holiday pages

Already?! Yep. That is the magic...and speed...of digital scrapbooking. I am feeling the pull from paper scrapping. It is hard not to when I can create so quickly with new things...and most of them free. The competition is so fierce amongst digital designers (by that I mean people creating the paper, embellishments, frames...the stuff to scrap with) to get their product out in front of the buyer that many give away "freebies". About a month ago I found this blog, and I visit daily, and get new things about that often. I have gotten much better at organizing my digital stuff, and try to unzip and then tag them in Picasa shortly after downloading them. I am sure this is greek to many of you, but if you have PhotoShop, and/or if you are a digi scrapbooker, some of this might be helpful. I was actually invited to scrapbook tomorrow at the local Archivers store. As much as I want to, I could not quite face up to the challenge of packing up all my paper supplies,. Plus we plan to try a family outing tomorrow anyway. Recording, and making, memories in any fashion is good to me. I am firmly in the gray camp about what is best. Truth is, I love it all and wish I had more time to spend on it, and more means to do it with!

Credits:
Layout one-
Weeds and Wildflowers template
Designer Digitals postmark
Layout two-
Designer Digitals template and postmark
Paper and tree by Franziska

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christmas

First, these collages are just so easy that it is the best way to show many shots, fast. I know, heads get cut off but I also think you can get the picture (pun intended!).
It was a great Christmas. Beginning with Christmas Eve mass that was literally at overflow proportions. I am my Mom's daugther b/c I absolutely love children singing. And children singing Christmas songs...even better. My girls behaved so well and it was so long and so hot too. The first two pictures are them dressed in their coordinating outfits before church.
The girls were so excited on Monday night. Olivia just could not fall asleep so Dave and I did not start our prep until 10:45 pm. We exchanged gifts that night, and I got an Ipod Nano--huge surprise. He had it wrapped and hidden inside a slipper...and I was happy just with those and a flat iron for my sad hairstyle! Back to the Ipod--today--my excitement has all but evaporated b/c I have had so much trouble syncing music onto the darned thing. Maybe my old MP3 was not so bad, I am just cursed by music +technology?! I have had more success via his laptop but I know it should not be this hard. Half of America would not have them if it were. Right? I actually reinstalled Windows Media Player on my computer, a painfully long process and it won't even recognize any music on the Ipod at all. ANY help at all is appreciated. PLEASE.
I plan a post about gift hits and misses but tonight, I will begin by saying that the Sansa Shaker is nothing short of brilliant. Olivia could not be more pleased with that and her I-Dog. A very special elf preloaded her Shaker with about a dozen songs and that made it an instant hit. The external speaker: brilliant for this age. If only my $150 Ipod were so easy to load with music...

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the list

If you are on it, you are lucky. My sweet girl wrote out this list before her shopping expedition at the Dollar Tree. That is our 3rd year for this tradition....she does all her Holiday shopping in one day, at one place, for one price. She puts a lot of thought into her selections too and finds some real gems. This year, Dave went along and Shelby too, neither of them seemed to quite grasp it like Olivia and I do! Shelby came home with two gifts: one for her MaMa, and one for her Dad. She handled many other things, and asked to buy several things, for Papa in particular. Those ideas included a Dragon Tales book and CD, a sheet of Princess stickers and something else that escapes me. Seems what makes her happy was to be a one size fits all approach. Next year might be better for her.
Back to Olivia though. She came home and after dinner, wrapped each one of her 10 gifts (turned out to be 11, she had to buy Aunt Kelly's cats a gift too) with so much care and thoughtfulness. If she knows your favorite color, your bow is that color. If you rate really high on the list, you got a special gift tag that she cut from the Little Debbie treats boxes. Each detail has so much meaning to her. She is really into giving. In fact, she wants to write a story about Santa being a giver. I could soak her sweetness up with a biscuit :)

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two pages

I did one last week, and one yesterday too. I am definitely, a MUCH faster digital scrapper, and that is what these two pages are. I do print mine though, which keeps me firmly in the more traditional camp, I suppose. I want them in the albums alongside my paper pages, so they will be seen, especially in the future. I am afraid that if they remain on a computer or disk, no one will see them, especially not the people I make them for...my family. Let's be honest, my computer is close to the bursting point right now, no one else would ever be able to find one thing of value on my hard drive or external hard drive, unless they had a computer science degree and had co-oped as a CIA operative!

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the art of the spritz cookie

Probably the biggest tradition of our Cookie Day each year, is the spritz cookie. My mom has always made these, for as long as I can remember. It's all about the dough, and the gun. The dough my Mom has perfected and if you keep it cold, you are good to go. The guns...those have come and gone through the years. Once my Mom's Mother's (my grandma, who I unfortunately never met) cookie gun finally quit working about five years ago, there was an ongoing search for a model to replace it. One that could do the job well. The electric or battery operated versions: no good. For my Mom, and probably my sister and I too, it would not be Christmas without spritz cookies, so the few years it was nearly impossible to squeeze out a good tree or wreath, we got a little worried. I am not sure where this one came from, but it works pretty close to the same way the original did. Here you see Shelby getting a lesson on the art of the spritz cookie from her MaMa. Not much sweeter than this.

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