100 Layouts #16 - Christmas Magic 12/25/05 (completed 1/9/06)
Topic: Christmas

Christmas Magic 12/25/05

Journaling:

Christmas 2005 - Left, Aaron in the traditional photo with the stocking on Christmas Eve. I think maybe he's getting too old for this part to be all that exciting any more. Although he isn't too old to wake up before 4 o'clock on Christmas morning.

As usual, Santa was very generous. As, of course, were the parents :) Highlights: Aaron got the gigantic Starscream Transformer and a three-in-one Bionicle set from Santa. At the top of Jesse's wish list was a 300 Gb external hard drive, which Santa also came through with, along with Pokemon Colosseum and Lego Star Wars GameCube games.

From the families: Aaron got the Harry Potter Lego Durmstrang Ship set from Dad, Xiaolin Showdown TCG Starter Set from Mom, a Bionicle from Jesse, Harry Potter Goblet of Fire GameCube game from Grandma and Grandpa, and a book and $40 from Nanny and Grandad.

Jesse got a Yu Yu Hakusho DVD set from Dad, a hard-to-find Pokemon Gold GameBoy game from Mom (found it on eBay), a Harry Potter Goblet of Fire Soundtrack CD from Aaron, StarWars I, II, and III DVDx from Grandma and Grandpa, and a set of Winston Churchill's English history books from Nanny and Grandad.

The piece de resistance, as far as I'm concerned, was the complete set of original series Pokemon videos Nathan and I gave the boys. It took some doing, but I managed to assemble the complete set (26 volumes) from Bookman's, Planet Neo, and eBay. Yay for eBay!

After the gifts were opened, it was a nice relaxing day, with too many goodies, a too-huge turkey dinner, music, football, assembling Legos, and just enjoying the day.

Of course, Jesse and Aaron deserved gifts; the main question was, what about the kitties? Were they naughty or nice? Aaron and I agreed that Shiro was nice, but Tora, hmm... Of course, he's just a kitten and doesn't know any better. Evidently Santa agreed, because he brought the kitties a set of Bobble Bop toys and a canister of cat treats.

Supplies: Patterned paper and die-cuts, KI Memories; phrase stickers, Pebbles Inc.; charms, unknown; computer font, CK Typist.

Aaron gave me two full sheets of those Christmas phrase stickers for Christmas one year (could have been 2005). It's going to be a real challenge using them all up. 

100 Layouts #15 - Christmas Tree 2005 (completed 1/5/06)
Topic: Christmas

Another really simple page, based on an old Becky Higgins sketch. I use a lot of sketches, because I'm pretty much incapable of coming up with an interesting, well-balanced design on my own. I have a hard time visualizing what things are going to look like.

Just a strip of patterned paper (Daisy D's, I believe), some gold ribbon, and a Making Memories metal eyelet-charm. The quote says, "Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall." (Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas) I had seen this quote before, attributed to Oscar Wilde, which just didn't seem quite right. LOL

This was the year after Nathan and Aaron came home with a, well, really little Christmas tree that looked lost in the living room so I had them put it in the family room for the first time. I realized then that I liked having the tree in the family room because, seeing how I spend about 90% of my time in the kitchen during the holidays, it was nice to be able to see the tree right on the other side of the kitchen counter instead of having it hidden away in a room that I hardly ever went into. So after that we started scaling down the Christmas tree size (a little) and putting it in the family room every year. 

100 Layouts #12 - Wise Men (completed 1/2/06)
Topic: Christmas

Right, then. Yes, it's been a while. but I just moved my scrapbook albums from where they were invisibly lurking under the end tables in the living room to some proper bookshelves in the computer room, allowing for more visibility and easier scanning. And I'm launching a new scrap-my-stash challenge, which I also intend to blog over on my angelfire account, so I thought I'd get caught up on this one too. (Oh, and I'm tired of messing with the cuts, so the images will just pop up in the main view. I'll try to keep them small enough that they won't take forever to load.) 

Pretty simple layout, used up some gold metallic cardstock I had hanging around for years. This was the last year that Aaron participated in the Christmas pageant at Nathan's old church. He had a speaking line as Melchior, one of the three Wise Men. 

100 Layouts #11 - Cookie Artistes (completed 12/31/05)
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Christmas

Cookie Artistes

 Another one of those annual events that I get kind of tired of trying to find a layout idea for every year. It's easier with fun new supplies to play with - I used more of the KI Memories "Beautiful" kit that I used for my birthday layout. Journaling: "Aaron and Nathan; our annual cookie decorating night. 12 Dec. 2005"

 Supplies: Patterned paper, die cuts, epoxy words: KI Memories; letter stamps: Susan Branch, All Night Media; brown marker: Zig.

Yeah, I know I'm a little behind with the layouts :) I actually ended the challenge last December, but I won't say yet if I successfully completed it or not!