

Capturing some of the summer fun with gardens, grandkids, and good  summer food!

From July ...

The beginning of July brought a big move for one of our daughters and her family - sad to have them move away from our town, but we're so excited for them for their new place, with lake view!

And from early September ...

It was such fun to make a trip down to the Dallas area to visit another daughter and her family. We absolutely loved our time there!

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Note: Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. About seven years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is a quicker way to learn than the site that I used seven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.

Digital Scrapbooking: February

It's always good to pause, and remember. And photos are such a fun and beautiful way to look back, and to cherish memories.

This digital scrapbook page that I put together this month holds more memories than are even visible at first glance ...

First of all, you can see the sweet memories from the first day of February when we celebrated our daughter Sara's Feb. 2nd birthday! Such a fun warm time together on a cold night! 

But behind these photos, 

are beautiful glimpses 

into some amazing miracles! 

It was exactly 23 years ago today that this precious daughter of ours was diagnosed with leukemia. She was just three months from graduating from high school. We will never forget that day when we received the shattering diagnosis of acute lymphocytic leukemia. That day started us out on a difficult, heart-breaking journey of chemo, then a relapse a year later, followed by a bone marrow transplant six months after the relapse. And just look at her twenty-three years later! We continue to thank and praise God for the healing that He brought!

And I cannot look at these joy-filled photos without remembering an even greater miracle. The miracle of restored relationship with us, and with God. Twenty-three years ago we were going through a very strained relationship as parents and daughter. Not only has God healed the leukemia, but He has healed our relationship, and most important of all, brought Sara back to a vibrant, close relationship with Him. How can we ever thank God enough for His mercy and His grace in caring for our sweet Sara. 

There are miracles written all over these photos! 

Thank You, Lord,
for all that You have done, 

even above and beyond 

what we could have imagined.

Digital Scrapbooking: January

Capturing the memories of a brand new year with digital scrapbooking!

Our first family birthday ... grandson Cruz turned 10 years old! He is such a joy, and it was a delight to make the 4 1/2 hour drive to be part of his birthday party in McCook! Here's one page with memories from that very special weekend earlier this month.

I also took time during January to gather photos from our very special Family Christmas on Dec. 29th with ALL of our family home! It was such an incredible joy to have each of our six grown children home ... from Dallas, San Francisco, New York City, and McCook, joining those of us who live in the Omaha area. Together with our sons-in-law, our grandkids, a son's girlfriend, a granddaughter's husband, and another granddaughter's boyfriend, we were 25 here for Christmas. I especially love this scrapbook page of photos of our six sweet grown kids. Such a gift to be together ... aren't they the sweetest?

I'm grateful that during the month of January I was able to finish scrapbooking all the pages for our Family Christmas! Little by little in small pockets of time during the month, memories are preserved with digital scrapbooking. 

Digital Scrapbooking: Our New England Fall Trip

What would we do without photos? I took so many photos on our recent 20-day road trip to NYC and New England! It will take me awhile to digital scrapbook all of our trip, but here are the three pages that I have completed so far. It was an amazing trip ... one that we prayed for, saved up vacation days and the funds for. And now, we love having the photos to remember our trip with!  

The highlight of our trip was spending time with our son, Lance, in NYC! Each of our five days there was just amazing ... here is a page with photos from our first day there. We met up in Chinatown!

Another highlight was our time in New Hampshire. We tried to time our trip around the fall colors, and it turned out perfect. The leaves were simply gorgeous while we were there!

Note: Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. About seven years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is a quicker way to learn than the site that I used seven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.

Digital Scrapbooking: September

On the last day of this wonderful month of September, a post with two of my digital scrapbook pages from the month! It's very amazing that these pages are completed, as the month has been quite full. But it's always good to take time for a hobby that is both fun for me, and that also preserves memories!

Note: Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. About seven years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Photoshop Elements. You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is a quicker way to learn than the site that I used seven years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's.