Blizzard of 2009

I did this layout today in a speed scrap because I needed a little scrap therapy. The instructions required between 5-12 photos and I like layouts that use a lot of photos, so I was excited to get some of my MANY snow pictures from “The Blizzard of 2009” on a page. We had a GREAT time with this snow. It started falling on Friday 12/18 while I was out by myself finishing up my Christmas shopping at Kohl’s and Target.

When I went into Target, it was not really laying on the streets yet, although it was snowing heavily. By the time I came out, the parking lot was white and Target was closing early! The snow continued to fall all day Saturday 12/19 and we stayed warm inside watching it come down. The plows were not clearing our street at all! The top three pictures in my layout show the snow falling on Saturday, and the rest of the pictures are from Sunday 12/20, when the snow stopped and we went outside to play and shovel! Because of all the snow fun, I am sure there will be a few more layouts to come from our blizzard!

Journaling reads: This is the biggest snow I have ever experienced since moving to Virginia! We got 14 inches that started on Friday night, 12/18 as I hurried to finish up my Christmas shopping. It came down all through the night and the top three pictures show the snowfall on Saturday 12/19. Finally, on Saturday 12/20, the snow had stopped and we ventured outside to shovel and play. All day Sunday we checked our computers for the news we hoped was coming...SNOW DAYS! We got three days off of school, which extended our break to two whole wonderful weeks!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

We had lots of Christmas Eve magic today. Aaron was a perfect cookie helper...

 

we added some more cards to the Christmas Card Tree...

watched the Polar Express and left out goodies for Santa and his reindeer. Can't wait for the morning!

Christmas Eve at our house

This morning started with some Entemann's raspberry danish, a Christmas tradition I adopted from my mom. We always have a tough time finding it right around Christmas, so it must be tradition for a lot of people! Chris searched for it at three places and finally found it and bought two, so we get to have it for TWO mornings! After breakfast Aaron got in a little time with the Polar Express and Chris went to Costco on an emergency trip to buy a new DVD player because ours just quit last night! HOW RUDE! How can we watch Rudolph for the 60th time or Polar Express tonight without a DVD player? I worked on this new winter blogwear (since I totally missed the opportunity to make Christmas blogwear, but isn't this ADORABLE?) while Chris put the new player in and Handy Aaron working on "fixing" the old one. We have some more cookies to make before Aaron's nap and then I am back into the wrapping room. If we had not had the snow days, today would be our first day off. I am SO happy to have had the extra time to get things done around the house without the usual frantic pace of Christmas preparations. I am kind of struggling with dinner ideas for tonight. I realized this week that I focused so much on cookies and Christmas dinner and let the rest of the dinners for the week get neglected. I will concoct something. I am really looking forward to Aaron putting out cookies for Santa this year, he is really understanding all the traditions much better this year. Last year, Aaron got REALLY upset that he didn't get to eat the cookies we were putting out, here is a picture from that meltdown last Christmas!

More Fall gorgeousness

Farmer's Market

I waited until I had a coupon to get an adorable kit called "Eat Your Veggies" to make a farmer's market page. I love going to the farmer's market! We have lived here for 9 years and have never gone, even though it is only 10 minutes away. What dorks! I listed all our favorite things to get on the page, but we have only ever gone in the late summer and fall. I can't wait to go next Spring when it opens up again to see what they will have!

Aaron's Baby Book

I have s...l...o...w...l...y... begun working on Aaron's baby book (now that he's 2 1/2), which I started in paper scrapping form and plan to take up to his first birthday. Since I was also working finishing summer scraps and am now working on Christina and Nathan's wedding album, Aaron's book has stalled. I also got a great idea for a couple of Christmas gifts, and have to fit those in sometime, in addition to scanning Courts' baby pictures so I can work on that book, and, and, and....

Aaron's book so far...(I already had a spread about my pregnancy and one about making his room done paper-style). These were all pages I did for challenges at ScrapMatters, too. These have been difficult because it is hard for me to narrow down pictures...I love them all! At the same time I don't like cluttered looking pages, so I have been trying to find good templates and inspiration from scrapping sites for pages that include a lot of photos without looking cluttered.

A blog makeover...

I am back on the blog! Once August hit...well...we spent a lot of time out of the house and them it was time for school to start! And like most other things around the house, the blog just took a REALLY far back seat. But now, since I am procrastinating starting both my grading and my own grad school work, I made some new autum blogwear and I am going to be adding some posts. Fall is my favorite time of year, and this is a beautiful place to watch it happen. To me, the colors, the excitement of going back to school, and the start of the holiday season all make fall so inspirational. I also love a crisp cool day!