Hunt Family Connection

December Daily Project: Preparation

It's our first Christmas as a complete family of four and I'm feeling compelled to document it. For the past few years I've been watching others do December Daily projects and it all just seemed so overwhelming to me given everything else that had to be done. It seems that doing prep ahead of time is the key and just plain making this a priority will also be important in getting the project done. The goal is to have an album in the end that documents our holiday season activities, feelings, and traditions.

So to prepare and get psyched up for the project I've been doing a lot of reading. I've been inspired by the following resources:

December Daily project by Ali Edwards - she's really the pioneer of December Daily and has been doing the project for several years now - you can follow her process and get TONS of info from her blog.
Holiday in Hand by Jessica Sprague - a free class that was offered this year - lots of good page prompt ideas and some great free digital goodies
Pre-Planning Digital Pages and Projects by Katie - a great post detailing how Katie is planning for her all digital December Daily album

Next step is to gather materials, so that's just what I did the other day. I did a search of Christmas goodies from Designer Digitals, made note of the products I might want to use for my pages, then raided my stash and made copies of those goodies to put into a dedicated folder to keep on my desktop called "December Daily Materials"  Here are the goodies that I've gathered so far, complete with links to the DD store in case you want to go grab some of these things yourself.

1. December Daily Template Package 2. December Daily Template Package Vol 02  3. Speed Byte No 122  4. Christmas Dreams Kit  5. December Magic Kit   6. Balsam Hill Paper Pack  7. Holiday Hand Drawn Brushes  8. Holiday Word Art  9. Krafty Cut-Ups: Holiday  10. Christmas Dreams Glitters  11. Krafty Cuts: Christmas  12. Posted Holiday Postage Stamps  13. Absolutely Acrylic: Festive Trees  14. StraightLine Stitch Red No 01  15. Stitched by Anna Borders Red No 01

I'm sure I'll add some things here and there, but to keep things as easy to complete as possible, I'm going to try to stick to these products for the most part.

I will be using this album for my pages (in the chestnut color), and in the window that you can see through on the front, I'm going to arrange some of these cute square stickers.

December starts tomorrow and I'm sure I'll be sharing my pictures and pages along the way :)

And now it’s a scrapbook page…

I took the photo of G and his Pa-Paw and turned it into this:

If you click on the page you can find out more about the materials used to put this together and the page that inspired it :)

Much Better and Weekend in the Life

So things are definitely looking up – today is Friday and we have a long holiday weekend ahead of us. Even better…there were no “poopy” incidents yesterday!

We don’t have any big plans to go anywhere for the Memorial Day weekend – just plan to enjoy the beautiful weather they are predicting. I do think I want to take on the “weekend in the life” project that Ali Edwards suggested last weekend. 

I’ll keep notes and pictures on my blog throughout the weekend, then decide what format to scrap it all in….then will add to my “Week in the Life” album.  Already in my album is my first “Week in the Life” project which you can peek at HERE.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend – stay tuned for many details of ours!

It was pretty darn happy there...

We saw this in the sky as we entered the Magic Kingdom last Friday - funny....

 

As I was editing some pictures last night, this one also made me happy.

I really enjoyed wandering around the different countries inside of Epcot and Morocco was definitely one of my favorites. There were so many beautiful things to look at and it was rather peaceful because there weren't many people around when I was there.

I also got to visit a favorite place when I stumbled across a little bit of Venice, Italy - it brought back very nice memories from our honeymoon :)

 

Here is yet another happy moment from the trip - a group photo with the Disney characters!

This was the night of our private dinner and special dessert buffet at Epcot. Randy and Katie Pertiet were our generous hosts - they own a website called Designer Digitals. The rest of these women are designers and creative team members from the site. We have worked together for some time, but many of us had never met in person - it was such a treat to have everyone coming from different parts of the country, and even a handful of women from other countries. I felt like I already knew these women well because the work we do leads to us sharing scrapbook pages about our families and our lives, so it was wonderful to get to meet them and spend time chatting in person. You can see the work the creative team does by browsing around THIS GALLERY.

Week in the Life Album update

Just a heads up that I put my Week in the Life Album info and progress in a page - you can click on Week in the Life - 2008 over there on the right side of the page or to make it even easier yet, click HERE! I'm determined to get this done this week - will keep you posted :)

Week in the Life Album - I started!

So I think I have figured out the format that I want use for my Week in the Life Album.

I'm thinking I will probably use this album in the 8 1/2 x 11 size - the nice thing about these albums is that you can use different sized sheet protectors inside.

So my plan is to have an 8 1/2 x 11 2-page spread for each day of the week, and then have little 6x6 inserts to put in between that highlight some specific things about that day.

For example, here is my two-page spread for Sunday....

 

And then I created two 6x6 pages to put in between these pages - one about how independent Graham is right now, and one about our Birth to Three group and playdates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every day of the week will be similar to this - I'll do a title page too I think and then it will be all done! I would like for this to be an ongoing project - when I do this again next year I can just add it to the album and we should have an interesting look at our the little details of our life change over time.

As I said in the beginning, this project was prompted by Ali Edwards - you can see how her album is coming together HERE. I'm also really excited that two of my friends are doing a week in the life this week - check out KARA and JENNA's blog to see what they're up to :)

Friday Odds and Ends

The week just flew by - I have lots of my "to do" list at work already and Graham keeps me plenty busy at home :)

I have a scrapbook page to share today - I'm realizing I haven't done that in awhile and want to get back in the habit of sharing them!  This is one that I did with the pictures of Graham and Pa-Paw (Jim) at the airshow....

If you click on the photo it will take you to a website where all of the materials I used on the page are listed. I had a lot of fun putting it together and love how it turned out.  G just LOVES his Pa-Paw and just can't contain himself when Pa-Paw enters the room - it's pretty darn cute and very sweet :)

Wil has been very busy with his daytime and night time class - he just held a study session for the night class last night in fact. It's soooo busy being a first-year teacher, but he is handling it all very well :)  He's not much of a morning person, so this has been a huge adjustment. In all of the craziness though, I got him to go in to the doctor for a physical - just to make sure everything is as it should be.  Dr. Copperman says that he's looking good, but encouraged him to get some more exercise....we could probably both work on that one :) 

This weekend is the Eugene Celebration - YAY! It's one of my favorite Eugene events and I can't wait to take Graham to the parade Saturday morning.  Usually I take bunches of pictures, but I may be chasing him around instead this year....we'll see!  I'm hoping he'll watch from his stroller - we can get bagels and enjoy the uniqueness that is Eugene. 

I still have a little time before I have to get up and ready for work, daycare, etc. so I'm going to get a few computer clean-up tasks started. Have a great weekend everyone - and if you're anywhere near Eugene, come on out to the Celebration!!

Life is Good!

Nothing terribly new and exciting to report, but wanted to share a picture of Graham from today....

This was the scene outside our house before dinner tonight. Graham LOVES it outside and just falls apart when he has to go back in. We were forced back in after only a brief visit to the backyard by a little misbehavior with my newly filled planters.

Graham thinks it's super fun to dig out the dirt in the planter and throw it on the ground. We tried many things to convince him otherwise....but alas, it seems very entertaining to hear mommy and daddy put on their "stern voices" and he just kept walking back to the planters to start digging in the dirt again.

Perhaps G needs his own "planter" - a place where it's ok to dig and throw dirt.  Oh - and how appropriate is that t-shirt he's wearing all of a sudden?!?!

One more thing for the digital scrapbookers that visit the blog - BIG BIG news at Designer Digitals!!  Ali Edwards is going to be designing exclusively for DD - yay! I put together a page today using one of her templates and text brushes.

You can see the supply credits by clicking on the page. We are really so lucky to have such a happy boy :)  For those that don't know who Ali Edwards is, you can find out more about her HERE - I'm a big fan and find TONS of inspiration at her blog. I also have a couple of books that she has written - A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking (a gift given to all of the people that attended a talk she gave in Portland) and Life Artist. One last fun fact about Ali - she lives right here in Eugene :)

Happy Birthday Aubrie!

Aubrie's birthday party is tonight - her birthday is on Friday and I just can't believe that she is 6 already!  Where does the time go?! As I have every year (except one) I've put together an album to help remember this past year in Aubrie's life. I didn't get it done in time to have it mailed there for the party, but I can display it here for everyone to see :)  Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book.

 

Have a wonderful birthday weekend Miss Aubrie!