December Daily - Days 24 and 25

They're finally finished!! Yay!

I'm not sure if I'm going to add a page for today (the 31st). Last week I thought I would but today, having finally completed Days 24 and 25 I am feeling like I want to put the album and all the Christmas supplies away. Plus, Marley has been throwing up since 4:00AM so I'm a bit tired and not feeling like partying much. We'll see ...

Day 24: Christmas Eve

So here is the back of the main page for Day 23 which I made a part of Day 24.

It fit well between the days as the story of Seeing Santa spanned the two days. Marley really, really wanted to see Santa but we couldn't stay on the 23rd and the line had already been closed when we tried to go back that night so I decided to try to get in to see him first thing on the 24th. And we experienced a Christmas Miracle of sorts! I managed to get my coveted picture (that I've missed for the past few years) of all 3 girls with Santa. And Paige even smiled!! I love that girl!

Remember the Elf Cards? Well, even Santa and Mrs Claus have them! The DQ wrapper and the picture of LC enjoying her cone are from the 23rd.

On the back side of this baseball card add-in, I included a picture of me enjoying Greg's sister Christine's massage chair with my glass of wine and one of Marley telling Santa her wish list.

We went to the Nielsen's for Christmas Eve. The big event was a Crokinole Tournament. I was knocked out immediately (no surprise) and Greg took the Championship (equally, no surprise there!) The prize was a stack of scratch and wins which gave Greg a total prize of $35.00!!

I made a flap for the back page so I could add more pictures (surprise, surprise!) Here we see a couple shots I took with the self timer (my camera has this amazing function that it will actually take up to 10 self timer shots in a row - awesome!!) It is a Danish tradition to dance around the Christmas tree while singing Christmas carols (Aaron is Danish) so we tried it this year for the first time. It was a lot of fun!

Inside the flap are some snapshots of the evening.

Cousin Suzanne had some one on one time with LC.

Greg took a little "trash" break from the kid chaos.

Grandpa read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

We got a group shot of all the cousins.

And finally, a shot of Griffin, Paige, LC and Jasper in the tub. There were so many bubbles I feel safe showing in on the net!!

Day 25: Christmas Day

I decided to have a large picture of the Santa Loot on the main page for today. Santa was very generous this year and gave Marley a scooter, Paige a new bike and LC a standup car ramp thingy (she's all into things that move!) Paige was so dumbfounded at the sight of a new bike that she almost burst into tears. I thought I'd cry too! Her old bike has these hard plastic wheels that would just spin in place half the time and no way to brake. This one has "real" tires and brakes when you pedal backwards. Awesome!

The next few pages are collages.

This is the back of the main page. It's a collage of opening up the stockings and trying out the new toys.

Next is a collage of opening up the presents under the tree - the ones from us, Ammee and Poppa, and Aunts Jean and Moira.

The last collage (which I just adhered back to back with the one above) is of the present opening (call it Presents Phase III) with Grandma and Grandpa.

There were a lot of presents to open this year!!

The last page is a selection of 4 4x6 showing scenes of the evening.

Another group shot with the cousins - Paige looks positively pained!!

A shot of the kids table. As I say in the journalling, the kids had fun (especially opening the crackers) but didn't do a lot of eating!

And lastly, a picture of Greg carving the turkey. He was a bit coerced by his Mom but did a fine job.

And a picture of the adult table. I think this was the only time we were all sitting together that night. What with various kids needed attention at one point or another, the adults table was more of a musical chairs game than anything! Ah well, one day!!

Well there you have it. My first December Daily!

I've really enjoyed this process. I look forward to next year (and have already started stashing things for it!) Right now though, I'm more than ready to move on to new projects.

We are now back from our New Year's Eve party (we tend to celebrate the Maritimes Midnight at 8:00 our time for the kids) and I can unequivocably say that I will not be adding anything more to this album. I'm happy with the story as is.

Thanks for sticking with me during this process!

December Daily - Day 23

It's a new day, the baby slept MOST of the night in her own room and I've had my morning coffee ... time to blog about ...

Day 23:

Richmond Centre always has an amazing Santa set up complete with elves. For the past couple years Marley and Paige have enjoyed collecting Elf Cards so today I decided to take them "Elf Hunting". We missed the Elf Inspection (something Santa does when he arrives at the mall) but we were in time for the School of Christmas - a new activity this year.

My cover page (above) is a cut down 4x6 protector page into which I'd put the tag "2 Days Until Christmas" and then added a picture of the School of Christmas sign. It was draped with paper chains made up of children's wishes written onto "Believe" tags. That's the mall's theme during the Christmas Season - I Believe.

The back side of the cover page has a picture of the girls with a couple "captured" elves. As you can see, Paige was in her usual cooperative mood!

Next I added a cut down card protector page with 3 elf cards - the least detroyed ones of LC's!

On the Main page I added a picture of the girls and two elves "in class". Not sure what LC was doing in the middle of the circle but ... it's cute!

The back of the main page is blank at the moment and will actually become part of the Day 24 story. Stay tuned for that!!

Thanks for checking in again.

December Daily - Day 22

** 4th post of the night - to read Day 21 go here, to read Days 19 & 20 go here, and to read Day 18 go here. Thanks! **

Today was a day to get all that last minute Christmas shopping done. Buy the turkey, the potatoes, the yams, the ingredients for those yummy Land of Nod cinnamon buns, the Wife Saver and the Christmas crackers for the table.

It was a day for Grandma and Grandpa Day to drop off presents. Suddenly our tree is BURIED!! Every year we say we've got to buy less and yet somehow that never seems to happen!

Today the girls got letters from Santa.

Form letters but they understood that Santa is a bit too busy right now to write each letter personally. But he did sign them himself which was pretty exciting!

Today the girls made something special for Grandpa but I can't show that til after Christmas. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise and all!!

Here it is ... Day 22:

I decided to include my shopping list and receipt on the main page as that was really my main activity today. Greg took some vacation time in the afternoon to allow me to get last minute shopping done plus the grocery shopping for Christmas Day. We were going to host his parents, his sister and her family, and a cousin of his plus his family - 15 in all. Only 14 were eating solid food though!! Zoe's still taking mostly breast milk! Can't help her out there any more - thank goodness!

On the back of the main page I made a pocket out of some Dear Lizzy patterned paper and tucked all 3 letters from Santa in them. LC's didn't arrive until the 24th but I decided to include it here to have them all in one spot.

Okay, I was hoping to get Day 23 done tonight too but it's pretty late so I'll leave that for tomorrow.

Good night. Hope you've enjoyed these installments!!

December Daily - Day 21

** Third post of tonight - for Day 19 & 20 go here and for Day 18 go here.**

Today I took the girls to the brand new Vancouver Christmas Market. I'd read about it towards the end of November, and planned to take the girls once school was out. It's a new thing that I really hope they make an annual event as it was really fun!

Paige was having a rough day. I'm not sure what has got into her but the past few days she's been positively bi-polar! She'll be trucking along happy as a lark and then something happens (and for the life of me, most of the time this "something" is completely unknown and unknowable to everyone but Paige!) and she turns into a wailing, screaming 2 year old!

Anyway, despite her refusing to pose for pictures and pouting when I wouldn't allow her to sit in the stroller with her baby sister, she and we had a great time. Greg's afternoon meeting got cancelled so he took some vacation time and joined us downtown. It was really nice to have him there. It's always nice when we get to have fun experiences together as a family!

Okay, here we go ...

Day 21:

Kept things simple - there is the back page of Day 20, and then on the cover page I just added the number and the note from the girls advent calendar.

The back side of the cover page has a 5x7 shot of the girls in front of a giant nutcracker decoration. Paige is sort of cooperating here. Then on the main page I added a snap of Greg and LC (to prove he was there!) and some journalling.

On the back page is a collage of our time there. We spent most of that time in the Children's area where the girls had a blast doing all the activities available (not cheap mind you!!)

That is Paige with her decorated candle in the bottom left picture. They were given the plain white pillar candle and got to pick 2 colours of beeswax to cut and glue to it.

Going around the collage; the girls in the sleigh (Paige most definitely was NOT cooperating but I managed to get a picture where she is kind of smiling. It was a little blurry though so I played with it in Picasa to make the blurring look intentional.) Next is a decration from the main stage area, the two little pictures at the top right are of Paige getting her airbrushed tattoo and Marley's Tinkerbell tattoo. Below them is Marley and LC looking through the cutouts - Marley's the Santa and LC is the bee! And last but not least, LC eating her decorated gingerbread person. I only bought her the one ticket figuring the tattoo and the candle were too tricky for her to do. She enjoyed the sprinkles and the icing!!

Next up is Day 22 ... see you there!!

December Daily - Days 19 and 20

** Second post of the day. For Day 18 go here.**

I think I kind of checked out for these two days.

The activity filled weekend and the busyness of the last week of school caught up to me and I switched off. It's nice to do that once in a while.

I sat down to lay out these days and couldn't remember what we did though! Whoops! Too much of a check out I think. But once I opened up Picasa I saw the Project 12 layout and remembered that I actually got scrappy on Day 19 and did most of my "checking out" on Day 20.

So, here we go ...

Day 19:

After a fairly slow morning of computer time, watching TV and snuggling, Greg took all 3 girls to Go Bananas in Richmond. As he is the coach of Marley's soccer team, he organized the Christmas party for them and figured since the weather is unpredictable at best, and since we'd been away the day before, meeting the team at a place where they could run wild and have some one else clean up after them was a great idea. And he was right! They all had a blast!

I took the opportunity to scrap Days 16 and 17 and then remembered that my November layout for Project 12 was due on the 20th so pulled that out. It was fun to work in "full size" again! I even got a tiny head start on December's layout while I had everything out.

I kept things simple for this day. The main page has journalling plus some embellishments and the back of it has a collage of my scrappy creations.  

Day 20: 

Another "do nothing" day. This was the first real Christmas Vacation day so I took full advantage of the fact that I didn't have to hurry up and shower, get Marley's lunch packed and hustle 3 girls out the door to do the school drop offs. I was determined to stay in my PJ's as long as possible and even after I (reluctantly) showered and got dressed, I put on some music and read a book. The girls cooperated for the most part by playing nicely with each other! Miracles do happen!!

For my main page I simple journalled at the top of the page, added a tag from a recently purchased pair of pj's and a photo taken with the self timer of me reading on the couch. I didn't show the back here (check out my Day 21 post) but I just adhered a piece of patterened paper to it. Simple. Easy. Done. 

Thanks.

December Daily - Day 18

We went out to Abbotsford last night so todays story came easily.

It's all about family!

Dave and his family flew in from Edmonton in the morning which was the main reason for the gathering. It was the first time in about 3 years that all of us had been together. Dave has 2 girls, Makenna (8) and Kole (6), so our girls had a few hours bonding time with their girl cousins before the hordes arrived. Don and Ina were given a massive doll house for the grandchildren to play with and the 5 girls had a blast with it.

After lunch Paul and his family arrived and then it was all about baby Drew. At 2 weeks old he is the youngest grandchild (#14 if you're interested) and was quite the magnet for Marley, Makenna and Kole. They all took turns holding him!

The family fun was scheduled to begin at 2:00 with a Treasure Hunt which Ileana had organized but ... all good plans and all that ... they got delayed. We waited for Matt, Ileana and their family and Andrew and his family to arrive before starting it. By then it had started snowing too! Not that the kids were slowed down at all by a few flying flakes. They were full of pent up energy and fairly flew around the neighbourhood to find all the clues!! Even LC and her compadre Sadie got into the action!

Anyway, here is Day 18:

The whole clan. All 26 of us!! 

I took some "arty" shots of the decorations on Friday night. Don and I were having fun playing with the settings on our cameras!! Some of them were kind of good so I decided to add them in these trading card pockets.

On the opposite side I included a picture of LC and her closest cousin Sadie taken during the treasure hunt. LC is holding a cookie that the kids were given from the neighbour they had to sing to for their next clue. On the main page I added a picture I took of Jonina taking a picture of me ... in the snow storm! And then a picture Greg took of Poppa (Don) trying to climb over the gaggle of grandkids that decided to congregate on the landing!!  

I knew that today would be one of those days hard to condense into a couple pictures so the extra pages were needed. These ones tell the stories of the kids; the dollhouse, the Baby Drew Groupies, the Treasure Hunt and the gang crashed out watching a movie while we got dinner ready. 

On the last page I decided to focus on myself (an all too rare occasion.)  Greg took this shot of me serving up the lasagne to the kids and then I asked him to take the shot me with 3 of my 4 sisters-in-law (unfortunately Miles got sick just before dinner so he was taken home which is why Joni wasn't present for the phot op.) My brothers all found wonderful women!!

Thanks for tuning in again.

To recap all the brothers and nieces and nephews etc ...

1 Ammee + 1 Poppa

+ 4 brothers + 4 sisters-in-law

+ Greg and I

+ 14 grandchildren

= Chaos. Mayhem. Loudness.

= Laughs. Screams. Giggles.

= Love.

Project 12 - November 2010

*This is my second post of the day. Please scroll down if you're looking for my December Daily post.*

My focus has been on my December Daily since mid-November so I almost forgot to complete my layout  this month for my Project 12 album. Just squeaking in before the due date, I give you ...

November 2010

There weren't all that many pictures from November that I felt told a story I wanted to tell. But I had some fun pictures of the girls that I knew would work. Especially given the sketch we had to work with.

The left hand side is the Fall Story we experienced in November. There was a lot of rain but also enough sunny days to get the leaves raked. This particular days was one of those beautiful, crisp Fall days. It was perfect for a photo shoot and I managed to get some great shots of the girls. Not all 3 together but ... small steps! I added some cut out maple leaves - the large one I drew on with my new white pen, and the smaller ones I added some Martha Stewart white glitter.

The right hand side is the Winter Story of our November. Just a couple days before this picture was taken I took the girls to Superstore to buy them both new snow suits (and Christmas party dresses). Just in time!! The first snowfall of the year was a decent one by our West Coast standards. The girls were itching to go outside and test out their new snowsuits.

I added a snowflake embellishment and journalled in the white pen. The white pen was a tiny disappointment. I was expecting it to be a bit more like whiteout. Instead it almost seemed to bleach the paper. I decided to use it anyway as it does look kind of cool.

Anyway, thanks for checking it out.