Beautiful But Busy Life

It’s Friday, which means time for my Beautiful Life post.  I have been reminded so many times this week just how beautiful my life is and I’ve thanked God many times.  I am going to add this to Kelly’s Korner for her Christmas traditions party, my journal is my favorite tradition.  

Can you believe Thanksgiving will be here in less than two weeks?  I have the menu planned, the centerpieces figured out, the dishes decided on, the name cards started, my thankful book 90% complete…..so moving on to Christmas.  

I am already thinking about my Christmas Journal.  I love journaling my Christmas every year with Shimelle’s Online Class, PLEASE take a peek.  The best thing is you pay for the class for the first year and then it’s free.  I know it sounds overwhelming….BUT…..if you’ll work on the layout ahead of time you really are just journaling each day.  I have tweeked “my system” each year and this year here is the plan. 

• 8 1/2 X 11 book
• Numbers cut from my cricut
• Pre done pages but not adhering the numbers (this gives you more freedom….trust me…..)
• Basket of supplies will be kept in the dining room, when dinner is over I will sit down and do my page-I bet I get it done each night in under 30 minutes….

I have four friends that I’m going to challenge this year to make their own…..Mama Wood, Kate, Sherri and Hooper don’t act like you didn’t read this…….we could get together and pre make our pages in one evening……..

I have to say I’ve done two journals so far, but I don’t think I’ll ever top this page.  My all time favorite, my baby’s last letter to Santa.  I turned it into a pocket and put the receipts in the pocket, won’t it be fun to show her how much things cost back in the “good ole’ days”.  Notice she included a letter from our dog…precious!

This is always one of my favorite pages each year.  Aren’t we all blessed?  I think sometimes in the craziness of The Season we lose track of what it’s suppose to really be about.

One of the prompts each year is about snow, so I invited all three kids over and we made snow out of paper for the journal.  Talk about a great memory, we ate tons of puppy chow and it snowed for hours.  Yes my grown son sit with his little sister for hours and made snowflakes.  I have that memory journaled!

 The first year I did the journal for the Baby Girl her and Santa still had a bond, then last year I did the journal for The First Born.  I’m a little nervous about this years book, you guessed it I’m doing it for Mr. Perfect…..boy pages???

I love this page because we had decided not to do “Christmas Morning” so I was feeling a little sad that things were changing…well they changed again, the week before Christmas “the big kids” decided to do Christmas morning wonder what we’ll do this year? 

 I like the page below, it’s unbelievable to think my First Born is now 22. 

Each year we pick a day and take pictures of that day, I always like to show what my “work area” looks like….. 

I hope I’ve inspired someone else to join the fun, it’s THE BEST GIFT I GIVE MYSELF EACH YEAR…..pinkie swear!  If I inspired anyone or you already do the journal leave me a comment…..I’m going to do a blog page this year on just the Christmas Journal and I’d like to include links to others.