25 days of Christmas

I'm finished!!! YAY FOR ME! Just needed that little celebration for myself before moving on. Moving on... I spent yesterday making this cute little Christmas album inspired by the ever fabulous Ali Edwards, who makes the most eclectic albums around. Her idea was to create (BEFORE DECEMBER) a blank album where you can document something special each day in December leading up to Christmas, in a kind of "spur of the moment" way. As you know, I'm not great at "spur of moment" so I did as Ali suggested and had the album finished ahead of time, so when December comes, I can snap a quick photo of that day's activity and forget it! I plan to LIVE in December, right?? For some strange reason, I found this album kinda hard to throw together. I was totally in the mood for scrapbooking, but the ideas weren't flowing. I AM happy with how it turned out, but it took a while longer than I expected.

A did "pockets" for a few of the pages. It should make it easier to stick extras in there if I end up needing it.
I used a template to fold a couple of these cute envelopes, too.


Page number 5 is a baseball card sheet. I used a couple of those throughout the album. I noticed on Amy's blog that she did the same thing. I had bought mine a while back to use for this, so I laughed when I saw she did the exact same thing!

That clear corner is a pocket as well..

Another envelope, and another baseball card sheet.










So there you have it! Done and done! I'm so excited to start filling it with some of my favorite Christmas memories. Some of the ones I'm going to include are the first time the kids open their advent calendars, putting up the tree, baking sugar cookies, caroling, acting out the Nativity, a visit to Santa at the mall, the ward Christmas party, the work Christmas parties, my favorite Christmas story, going sledding, drinking hot chocolate, driving around to look at lights... you know, the traditional things. I'd love to make cabbage rolls this year. Growing up, my mom (who is Hungarian) would make the traditional turkey, but also a HUGE pot of cabbage rolls. Whenever I smell them, it takes me right back to my childhood. I'd love to carry that on!

What are some of your Christmas traditions?

Do you remember, a while back, when I said I was getting into my slow season for photography? Um... I guess not! LOL! I had the most delightful family photo shoot last week who just made me smile. Boy, it took me most of the session to win the little guy, 'A' over, but in the end we became friends. LOL! We even got a few shots with him smiling!
This family sure loved their newest addition, P. She was SUCH a good baby! Wow. I couldn't believe how well behaved she was.



PHEW~ Are you still with me? I've been busy, busy - and this has been only half of it. I'd love to tell you about the rest of my life, but darn it - we're already going over time ;) Maybe another day :)