I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was very full but so much fun and the kids did great.

Today I am home with the kiddos and the plan is to get our Christmas decorations up. It might be a 3-day process with a crawling, teething baby and a preschooler who wants to “help” around, but I’m determined to have fun. We have holiday movies lined up and nutrition is kind of out the window for the day. I might venture out to the craft store at some point, but only if I get up the nerve. :)

I just wanted to share my most recent project life spread with you, and talk a little bit about my plans for next year!

These weeks are from November 3 – 16. This was right after week in the life, and I was kind of worn out with photographing so I had very limited photos to work with. It was kind of fun to get some extra journaling and filler cards in though.

This photo of Meredith with her cousin Cameron is one of my favorites. They look soooo adorable. I hope they stay such good friends as they grow up (ditto for all of the cousins).

I’m really falling for wood veneers like this little heart, below. They are very popular in the scrapbooking world and I see why. I’m not very big into embellishments, but these are my style.

I used some of the seafoam core kit, which I haven’t used in a long time. I forgot how much I like some of it.

We went to a kids’ birthday party and Meredith was so scared of this giant slide at first. But after observing awhile and then trying out some smaller slides with the help of some bigger kids, she finally conquered the big slide and was going down backwards by the end. That little story is so typical of her and I loved this sequence of photos.

A picture of her nursing her baby doll. :) Another wood veneer that I love.

And just a little update on Liam’s health. During this entire time he was either sick or recovering from being sick and we saw a couple of doctors. I repeated that “hello” stamp several times during the whole spread and I liked that technique.

So I am still caught up on this project and I love this whole album a lot. It’s that time of year when it’s a good idea to start evaluating how I want to approach it next year. This may be boring, but I actually don’t think I’m going to change anything. Here are my reasons:

• I’ve stayed caught up this whole year, so obviously my current approach is working.
• When I look through the album, I really like the simple, consistent, neutral spreads. The stories shine through and our life is documented.
• I have other projects that I can get more creative with if I feel the urge – like week in the life and my holiday minibook, for starters.
• The 12×12 size is excellent for getting two weeks’ worth in, and it tells a good story.
• Life is too crazy right now for me to change anything up, and overall I feel very satisfied with it!

As for my other mini album projects – they are on my mind a lot but not much work is getting done since Liam’s been sick and the holidays are here. I have my title page done for week in the life, and I’m currently trying to decide exactly how I’m going to approach December daily (or a holiday minibook). I think I’ll have to take a personal day at some point (when I earn back enough PTO) to work on this stuff as it’s not baby/toddler-friendly!

Other than that, I just finished the advent calendar! I’m very excited about it. I’ll share more soon. Most of my Christmas shopping is done, and wrapping is on the agenda this weekend as well as ordering our holiday cards.

Happy long weekend! How are you going to spend it?