Christmas & More December Daily (Days 10-19)...

Merry Christmas everyone! How was your Christmas this year? We had such a lovely time. We headed up to my Mum & Dad's place on Christmas Eve, watched Christmas carols on tv (this seems to have become a tradition! LOL), had a few glasses of wine, made sure there was a glass of milk and cookies out for Santa (plus a carrot and a bowl of water for Rudolf!) then headed for bed....

We were woken up at 5am(!!!!) by a very excited Ayden who had discovered that Santa had been. And so the paper tearing frenzy began....The kids loved their pressies (and so did the adults!) ...they didn't know what to play with first! The rest of the day was filled with lots of playing with toys, swimming in the pool, eating wayyyyy to much and generally just having a good time. We had all the family there for Christmas dinner which was great...so nice to all be there together. Mum did a fantastic job as always with the food!

Doesn't Christmas always seem to be over so quickly? All that preparation and suddenly it's all over in a flash!

I've managed to squeeze in a little scrapping during the week and worked on few more pages of my December Daily album which I thought I'd share...

Day 10: This was Ayden's last day of school and they had their Christmas party then headed home early. I managed to snap a pic of him with his teacher and his best friend (although I've blurred poor Brock out since I haven't asked his Mum if I can post his pic.)

Day 11 & 12: Day 11 was Riley's last day of kindy. I'm so glad I got a pic of him with his teachers. We couldn't have asked for more caring, dedicated, lovely ladies to look after him this year! For day 12 I took a pic of the 3 books we added to our Christmas book collection this year. I think we're up to 16 books now! I'd like to get to 24 so we can read a different book each night in the lead up to Christmas Day.

Day 13 & 14: Day 13 I made some Peppermint Bark...so yummy! I've put the recipe in on this day so I can make it again next year. Day 14 we had a day at home but Ayden drew a lovely Christmas picture which I've put inside the envelope.

Day 15: Ayden lost his 2nd front tooth!

Day 16: This was the day we went to see Santa and have our Santa pic done. The journaling documents how the kids all ran up and happily sat on Santa's knee, had a lovely chat and told him what they'd like for Christmas. I think this was our easiest Santa pic so far!

Day 17 & 18: For day 17 I took photos of some of the new Christmas decorations that we've bought this year. My fave is the Santa snow globe...so cute! The kids loved the dog who barks a Christmas song while rolling all over the floor. LOL... Day 18 holds the e-mails they received from Santa on that day! They were very excited!

Day 19: We drove around the neighbourhood to see the winning Christmas light displays in the area. Of course the photos just don't do it justice but it's still nice to include the pics in the album. They were amazing!

I'm still working on Day 20 so that'll have to come in my next post... this post is long enough already anyway!

I hope you're all enjoying your Christmas break! See you again soon. :)

Sheree xx

December Daily: Days 4-9

I thought I'd have more of my December Daily album completed by now...but it's been slow going with all the other Christmas preparations to do and school holidays. I AM getting there though!

Here are days 4 through to 9...

The following are pics of the individual pages since you can't really see the journalling very well on some of the above pics...

Day 4 - the boys both took their candy cane reindeers to hand out to their friends at school and kindy.
Day 5 - I made Christmas ornaments.

Day 6 - I sat down and wrote out my Christmas cards ready to post.
Day 7 - This was Ayden's first swimming carnival at school. They had a whole range of fun activities and the day was all about participating and having fun. I've used the sticker Ayden got on the day as one of the embellies.

Day 8 - I finally got myself organised and made cards for my scrapping friends. (I was worried I wasn't going to get time to do them this year! LOL)
Day 9 - We had Mel and her girls come to visit. Ayden missed out as he was still at school.

That's it for now! I'll share some more soon...

How are your Christmas preparations going? I'm actually feeling a bit organised now. The presents are all bought and wrapped, I got all my cards and parcels posted in plenty of time...all I need to do now is remember to take all the food I need to Mum's place! I might just have to write myself a list so I don't forget anything.

The kids are all enjoying the holidays so far. We took them to see Planet 51 at the movies the other day. They loved it! They've had loads of fun just being home, riding their bikes, playing with Lego and the playstation, etc. We've been to see Santa, driven around the neighbourhood checking out all the beautiful Christmas light displays... and each day the kids are getting more and more excited as they change the numbers on the Xmas countdown calendar! Only 4 days to do now...can you believe it? This year Christmas seems to have crept up on us SO fast!!!

If I don't get to blog again before Friday... I hope you and your families have a truly wonderful Christmas!!! Thank you so much for dropping by! :)

Sheree xx

December Daily 2009....

Last night I finally started my December Daily album! YAY!! I had all these grand plans of doing one last year but time got away from me...so I'm very pleased with myself for getting my act into gear this year! LOL (If you're wondering what a December Daily album is all about... just go here to read all about it.)

It's been fun to see the beginnings of so many other albums popping up on blogs lately! When I sat down to do my cover I couldn't get the big glittery star out of my head that I saw on Elizabeth Kartchner's album....so my cover ended up being inspired by hers. I used some glittered cardstock for my star...love that stuff!

Here's what I've done so far...

The Cover:

These pics are a view of the double pages so you see what the album actually looks like...

And here are some closer pics of each individual page...

The inside cover:

Day 1: Putting up the Tree
Day 1 continued...

Day 2: Making teachers' gifts

Day 3: School Christmas Concert
Day 3: continued...
I'm hoping to work on more tonight. :)

Have you started a December Daily album yet? If so I'd love to see your work!

Sheree xx

Another week closer to Christmas.....

It's been another full-on week! With the school year winding down we had quite a bit to organise and some events to go to. We've got all the boys' uniforms and bookpacks organised for next year now...relief! We found out which teachers both the boys will have next year and who their classmates will be....Ayden's very excited to have a lot of his Prep friends back in his class next year in Year 2... and Riley already knows a couple of little friends who'll be starting Prep with him. All we need to do now is buy new school shoes and lunch boxes, cover some books and we're good to go! Feels pretty good to have it all under control so early. :)

Ayden finished school on Thursday with a class Christmas party which was lots of fun. Madi and I went along and there were games, loads of yummy food ... followed by goodbyes to his lovely teacher and friends. (I'd love to share pics but haven't had time to blur out the other kids...sorry!)

Riley had his last day of kindy on Friday. They kept it fairly low key as a few of the kids have been getting quite teary at any mention of kindy finishing up... including Riley! It was good that they had already had their graduation a couple of weeks back. They all had a lovely day...but saying goodbye to his beautiful teachers was very sad. They've been the most caring, dedicated, gorgeous ladies and so very patient and kind to Riley this year! We're very grateful for everything they've done for him. Luckily we've already got Madi's name down there for 2011 so we'll see everyone again then. :)

Besides all that we've just been running around getting Christmas gifts organised, Christmas cards posted and working through our very long to-do list. I'm sure you're all just as busy at your place at the moment!

I finally managed to get my December daily album started last night so I'll post again shortly with some pics...

In the meantime...take care! Hope you can find some time to relax in amongst all the Christmas chaos!

Sheree xx

Busy, busy, busy...

That's what it's been around here! I'm slowly but surely plodding my way through my Christmas to-do list...in between all the end of year school/kindy/work functions!

Since my last post we've had Paul's work Christmas party which was a lot of fun! (Although it was an extremely hot day!) The helicopter flew in, there was a jumping castle and all sorts of activities for the kids (and big kids alike!) and then Santa paid us all a visit and handed out a little gift to all the children...

Then we had Ayden's School Christmas Concert. Ayden's class sang "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"...very appropriate since most of the kids in the class are missing theirs! LOL

Today we had Ayden's first ever swimming carnival. We were a little worried about what was involved as he's still learning to swim...but we were pleasantly surprised. They had the inflatable crocodile races, pool noodle races, kickboard... lots of fun things that everyone could do. There were no first/second/thirds...it was all about participating and having fun. (Just one of the things I love about our school!) Ayden had such a great time!

It's hard to believe we're in the last week of school for the year! Only a few days left until school holidays...yay!!!

I've also been busy this past week sewing these as gifts for Ayden and Riley's teachers..

I used one of Janelle's patterns to make them and just added a pen holder to the front. (You can find her gorgeous pattern HERE! It's very easy to make and the instructions are great.)

The Twelve Days of Christmas Scrapz is still going over at Scrapz Biz. The gallery has been filling up with all sorts of beautiful Christmassy things. All twelve projects have now been revealved! I created this ornament for Challenge 11...

I thought this would be a lovely keepsake to hang on the tree. :)

I finally made a start on my Christmas cards last night too! I was starting to think I wasn't going to get them made this year...but now I'm well on my way and hoping to finish them off tonight. Sorry I can't share a pic just yet..don't want to spoil it for those I'm sending them too! ;)

Well it's time to get the kids all tucked into bed so I can start creating! Hope you all have a lovely week! Thanks so much for dropping by!

Sheree xx