December Daily Prep and Beginning Pages

Can you believe we are already a week into December?! I haven't been blogging recently because I have been working some really late hours zapping me of any energy. I have also been working on my December Daily mini album. The creative genius behind the December Daily is Ali Edwards. The concept behind DD is to document the stories and events leading up to Christmas by focusing on one story everyday. This is my first year doing a DD album but I have been wanting to do one for years. I feel it's so much more important to start this tradition now to document my kids' lives. You can find more information and inspiration from Ali here. Here is how I prepped and a little later in the post I will show you where I am in my album right now.

The first thing I did was go through my stash and pull out pretty much everything Christmas themed and then pulled items that I thought I might want to use in my album. About 5 years ago when we lived in Williston I went a little nuts getting a bunch of Christmas themed items on an after Christmas sale so I didn't have to get a whole lot of supplies and I was able to use a lot of items from my stash.

These are Hobby Lobby's brand/version of Project Life cards that I will be using. I am also using a set of cards and I'm not sure what brand they are but they are more of a vintage feel which is the theme I'm going for.

In addition to my cards I am also using this paper pad from My Mind's Eye. I must add that MME is one of my FAVORITE paper lines. I don't think they've come out with a paper pad that I didn't like.

I am well aware with how busy the holiday season is that realistically there is no way that I can keep up with my album everyday. For one thing I don't have a photo printer at home and I find it really hard to print out my pictures at Target without having my book with me. I made this journal so at the end of everyday I at least make sure to jot down one or two important things that happened from the day and I can match that journaling up with my photos later.

Here is a look inside my journal. These two pages I did in November as a way to prep and think about some of the things we might be doing in December.

I have been incorporating my Listers Gotta List prompts into my album and then include my daily journaling on the other page.

Okay so now onto the actual album! I used a Hobby Lobby's brand of Project Life album and inserts. I wanted to keep my cover simple and in fact I'm trying to keep that theme throughout the whole album. With this being my first DD I want to focus more on the stories and documenting and not get overwhelmed with all the embellishing. The paper if from My Mind's Eye and I'm not 100% sure where the little tag is from. I've had it in my stash for YEARS!

Here is my page of intention just stating why I am doing a DD album this year. Again it goes back to documenting the holiday season for my kids.

Here is how I worked my Listers prompt for day 1 into my album. If you're interested in partaking in Listers Gotta List here is a link for more information.

Here is my page for December 1st. Like I said earlier, the important part of this book for me this year is to get the pictures in and the journaling down. This pages, and the ones to follow, are in no way complete. I will fancy up the pages later. I have some number stickers that I plan on putting on the first page for each day to keep track. I can tell ready that this album is not going to be so mini because I take so many pictures and while I've tried to pick just the best 1 or 2 from each event, I just can't! This year I wrapped our Christmas tree while the kids were sleeping and then I let them unwrap it together. As you can see they had a blast! My daughter knew exactly what it was. She's so stinkin' smart!

Here are a couple more of my favorite pages of my husband reading bedtime stories to our kids. We don't usually pile into my daughter's bed for this but I thought it would make a cuter picture so I kinda forced them into it but I was right, much cuter!

I also want to try to include a lot of memorabilia into my album so here I just punched our church bulletin and popped it into the album. I love how the blue gives your eye a break from all the red and green overload!

Here I created a little pocket from a topper that sat on a table from the Banquet that we served at one of our sister congregations. Not sure what exactly I will put in it at this point. Either some journaling or I just might make a mini layout and pop it into the pocket.

 So after a week I have already learned a few important lessons from DD and have come away with some key observations:

1. Doing a December Daily has made me more intentional about spending time and making memories with my family. Sometimes we do big things like decorating the Christmas tree but yet other moments might seem a little smaller. I snapped a picture of my daughter standing by the door at a store looking outside. While that may seem like an every day occurrence, which if you ask my husband it is, but the story behind it is what I will remember every time I see that photo. I will explain in another post when I actually post the page layout.

2. I take time at night to reflect on and appreciate what is going on in my life. All too often days go by and we don't stop and look around. Like my example above, if I hadn't been in the mindset of documenting I may never have taken that picture and who knows how long I would have remembered that special little moment just the two of us had. 

3. I take WAY more pictures! Now not every day is going to have a picture. Like when we all gathered at my parents house to watch the Packers play. It's such a routine thing for us I didn't even bring my phone out. Yet there are other days when I wake up in the morning and my third thought is REMEMBER TO TAKE PICTURES! My first two are do I really have to get up (I hit the gym every morning at about 5 AM so that makes sense!) and my to do list starts running through my head.

Well sorry this post is so long. If you've made it through this far actually reading it , not just looking at the pictures (I know who you are!) you deserve a medal! I have been trying to write this post literally for weeks but with the kiddos and all that goes on in life it just didn't get done. Hopefully I will have some completed pages to share. 

SB