my project365 is really only a project156

inspired to share by Stacey's post

I knew from the beginning that I wouldn't be able to keep up if I scrapped every photo, so my plan was to print out photos with journalling directly edited on to them. This album has 360 pockets in it, allowing for some missed days (and a cover that can be modified when-I-get-around-to-it)

So, I started with the best of intentions, downloading photos weekly, and editing straight away. It was summer holidays, so relatively easy to take photos of life each day, even if the kids were driving me barking mad. I shared some photos here.

I took photos of the strangeness and normalness of life. Babies in cloth nappies, vegemite in play doh, that sort of stuff.

I took photos of birthdays, and crafting, and handed the camera to someone else, and celebrated milestones.

This project has made me realise how much Chloe is missing from our lives. And I think that has been part of the reason (at least subconsciously) why I lost enthusiasm.

I had my photos developed through snapfish (and fell in love with "proper printed photos" again)

June 14th was the last time I edited photos. I kept taking photos through June and July, and then a bout of illness in August threw me. I couldn't "catch up". September was Riley's birthday, and I tried to pick the camera up again, but didn't get photos every day. In October I broke up with my mums group, and we hardly ever left the house. Photos of the same purple walls and messy desk every day isn't very interesting. We're now in November and I haven't taken one.single.photo. In fact, I discovered last night that the batteries in my camera are flat (from children playing with it, I think) and I don't have spares!

I am going to take a photo every day in December. In fact, I'm planning to have my camera in my hand all the time in December, because I will be scrapping it!

I have been inspired all year by this album from Jody Dent-Pruks. Except mine is going to be 6x6. And I'm using Echo Park's "Everybody Loves Christmas". And I'm using an American Crafts d-ring modern album (red) And I'm excited to be scrapping our December this year!

Merry Christmas

to do on Christmas Eve

1. buy a couple more presents for the big kids
   
2. do the grocery shopping
3. pay for chickens
   
4. wrap the presents
5. make a sticky date pudding
6. make buttermilk hotcakes for breakfast
7. shell the prawns
8. make various dipping sauces for prawns
   
9. make a potato salad
10. clear and clean the dining room
11. pull out the box of plates/glasses/bowls
12. collect chickens at lunchtime Friday (lunch will be slightly delayed)
    

today

The couch needs to be moved away from the tree
The toy boxes need to be moved into the back room
That table you can just see on the right (with the chair) needs to be thrown in the bin
Someone else can sort and fold the washing

Dear Santa

{at our 2008 Christmas party}

Dear Santa

I wrote a letter to you last year, and promised to write again, but I'm not sure if my mushy-baby-brain-ness will let me actually think of something to write to you about! Last year I asked for family harmony... if you weren't listening then, please can you listen now - we're only one week into the school holidays, and the children only stop bickering when they're asleep!

I also asked for my baby girl to come home, but she's moving even further away. I guess there isn't much I can do about that at this stage of the game - she isn't happy being in our house any more, and now that dad has split from his partner, she's worried about leaving him lonely. All I can do is remind her about how much I love her (and how much everyone else here loves her, too)

I know this is a strange request, but please can I have a garlic crusher. Every second day I come across a recipe that needs crushed garlic in it, and I'm finding that the ever-faithful jar of already-crushed garlic in the fridge just isn't imparting enough garlic-ness into my dishes. I'm even thinking of learning how to grow my own garlic, so I can have just the right amount of garlic-ness!

I'd also like a tiered cake cooling rack, I never seem to have enough space on one rack when I get all excited and baking (that's when the cookies last for long enough, which isn't often these days)... a tiered cooling rack would utilise my minimal bench space so much better, and I'd get all excited about baking again!

I'd like the dish fairy to visit my house occasionally. I'm still not fond of washing dishes, and sometimes I'm a little annoyed at my own insistence that saucepans and plastic containers don't go in the dish washer, cause no one else seems to know where the plug lives! Just the occasional visit, maybe two or three times a year would really help.

Look forward to seeing what you bring me (and the rest of the family) on Thursday night!

Cate

Christmas eating

{2008}

Lunch this year will look much the same - cooked, cold prawns and dipping sauce (I love a coriander/sweet chilli dipping sauce, Steve loves Neil Perry's garlic & lime aioli), ham off the bone (must remember to buy one tomorrow), cold chicken (I usually pick it up from Red Rooster, this year we are debating about whether or not to do that again, or just buy a couple of chooks from the supermarket - I'm partial to the warm, fresh chicken on Christmas day, and don't mind driving to pick it up), and potato salad, made the day before. Followed by meringue nests with cream and fruit salad on top.

Christmas dinner (tea) will be a turkey breast roast (already in the freezer), roast veg and potatoes, followed by sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce.

Quite an indulgent day all round.

What will you be eating on Friday?

wrapping paper

I'm a buy-it-in-the-January-sales-and-forget-it's-there-in-time-for-Christmas kind of gal, and a leave-it-until-the-last-minute-on-Christmas-Eve-to-wrap-all-the-presents kind of mum. I'd like to say that this year will be different, but I don't want to set my expectations too high, in case I fail... but the presents that I have bought so far are sitting in boxes, waiting to be wrapped...

carols

I've been playing this album every Christmas since my parents first bought it - I think that was 1987, the year the album came out. When I first moved out of home I had a copy of it on tape, and played it until the tape fell apart, then my sister managed to track it down for me when she worked in a record shop. Now my kids love singing along to all the Disney characters. It wouldn't be Christmas without it!

traditions

We have lots of traditions at Christmas time... most, in fact all, of them are traditions that I bring to our family, or we have started doing since we've been together. Little things like choosing a new ornament for the tree each, or eating the same breakfast (buttermilk hotcakes with blueberry syrup), making fudge that mum forgets to put out on the day and then everyone eats through the holidays, but the most visible tradition before anything else is the tshirts. Every year, we all get new tshirts, and take photos in them. Steve and I have a large pile of tshirts to wear, he tends to wear his all year round, but the kids outgrow the tshirts each year and need new ones (although there is a light bulb going off in this hoarder's brain saying "wouldn't a Christmas tshirt quilt be an awesome present to hand the little boy/girl for their 18th Christmas?")

it's beginning to look like a lot like Christmas

~~ cards finally finished ~~

~~ a family photo ~~

~~ dancing with Santa ~~

~~ oh Swissmas tree ~~

~~ more funky toys ~~

mum's to-do advent list - updated

1. print out, cut and put in advent calendar all the activities for the kids advent - it starts tomorrow! DONE
   
2. finish and post Christmas cards - emboss greeting, stick paper, fold in half, stuff in envelope, repeat 83 times. gave up embossing, all paper stuck, all cards folded
   
3. supervise children's craft time, because someone thought it was a clever idea to have the children do craft-type activities as part of their advent countdown (the chocolates in the calendar was a dismal failure last year...) some done, the real test is the week before Christmas
   
4. finish off the journal gifts for mums group - buy ribbon, drill hole in journal, thread ribbon, attach charm, punch label, attach label, tie pen to journal, repeat 23 times still haven't made it to the shop to buy the ribbon, but my punch has arrived!
   
5. how are those Christmas cards going? They really need to be finished and put in the post soon... only 62 to go need to write messages and stuff into envelopes
   
6. attend daycare Christmas party for niece and nephew, with fruit platter for each class done
   
7. bake brownies and caramel slice for weekend gatherings caramel slice done and eaten
   
8. buy swimsuit for Chloe, as she's outgrown her suit from last summer (that probably only got worn once, after all, she's a tween who doesn't like doing anything slightly embarrassing with her family, and getting undressed and wet is classed as uncool if parents are involved!) got a week's reprieve, shopping this weekend for the swimsuit
   
9. attend mums group Christmas party - supervise children swimming while dad dresses up as santa and hands out presents to wet children date change to 19/12
   
10. attend first birthday/naming day with the same group of people (and maybe a couple more) for one of the bubbas from mums group done
    
11. make fruit mince pies, share on blog as "not a cookie recipe" temporarily on hold
    
12. buy presents for all children, bring home and wrap before hiding in the cupboard still haven't done any shopping
    
13. finish making diaries for people who sometimes pretend to read this blog almost finished this afternoon
    
14. Christmas cards... stamp greeting, emboss greeting, stick paper, fold in half, stuff in envelope, only 49 to go as above
    
15. find a box to decorate and fill with notelets for Chloe, make writing practice cards for Douglas, make "body parts" type photo album for Natalie. rethinking these gifts...
    
16. attend bookclub morning tea, don't forget the secret santa present! this Saturday!
    
17. make a sticky date pudding for Christmas day to be done a couple of days before Christmas
    
18. create the Kaisercraft Christmas wreath (which I forgot I had until just this second)... I really want to create one of those funky bauble wreathes that everyone is making, but I'll put that on the to-do list for next year fagedaboudit
    
19. last burst of Christmas cards - if they don't get finished today, what's the point of sending them, and wasn't that the point of making them in the first place - to actually send them?! going postal no later than Friday, hoping by Wednesday
    
20. more present shopping, cause you can guarantee that while I said I was going to stick to a budget, something will "catch my eye" and I'll just "have to buy it" and then feel guilty and spend roughly the same amount of money on all the other children, blowing the budget out of the water. I hope not!
    
21. attend carols by candlelight around the corner at school - this involves packing a picnic for afternoon tea/tea, loading everyone up with bags/blankets/chairs and the pram with the esky while carrying the baby, and trundle off to have some fun *note to self - remember the aeroguard and haveagoodweekend! this Sunday night!
    
22. last minute grocery shopping - for all those last minute items I'm going to forget about until the last minute and then just have to make to be done at the last minute
    
23. Journal Your Christmas starts tomorrow... my current plan is to have a go at doing it digitally, but when I finally sat down and read this month's Creating Keepsakes magazine, they had a "gift album in a night" plan, and the sketch has really got me thinking... so now I'm trying to decide if I'm going to do a paper album, or stick with my original digital plan - and I still have another day to wait before I see the digital kit that Shimelle is going to include in the class... sometimes I hate the time difference! and there was an album in the first prompt that caught my eye, so I'm still thinking about the actual paper pages, meanwhile I'm blogging every day

My list hasn't got any longer... yet!

now and then

I think my first Christmas without Chloe was 2004, when she was six, but it seems like it has been part of our Christmas "routine" for a lot longer. My first Christmas without her was spent with a friend and her family, her parents and children and best friend's family... and it was a wonderful day of laughs and love, but underneath it I felt the separation from Chloe. I called her after lunch, later than I had planned to (those glasses of wine with lunch caught me off guard!), and almost burst into tears when she came to the phone, she was so excited that Santa knew she was at dad's house that year! She's lucky enough to get two Christmas every year (and the year she isn't with us for Christmas day I have been crazy enough to do Christmas twice!), but I think now she is getting older, we'll have to think of a different way to do those missing Christmases.

advent

I made this calendar for the kids last year. I had never really introduced Chloe to advent calendars, so it was the first year I tried it. It was a dismal failure! I put chocolates in the socks, doubling up for the weekends that Chloe was home, but forgetting about my niece and nephew, and the "almost-toddler" who was then developing mum's sweet tooth. I think by day three all the chocolates had been eaten - and everyone swore that someone else had done it!

So, this year, I had to take a different path. In the spirit of recycling, I'm using the same calendar (and the kids love it, so I think we might keep it going for years to come), and the socks are filled with little activities for the kids to complete each day. I've never quite figured out the whole counting up/counting down thing, so our calendar starts at one and ends at twenty-four. I think it will take a while before the kids question if that is the right way or not.

Here is the full list of activities:

1. do some Christmas colouring in
2. read a Christmas story to Natalie
3. make cards for your scout leaders
4. decorate the tree
5. write a letter to Santa
6. do some Christmas colouring in
7. read a Christmas story to Natalie
8. make a card for your teacher
9. make white rocky road for your school party
10. listen to some Christmas music
11. watch "Mickey's Once upon a Christmas"
12. make fudge
13. sing loudly at Carols by Candlelight
14. read a Christmas story to Natalie
15. take some groceries to the "empty tree"
16. make paper chains
17. watch "the Santa clause"
18. check out the Christmas lights
19. bake some Christmas cookies
20. present shopping for siblings
21. decorate Santa sacks
22. make table centrepieces
23. make Christmas crackers
24. watch Carols by Candlelight on tv

perfect

Every year we are bombarded with magazines touting the "perfect" Christmas/recipe/craft/decorating idea. {Is it the same in every country?} I'm a sucker for Christmas, and for magazines, so that combination is the best way to get me to buy magazines (although I'm trying to be good this year, and only buy the usual magazines I buy each month, without any extras - so far I'm failing dismally ~lol~)

But, despite the mountains of magazines telling me how-to-do-Christmas-properly, the only real help I get from them is the occasional recipe that I *might* actually cook for the big day. The perfect Christmas, to me, is the one where my kids still believe, and we just spend a lazy day together. This year I'm *hoping* to achieve that - it's the first year we haven't had any extended family joining us, it's just the 6 of us.

Christmas cards

This is what my cards look like tonight. My list is huge this year - in fact, I have almost 90 names on my Christmas card list this year. Some of those people I have never met - I signed up for a swap over at Bubhub, cause getting cards in the mail is really exciting. When I signed up for the swap, I hadn't counted the number of people on my list... that's why my cards, on December 3rd, look like they're not done. And, to top it all off, I spent two hours this afternoon (between feeding and settling the little boy, and entertaining the little girl, who hasn't slept today) stamping and embossing almost 80 cards... only to discover I did it UPSIDE DOWN! My cards are going to say "merry Christmas" on the front, and the back! I'll share my design when I finally finish them - I was inspired by Avital over at Creativity Prompt, and they don't involve ANY of the stamps that I HAD to buy to make my cards...

I started making my cards last year, cause I've always been one of those people who buys the cards from the supermarket/dollar store/department store... and then throws the cards in the bin in February, only to repeat the cycle the following December. I figured that if I poured a bit of myself into the cards, then I was more likely to actually send them. Do you make your cards? Are you organised enough to get them finished by December 1st (which was my goal)? Do you want to get a simple card all the way from Australia? (my email address is over on the right, send me your address if you do)

more online classes...

{told you I'm hopeless!}

I'm hoping this is a binder of some sort, similar to the "Stories in Hand" binder (I was thinking after I got the email this morning, Stories in Hand is the ONLY online class I have started AND FINISHED! Yay, me!)

And Shimelle announced this morning (or more accurately, last night, her time) Journal your Christmas 2009. I'm thinking I might finally do something digital (and I might be able to keep up that way), and then print it out at the end of January. I'm already planning to have a little notebook with me all the time (must pick some more up this afternoon) to take notes about the days, and photos I have taken.

dear santa...

I know I've probably left it too late - years late in fact, seeing as how I haven't written a letter to you since very early in my teenage years some twenty-something years ago - but I just wanted to share...

{I want my baby girl to decide that living with her dad isn't as much fun as she thinks it is, and come home}

I don't need much for Christmas, and as hard as hubby finds it to believe, books and cds and serving platters really do fulfil my needs!! {as will some shopping vouchers, and some quiet time without kids hanging off me, but that's another story for another day!}

Happy kids, and no family arguments, and lots of smiles, and everyone happy to pose for photos, and then the time to make the photos into the dreamed of mini-albums, and I think my holidays will be set! {do you have any idea how hard it is to write... when someone is peering over your shoulder at every word you write?!}

Weather-wise, it wouldn't be Christmas if it didn't drizzle-spit while we ate breakfast, but please keep the heat down to a bearable 30 degrees centigrade (or less)... then we can try to enjoy some fresh air, instead of having to retreat to the lounge room and enjoy the airconditioning...

I think that's all for this year... I promise to write again next year... it's kind of cathartic to actually get the words down!

time for a cuppa and a chat....

{and some caramel mudcake that was left behind}

so, it's been INSANE at our house for the last two days... two days of sheer lunacy, people shouting at each other, threatening to leave, yelling around the kids {sorry}, and even, we think, bro manhandled one of them {not on!}

two and a half hours of party, it started raining, sow e had to close the doors, making it even hotter, and then it's all over before dessert and I have a MOUNTAIN of cheesecake, brownies, sausages and salad leftover


Santa was a big hit (except for two bubbas who cried), and while the big kids knew who it was, I think they were even more excited that they were getting anything!


Natalie was too tired to even open this up, but I'm sure she'll get lots of use out of blocks for her collection... and people, too!!


We did all this cleaning yesterday in 34 degree C heat (93 degree F), and boy did they deserve the icy pole by then!


And we finally got the tree up... of course, because it's downstairs, and bro's kids aren't the neatest (and nor is HE!), and likely to touch everything... and cause we were having the party today, we decided to put it up on the table... but it didn't fit! There's only half a tree (the top bit is missing), but I think it's pretty cool, and will fiddle around this week and sort a star out for the top of it... the colours are a bit hard to see, it's actually pink and silver, not purple (purple was last year)...

so, I haven't managed any cybercrop scrapping this weekend, and I'm behind with my Christmas journal, haven't even looked at DYL (I was keeping up with the reading, printing everything out, sticking it in a book, then I discovered you could print out the video transcript, and download the slides, too!)

hubby's off around the countryside again this week, so I might be back with more scrappiness as the week passes... I have some projects that I have to get finished first, two friends have had their bubbas in the last two days, and I've got calendars to make!

jingle bells, jingle bells...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Journal your Christmas has started!

I am keeping up so far ~lol~

journalling reads - I declare starting today I am keeping a Christmas journal.
I am giving myself the gift of thirty minutes a day to remember
Christmases past, get ready for Christmas present,
and dream of Christmas futures. I'm going to use the time wisely,
creating with my hands my words and memories.