2013 December Daily: Day 15

Day 15 was all about Ashley's school program.  My title card inspiration came from Ali Edwards use of this same card from the Studio Calico December Daily kit.  I blocked out Ashley's schools name for privacy.  Also there is some glitter residue on my scanner that these layouts picked up....I'll add cleaning it to my to do list!

2013 December Daily: Day 14

More snow!  Slowly but surely keeping up with this album.  I love love love it!

2013 December Daily: Day 13

A big day for sure!  We decided to surprise the girls with a ride on the Polar Express.  Really it was my idea and Dave grudging went along.  Ashley loves the movie and Allison loves trains so it was a win win.  I would totally recommend the Polar Express on the Branson Scenic Railway.  We just road coach and it was worth the money.  They started out by reading from the Polar Express book and then there was cookies and hot chocolate.  The conductor marked the girls tickets with their initials and the workers sang carols.  Santa visited and gave each girl a bell and he stopped by later for photos too.  All the while we were headed to the North Pole (which was kinda cheesy, it was just another train station with Santa's workshop and dancing elves).  We were on the train for over an hour and the girls loved looking out the windows at all the Christmas lights along the way.

2013 December Daily: Day 12

Super simple today.....I am so so thankful for Amazon prime and the free shipping that comes with it.  I finished all my shopping on Amazon today and I honestly don't know how I would get it done if I had to go store to store.  Such a huge blessing!

P.S. I am a HORRIBLE speller...spell check is also a blessing.  I realized I misspelled thankful on my journaling card.  Do I change it? Honestly I don't have time to re-print the card and do it over...my kids will get a chuckle out of it (I hope) in the future.  Also I am sure it is not my first or last mistake in this book.

2013 December Daily: Day 11

Day 11 was another day with not much going on.  I documented our nightly ritual of reading Christmas books.

2013 December Daily: Day 10

Not much happened on day 10 so I just went with some filler pictures of the tree and new ornaments.  Glad to get it documented into the album.

2013 December Daily: Day 9

The Feast of St. Nicholas was last Friday but because of the snow the package was a little late.  The girls didn't even notice.  When I was a kid my family always celebrated St. Nicks and my mom keeps the tradition going each year for my girls.  They were pretty excited with the candy and crafts.  Since it was a snow day Ashley didn't have any homework so they spent the night at the table putting together their new crafts.

2013 December Daily: Day 8

After church we visited Ellie in the nursing home.  She was really happy to see us.  My favorite part...David was telling Ellie about how much Ashley talks, she wont shut up sometimes, etc. AND Ellie reminded David how he never shut up as a kid.  Ellie got a kick out of remember Davids many antics.

The tis the season card was cut from free files from Holly McCaig.

2013 December Daily: Day 7

I am keeping up with the album just falling behind on the blog updates.  My computer decided last night to stop working correctly.  My awesome husband got me all fixed up but it slowed me down.  Also the fact that all this snow had our internet all messed up until they got out to fix it today didn't help either.

Day 7....Dave's mom always kept flowers on the family grave sites which we are trying to continue the tradition.  First up Jamie...now we just need to get the others done too.  It would help if we didn't need to traipse through a foot of snow.  Come on sun!

P.S. Jamie love love loved the sight of prefect snow.  She always wanted to keep her snow free of car tires, kids feet, tracks, etc.  So it made us smile thinking about if she was mad that we had to step in the pretty snow to put flowers on her grave :)

2013 December Daily: Day 6

My first two page spread!  It snowed almost 8 inches Thursday night and was still snowing Friday morning.  All in all I think we got around a foot of snow.  Of course it was a snow day so we spent all day at home with a little time outside playing.  I did accomplish most of my Christmas decorating today so that was a good thing about being stuck at home.

2013 December Daily: Day 5

It started sleeting mid morning and then turned to snow, snow and more snow.  Ashley's school called around 11:30 and said they were letting out early because of the weather.  So David and I headed into town to pick the girls up.  The roads weren't too bad yet but the snow hadn't really started.

I pulled inspiration for this layout from Maggie Holmes Day 1 as part of her 25 days class at Studio Calico.

ETA:  More tweaking... by adding to Days 3 & 4 I now had space to add a journal card to Day 5.  The top pocket is the back of a clear card.

2013 December Daily: Days 3&4

Two very non Christmas days.  But I look at this album as documentation of our lives during December and not just a Christmas album.  So I am good with it.  Since not much happened I decided to just put both days together.

Day 3:  Ay Yi Yi our poor puppy is getting old.  Today was Trinity's tenth birthday. We treated her to her second vet visit in a week.  Her right eye has been red and leaky since last week and it just wasn't getting better.  The vet put her under and did a thorough exam of her eye to see if there was anything in there.  There was not and they think she might have glaucoma, which is not a good diagnosis.  We have some drops so hopefully they will help.

Day 4:  Allison's treat to finally being potty trained was gymnastics.  We had been promising it for awhile and she has done great with the potty the last month so off she went.  She did great and followed the coaches directions and somewhat payed attention.  By the end of the class she could do a flip hanging onto the bars all by herself,  she was pretty excited the first time she did it!

ETA:  It seems like I am always tweaking my layouts, adding something here or there.  Well I ended up adding a half of a page protector to the right side so I could add some filler cards.  The little bubble tree is inspired by this layout by Chiara.

2013 December Daily: Day 2

I think my mantra this year is going to be Keep It Simple!  This one came together pretty quick and for that I am thankful.   My picture printed out pretty badly so the next time I print I will probably try again and maybe add a wood speech bubble to the photo.  If I do update I will update this post.

Man do kids have great memories....Ashley came down the stairs this morning inquiring about if the elf came last night.  I guess all the kids at school talk about what their elves have been up to so she wanted to share her story too.  Allison found it first and then went and got Ashley.  There was lots of jumping up and down and giggles.  It was pretty sweet listening to Ashley tell Allison the story of the elf and about his magic.  I wonder what Dave is going to get into this year?

ETA:  I updated my elf photo and added some wood veneer.

2013 December Daily: Day 1

Welcome December!  I am again doing an Ali Edwards style December Daily album.  This is my fourth year (2009 blog only, 2011 album and 2012 album).  I am planning on using the Studio Calico kit plus bits and pieces from my own collection.  I did not do any foundation pages early, I just plan on picking and choosing as I go.  That has worked for me in the past and I hope it does this year too.  Last year I did a two page spread for everyday and this year I am just going to go with the flow and pick based on the number of photo/stories.  I do have all my "stuff" pulled together in one place to make it easy to go and I can't forget my Selphy photo printer which is the main reason I can stay on top of this project.  So here we go.....

Yesterday was a travel day coming home from St. Louis.  David's family and the Wiseman family have been celebrating the Thanksgiving weekend for years and years in St. Louis.  All the ladies and kids enjoyed the beautiful weather on Saturday at the St. Louis Zoo. Oh boy do I miss having this great free attraction in my backyard.  The animals were out in full force and the kiddos ran the whole time we were there.  We capped the night off with a steak dinner at Clancy's Irish Pub.

When we got home Ashley only asked me 10,000 times if we could open up the advent calendar.  I only made her wait a little.  Ashley and Allison seem to be excited about the pending Christmas holiday.

Holiday Magic

Nothing like scrapbooking a year behind. This photo was one year ago this past weekend.  I used my Studio Calico November Cuppa kit and this layout by Celeste Vermeend as inspiration.

Look for my December Daily pages to start coming.  I haven't technically started yet but I have it all ready to go!

Currently: December

Watching: Blacklist (new favorite show)

Reading:  Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns by Lauren Weisberger 

Listening:  The Bob and Tom show

Making:  December Daily day 1

Feeling: Busy

Planing: Christmas gift buying (ugh)

Loving: It's Christmas season