December Daily - Days 16 and 17

Okay, got behind again!! Surprise, surprise!!

I have a good excuse this time though - we went out of town! We went out to Abbotsford on Friday night to visit with my family. Just wait for my Day 18 posting and you'll see what I'm talking about! I need a photo emailed to me first though so .... that one will have to wait!

But before we get there we have to go here ...

Day 16:

The girls made Christmas cards for the kids in their classes today. What a messy adventure!

I knew it would be and was somewhat mentally prepared but it exceeded even MY expectations! I used to allow the girls to do things like paint, use glue, play with play-doh etc but a couple years ago I became intolerant of the mess left behind. I'm trying to soften my "No Paint, No Glue, No Glitter" policy but it's tough!! I feel it's hard enough to keep this place looking somewhat neat and tidy without the added mayhem of the above mentioned paint, glue and glitter. I'd like to be the type of Mom who relishes letting her kids get messy but I'm just not. And I'm learning to be okay with that!

But ... cards needed to be made so a mess was inevitable. Sigh!

I took some old cardstock, cut it down and then folded it into cards for Paige to decorate with stamps. A couple Christmasses ago I bought them a pack of 30 wooden Christmas stamps plus a red and green ink pad at Michael's. It was one of my best purchases for them! It has offered up hours of fun. Quiet fun! With relatively easy clean up!!

That was before LC!!!

She went to town with the stamps! Not so much on the paper that I'd given her though. Her preferred canvas was the kitchen table ... and herself! For the main page I decided to take a picture of the table after Paige and LC had finished. It was a sight to behold!

See for yourself ...

At least the ink was washable!!

After we picked Marley up from school she got to work too. She was very creative and (in a very familiar way - no, she's not a chip off the old block at ALL!!) made her project more complicated than it needed to be! She used some Christmas stencils to trace the shapes onto paper (having folded it first so her cards would open), then she coloured them in and cut them out. Inside she wrote her messages of love. Yes, she told every kid in her class that she loved them! Very sweet.

Day 17:

It was the last day of school for both Marley and Paige and they both had parties. I wasn't able to attend Marley's party (younger siblings are not really welcome) but I made a point to return to the preschool to be with Paige. The reason? Santa was coming to visit! Paige has always had an intense fear of anybody dressed in costume. Greg took Marley and Paige to a pre-season event with the Canucks a few years ago and almost suffered an injury when Paige completely FREAKED at Finn, the Canucks Mascot. Yup. Fun times! We've purposefully not planned to take the girls to Disneyland until she has overcome this fear.

After this, I think we are getting closer!

Santa has always been a particulary poignant issue for us. I'd really like to have those pictures of my kids on Santa's knee but the tears, screams and escape attempts make it not worth the attempt.

Before I digress too much, here is a close up of the main page. I made a collage of several pictures and then added some ribbon - to make it look like a present.

Kind of.

Maybe if you squint! LOL!

Of course the kids were all excited for the Special Guest ... Paige included.

My journalling reads: "What a week this has been for Paige! First she conquered her stage fright and today she conquered her fear of Santa Claus. Way to go Paige! Paige has always been terrified of any person dressed in a costume - team mascots, PNE Bears, clowns and  ... Santa Claus. Today she not only did NOT run and hide when the Jolly Old Elf came to visit her preschool, she sat on his lap and told him what she wanted for Christmas. She may look nervous in this picture, but really she is thinking hard!! Awesome Paige! Just awesome!"

Okay, that's it. Like I said, I need a specific picture in order to do the layout I want to do for the 18th. Hopefully I'll get it soon.

Until then, enjoy the season!

Indulge me if you will ...

** I have hopefully fixed the settings on those video links so you should be able to view them now. Sorry about that!!**

Beware! This is a "proud Mama" post!

Don't say I didn't warn you!!

I finally retrieved various videos from my camera (for whatever reason they don't download at the same time as my still pictures) and would like to share a few with you now.

Video #1 - Paige's Holiday Jingle. They entered in a train (the music was from the Polar Express) and then did their circle time warm up exercises. I caught the tail end of this before they broke off to go to different stations. The first time through the circuit Paige was tentative. It looked like she was overwhelmed as well as having trouble remembering what they'd practiced. The second time through she found her groove.

Video #2 - Marley doing skips in ballet class. This was the only video I was able to take due to LC's antics. It's kind of poor but ... what the hey! They put on a big show in June so I'm sure I'll bore you all again with tons of videos!! (insert evil laugh here!)

Video #3 - Paige's ballet class. They did a little routine where they are toys in a toy shop. This one shows them doing it with the prompts from Miss Katie. I have another where they have to remember all the different parts and it's pretty funny! They're all looking around at each other to see what they're supposed to do!

Well, thanks for indulging my Mama Moment!!

December Daily - Day 15

Welcome to Day 15! Half way there!!

I'll see how it goes after Christmas Day but right now I'm thinking that next year I will only do 25 days. Maybe 26 and include New Years Eve (Hogmanay as it's called in the "Old Country"!) This is an enjoyable project but some days I struggle to find a story to tell. Stay tuned ...

Today it's all about Paige. It was her gymnastics Holiday Jingle - the annual Christmas show put on by Delta Gymnastics. We knew it was going to be a tough night for her as she suffers severe stage fright. Getting her to the gym was the challenge (as we expected) but once she was there she relaxed, had fun with her friends and put on a great show. I am attempting to upload some videos but it is taking FOREVER!!

Day 15:

I included the program.

I wanted to write Paige a letter and knew I wanted to say more than I could fit on the page if I hand wrote it. The letter reads:

Dear Paige,

Your Dad and I are SO PROUD of you!
Tonight you conquered your fear and performed in your gymnastics Holiday Jingle. Way to go!
I was very worried when you froze in your tracks yesterday. We were on our way home from watching Marley in her Christmas Concert and I mentioned that it would be your turn to perform next. You got so scared you could hardly walk home! Tonight you didn’t want to get changed, you didn’t want to go, you only wanted to cuddle in Daddy’s arms. I was very worried you’d miss out on something I knew you’d worked hard for.
You are so nervous getting up in front of others and showing them what you can do. I understand why you are like that – your Dad and I were like that at your age too – but you are so talented. You CAN do it! You DO do it!! And do it well!!
My hope for you is that you realize you can be brave. That you realize it’s okay to show off your accomplishments. That your fears don’t prevent you from doing things you really want to do – secretly, deep inside! That as your natural abilities develop and improve, you will WANT to show others what you have learned and what you can do. We all want to see it!!
Today you shone! Today my heart swelled with pride and I have never loved you more. You did it Paige! Good job!!
Love,
Mom

On the back of the main page I printed off two pictures from the show. None of my pictures turned out that great - the video is better. It's finally finished uploading and I'll figure out how to link it in another post.

That's all ... got to go, the kids are destroying my craft room!

December Daily - Days 13 and 14

I guess the catch-up bug didn't stick around because I find myself posting 2 days at once again.

Darn it!

In my defense, I had trouble getting the girls letters to Santa to print properly yesterday otherwise I would have finished Day 13 then. Oh well. I had a brainstorm this morning so gave them another go.

Considering how interrupted my sleep was last night it's surprising my brain had enough juice to remember my name, let alone figure out how to print 3 4"x6" photos from a PDF document! Greg and I had one of those long talks late into the night that are great but seriously cut into your sleep time! Then LC woke up at around 2:30 and joined us in bed. Then Greg's alarm went off and I felt like I had just got back to sleep!! Turned out I HAD! She'd been playing with his alarm clock earlier in the day and it was only 3:30AM!!! Greg didn't figure this out until he was up, showered, dressed and fully awake! And LC too!

He's napping as I type - poor guy!

Hmm ... so's LC ...

Anyway, here's my latest pages for you to peruse.

Day 13:

I wasn't sure what to do with the girls today that I could put into this DD and then I read Ali's post for the 12th about her kids letters to Santa and I knew I had my story! After they wrote their letters (LC and Paige got help from me but Marley did hers all by herself this year - so proud!), I scanned them and we put them in an envelope to post.

I toyed with how to add their letters into the album without adding huge bulk and eventually decided to print them off onto 4x6 photo paper. As I said above, I had problems with this initially but as you can see, made it work! I'd also come across a letter that Marley had written to Santa earlier in the month. One side has her requests for Santa, and the other has Paige's. I LOVE that she can read now and is rapidly learning how to spell so writing her own letters and lists is becoming easier for her. I thought enclosing this example in an envelope seemed appropriate. Then I realized the front of the envelope would be a perfect place to do my journalling. Yes, even on little sleep and with the stresses of the season closing in on me, I can still come up some zingers!! :)

Journalling reads: "Today Marley, Paige and Christine sat down to write to Santa. It was so neat to see them first decorate their letters with stamps. I helped LC a little but she understands the concept of stamps and quickly covered the table and her hands! Paige only wanted to say "hi" to Santa in her letter. I had to prompt her a lot! Marley ran out of room for all the items on her wish list! She's got 4 other lists scattered around the house!! Enclosed is a letter I found that she wrote earlier."

I stamped the main page with snowflakes in 3 different shades of green then mounted Paige's letter onto patterned paper before putting it over the snowflakes. A few Santa embellishments later and the page was done!

Here is a close up of the letter inside the envelope. One thing I will say about Marley is that she had been surprisingly consistent in her many wish lists. The letters read thus (with all her punctuation, spelling and capitalization too!):

"To: Santa this Year I want a Moon Dough ice cream set. a gogomy walking pup. a Bardie video Girl. a zooles small playset. a candy cane. a justin Bieber cD. a silly bands set. a zhozho pet with houes. Love Marley and I love you more!"

"To: Santa. this Year I want: a oLivia Claus Book. a I have to go Book. aBoo hoo Bird Book. a Bad kitty vs uncLE Murray Book. a zhozho Pet with House. a Moon Dough Pizzakit. a Bardie fashion fairy tale Doll.

Love Paige"

She's hilarious! I just hope she's not super disapointed with what Santa actually ends up bringing!

The back of the page has Marley and LC's letters  on it.

Day 14: 

Tuesday was the day of Marley's Christmas Concert. Her school opens up the afternoon dress rehearsal to allow extended family to come and see it. I took the younger girls to this performance last year and Greg went to the evening performance. It worked well so we didn't see any reason to change things this year!

On the back of the cover page (since it was a solid paper this time not a transparency) I adhered a 5x7 photo I took of the program boards. I'm not sure if they were handing out programs at the evening performance (forgot to ask Greg and he never said anything) but all they had in the afternoon were huge  boards on either side of the stage.

The main page has a cropped picture of the entire ensemble from the finale song as well as a shot of the back drop I took before things got going. The concert was only grades K - 4 which I thought was too bad - I'd have liked to see the older kids!

The back of the main page has two zoomed in shots of Marley. In the top photo she's singing, in the bottom photo she (and her class) are wiggling their reindeer tails at us!! LOL! She was giggling last week that there was going to be a surprise during the concert. Guess this was it! The journalling strip talks about that and then I added a dimensional sticker of a reindeer.

I should be able to get todays page done tomorrow.

I think.

It will be about Paige's Holiday Jingle, the annual Christmas show that Delta Gymnastics puts on. I have to say that Greg and I had concerns she would freak out and not go on. She did indeed freak out but at home before we left. Eventually we just had to grab her clothes, load her in the van and hope she'd have a change of heart once she got there. Sure enough she did and the show went really well! We were SO proud of her! We both struggled with shyness as children (Greg especially) so know what it takes to overcome nerves and perform our best. Way to go Paige! We love you!!

December Daily - Day 12

On the heels of such creative catching up-ness that I had yesterday, I was determined to get Day 12 finished today. I was Duty Parent this morning at Paige's preschool which usually leaves me feeling wiped out. And I could nap right now, don't get me wrong! But I also have a totally quiet house - Greg took Paige out to buy a Christmas present for Marley and LC is fast asleep. Time to take advantage and get some scrapping "work" done!!

Laundry is next.

So, without further ado ...

Day 12:

Journalling reads: "Marley attended Taylor K's Pirate themed birthday party today. The party was at 3:00PM and as of 12:30PM she had no costume! The eye patch, hook, cutlass, ring and bandana came from the Dollar store; the pants were found at a consignment store; and the shirt, vest, belt combo was found at the Bargain Shop. Not bad for a last minute throw together!! (Oh, and Paige said she was the parrot!!)

The chocolate ring around her mouth and Starbucks drink stick hanging out of it are thanks to a family Starbucks run Marley and I did on our way home.

2 kids hot chocolate (LC doesn't get her own yet)

1 Caramel Apple Spice for Greg

1 Reduced Fat Eggnog Latte for me.

Yum!

On the back of the page I printed off a full body shot of Marley to show off her costume to it's fullest. She spent the entire photo shoot in this pose. Saying "Arrr!!" the whole time too (so I added that onto my main page.) I think we've got next Hallowe'en covered!! Whoot Whoot!!

Well, I managed to get a load of wash in while the photos uploaded and now I think I will fold a load while I wait for Greg and Paige to get home. Hopefully they get back before I have to wake up LC to pick Marley up from school. I do so hate to wake her up in the afternoons!!

I'm not sure what I'm going to document for today. I didn't take any pictures at preschool but suppose I could add in some artwork or something. Hmm ... will put my thinking cap on!!

Bye for now!

December Daily - Days 8 - 11

I fell a bit behind - life got busy and I had a couple of "low" days - but I'm all caught up now!

Here we go ...

Day 8:

This was the start of my low period. I wasn't feeling very creative so thought a page of journalling would be enough. On the back of the cover page I stuck the note from the girls' Advent Calendar - they got to make finger puppets. And then I decided to add the price tag from our Christmas Tree. Ali had talked about how she wished she'd included the price of the tree each year and I thought that sounded like a good idea. It will be interesting to see how much extra we pay each year!

As an aside I think I'll add some comments about our tree choice too. We got a Noble Fir and I love its bushiness. There are tons of branches for all of our ornaments. The one thing I'd look for next year is a bit more fullness at the top. We've got this incredibly tall, thin top and with the lit star at the tippy top and then nothing for a good foot, it looks a bit odd. We're also having trouble getting it to stand straight. Ah well, as long as it doesn't fall over I can deal with a bit of a lean!

I thought about including my journalling but have decided not to. If you're really interested you can leave a comment and I'll email it to you. (Or you can just stop by and read it for yourself!) I typed it out after starting to hand write it and running out of room! I could have written more too but decided not to bring the tone of the book down too much!! It's one thing to document "Real life" to have as a reference later, it's quite another to use this as a personal journal to whine, complain and generally vent!

On the back of the journalling page I used a piece of patterened paper and added a picture of Marley's Charlie Brown Christmas tree. When she came back from getting the tree with Greg she had a handful of fir branches. She proceeded to tie them together to make her own tree. She then made ornaments using these stencils I purchased from Scholastics. I was grumpy so not impressed with the mess of pine needles she was leaving behind, but I have to give her credit for all the work she went to. She is such a creative little girl! Love that!!

Oh, and I called it a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree because that's what it reminded me of at the time. Remember, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and I felt it looked like how I was feeling. A bit ragged and chaotic. But someone loved it enough to give it a home!

 Day 9:

The girls got to make Christmas Cookies today and decorate the tree with Greg.

But the big story of the day was that LC and I got to watch Paige's ballet class.

I went around the house today (Sunday the 12th) and took some pictures of random ornaments/decorations to intersperse here and later (you'll see). I also had a ton of pictures of Paige - who could resist such cuteness?! But I learned from my Day 4 entry and only included a few. One big one on the first page, then 2 on the back. I also added a little journalling and the word 'Joy' as it really describes how Paige feels when she dances. She was looking pretty serious in most pictures because she was concentrating really hard, and also a bit nervous having to perform in front of all the parents, but every now and then her smile lit up her face as she forgot about us and just enjoyed the momement.

Day 10: 

This was Marley's day to show off for the parents! I forgot her ballet shoes at home (boy did I feel bad about that!! on today of all days!) which is why she's tight-less. As with yesterday, I put one big picture of Marley on the main page and two on the back. (I also stuck the note from their Advent calendar onto the back of the cover page. Paige got to decorate some of the Christmas cookies after preschool. Marley had to wait until Saturday to decorate hers.)

I wasn't able to get as many pictures of Marley as I did of Paige which was unfortunate. The viewing arrangements were tighter and Marley was often in a spot I couldn't see very well. Or she had her back to me. OR ... as I wrote about in the journalling strip I added to the second page ... I was busy trying to keep LC from joining in!! She was SO good when we watched Paige the day before but this day just would not sit still. I eventually had to take her out into the waiting area!

Instead of a second picture of Marley I decided to document LC's behaviour. I think it's part of the story of the day and should be remembered! She loves to play with cell phones (she's already destroyed one of my cells) so in an attempt to keep her quiet I gave her my phone. Well, she very quickly figured out that sliding the keypad out unlocks the phone as well as making a cool noise! Then I had to keep a watchful eye to make sure she didn't actually figure out how to text someone! If you received a gibberish text on Friday I apologize!!

Day 11:

Our 4th Annual Christmas Open House!

The journalling tag on the cover page says: " When we moved into this house in 2007 we knew that it was perfect to host large gatherings. That year we held a House Warming combination Christmas Open House. It was so much fun that we made it one of our traditions. 2010 marks the 4th Annual Open House. It wasn't as well attended as we'd hoped but one of our guests called it the "event of the year" so I think we'll keep it on the calendar for 2011!"

I added some more of those pictures I took today of Christmas decor and some rub ons and embellishments on patterned paper. The main page was perfect for my shot of the food table. We generally buy a few appies and ask that people bring something to share. The table was a lot more full than this shortly after the picture was taken but I got so busy in my hostessing duties that I didn't get to take many more pictures that night.

On the back page is a rare family picture! It may show up on a couple of family calendars this year!!

Paige isn't smiling which is pretty much par for the course. She had the additional excuse of being super tired by the time this picture was taken. She and Marley had swimming lessons in the morning and then she went to the birthday party of one of the boys in her preschool just before our party. To say she was in serious need of a quiet cuddle is an understatement!

Well, there you have it. I've got the pictures from today downloaded and hope to have a bit of time tomorrow to put together Day 12. Marley went to a Pirate themed birthday party!!

Thanks for checking in with me again. See you soon!

December Daily - Day 7

Here we go ...

Day 7:

I used the note from the girls advent calendar as a place to tuck in some hidden journalling. I realize now I should have taken a picture of it ... oops! You use the poinsettia embellishment to pull out the little red tag. The journalling reads: "Last year we didn't make a gingerbread house but when I saw this kit at Michael's, I knew we could do it this year. Marley and Paige each decorated one side of the roof. LC 'helped' by eating the candy and sticking her fingers in the icing. Silly girl!"

I took a picture of LC at Easter time with about, oh, I don't know, a DOZEN mini eggs in her mouth and the biggest grin on her face. I got a similar one of her yesterday with her mouth full of little candy balls!! 

She does love her some candy!!

For this page I did up a collage in Picasa and then printed it at 5x7. I decided to let the pictures speak for themselves so just did some doodling around the edge of the picture.

Thanks for popping by!