December Daily Days 11-15

A little more catching up on my December Daily album whilst I watch 'Cars' with J (ok, so I'm watching it and he jsut wanders in occasionally, but don't tell anyone!)

Day 11
I decided to write about my dislike of writing Christmas cards. I find it such a chore but this year, watching a DVD and drinking Baileys at the same time made it much more bareable. I wonder why?! I included a spare copy of my favourite card from this year.

Day 12

I added a few more decorations to the house so I documented that today. The Left hand page is simply a rub on layered over some papers and a Cosmo Cricket sticker. The photo is on the RHS with the text added to the photo digitally before printing. Annoyingly, the printer cropped some of the writing off before printing so I'll have to remember that for next time.

Day 13

Documented Jack and Emma meeting Father Christmas at playgroup Christmas Party. He was soooo excited (Emma was less impressed!). I turned the photos to B&W before printing as the colours were difficult to match.

Day 14

No photos, just journalling on little strips about how nice it was to hear singing in both rooms at nursery when I collected the children.

Day 15

The School Christmas Meal just wouldn't be complete without the staff dressed up to serve dinner. I borrowed this 'outfit' from the nativity box hence the reason the fit isn't brilliant! lol.

I'm undecided whether to stop this project at Dec 25 or carry on til the 31st?

What's everyone else doing?

December Daily days 6-10

I'm slowly getting caught up with this project. I've just scrapped day 19 but as I'm feeling a bit rotten and am currently in bed with my old Uni Letterman Sweater on; a mug of honey and lemon and a pack of lemsip, I didn't really feel like scanning it all in tonight.

Day 6
I LOVE this page. I LOVE those mugs. They were an impulse buy at John Lewis in Cambridge in October and I saved them til Christmas but I'm not sure I'll be able to cope when the time comes to put them away til next December. I LOVE the patterns, LOVE the size and LOVE the fact they seem to keep my drink warmer for longer. As a result my journalling for today is hidden under a flap and it's written as a letter to John Lewis explaining just how much I LOVE his shop.

(ooops! Thought I'd rotated that the right way!)

Day 7

Today was the day of our school Christmas Production so I included a couple of photos of the children in my class in their performance as well as a copy of the programme. I also included some text on the photo but as the photos were not of my children, I've cropped their heads (and therefore also the text) before uploading here.

Day 8
No photo today just some journalling which tells of the things that my son is noticing about Christmas. It mainly talks about his interest in Santa but also of how he keeps singing Christmas songs around the house. Too cute.

Day 9

I took so many shots of this tree trying to get this image right as you can see in an earlier post.
The journalling talks about what I like and dislike about decorating the tree and also which items are new this year. The 'new' theme this year seems to be BIG decorations like some 80mm baubles and some MASSIVE felt snowflakes but felt seems to also be a big player and I have quite a few felt decorations.

Day 10
Day 10 documents a 3 year old tradition in our family of going to the local Christmas Tree festival. I choose 3 photos of my favourite tree for one page and a photo of my dad with my kids for the other page. Not sure about my handmade page divider on this LO (I sewed some felt stars from paperchase into little pockets in a cutdown page protector) but it'll have to do for now- mainly I found the plastic divider really hard to trim neatly. Any tips?

At least that's one more job I can cross off that earlier list!
Thanks for looking.

Christmas lists!

Christmas seems to sneek up faster each year. I've still got a pile of jobs to do whilst my parents have the kids but funnily enough, I have many more distractions I'd rather be playing with!

Christmas jobs done:
-Food shopping bought and put away
-Bedding changed
-house (relatively) tidy

Christmas jobs still to do:
-Finish wrapping presents
-Hide said presents
-Sew Emmas name onto stocking
-Bake mince pies
-Sweep floors
-Ironing (not sure this is a Christmas job but no-one else will do it and I can't face 3 lists!)
-Stick up pile of Christmas cards
-Finish writing a couple of cards for the neighbours
-Complete more December Daily pages
-Upload and share more DD pages.

Sigh. I guess I should get on but before I do, I'd like to share some cards that my little ones made at nursery.

This is Jacks (aged 3). I love the fact that it's not perfect but truly made by him. Love.
Emmas (aged 12 months). Love the little handprints. Such a cute reminder of how fast they grow up.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Magic lights

I've been trying really hard to get a good shot of our Christmas tree for my December Daily album but nothing I've taken has ever been good enough. The problem I had was that with my flash you lose all the detail and warmth that is in the tree. Without the flash, the picture is too out of focus.

Before:

I managed to get these shots by resting my camera on a chair to steady it (no tripod in this house!) and then turning the flash off. These are much truer to the actual feel and warmth of the tree and the room.

But, patience is a virtue and today Ali Edwards posted a link to this blog which had a tutorial for getting bokeh style Christmas tree shots. We've had a busy day in London today so I'm too worn out to play too much but already I managed this shot of my magic lights, which I'm pretty pleased with.

I'm loving learning knew things with my camera. :)

Nativity pics

I love this time of year and the Nativity play is one of those key moments that's bound to make me feel Christmassy. It was Jack and Emma's turn today to play the shepherd and the Angel. They were very cute, well behaved and made me feel very proud.

December Daily Days1-5

Finding time to do DD isn't the problem. Scrapping and then blogging is just a step too far though hence the need for a catch up!

Day one
This page is a spare divider from a mini album that I had. The journalling is about our trip to town where Jack and I rode on the Carousel. He'd been waiting patiently to do this for weeks.

Day 2

A get together with a friend and some cake baking.

Day 3

Jack received a reply from Father Christmas today so I've journalled that along with a photo of him writing to Santa and his actual letter. He's desperate for Toy Story things this year.

Day 4

Our Christmas Card photo for this year plus a pic that Jack took of us using my camera. I sooo can't wait for him to get his toddler digi camera at Christmas.

Day 5

I can't believe Emma is one. The main pic is an 8x6 of her at her party with a Paperchase postcard in a cutdown divider as a pocket. The other page is a cut down 8x6 or 7x5 of us two. I've planned out some journalling which I'm gonna type up and stick to the reverse of the postcard.

Loving

Loving watching my babies grow. I'm sure they've grown physically and in maturity in the last few weeks.

Loving watching Jack get interested in Christmas. He loves the lights and loves telling everyone that Father Christmas is coming to bring him 'Buzz Lightyear, Woody and Springy the Dog'.

Loving the fact that I only have 3 days left to work til I'm on Christmas holidays.

Loving doing my December Daily album (and loving Ali Edwards too!)

Loving listening to my Christmas albums.

Loving my class at school for being the sweetest and loving my partner teacher for making my job share so easy.

Loving the fact that my family and I have our health when I know so many who don't.

Loving the friends I have at work and home, who make me laugh on a daily basis.

Loving my Husband for loving me.

I feel so lucky.

Happy 1st Birthday, Princess

I can't believe my little girl is one! Where does the time go?

Anyway, this seems a good opportunity for a now and then post. Please indulge me. :)

A year and a day ago:

A year ago:

Today: