Merry Christmas!

Christmas is upon us at last, and it seems I finally have taken the time to sit down and post. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, between tae kwon do testing, art shows, school plays, Cub Scouts. Amidst all this, I did get my knitting finished, gifts wrapped, and cookies baked. We've even managed to watch a few holiday movies and I did a few scrapbook pages.

This morning I am enjoying the calm before the storm, as it were. Christmas Eve in our family entails two church services. The boys perform their play at 5:00, and hubby sings in the choir at 7:00. Normally I would miss the second service to sing in my own contemporary service, but that isn't happening this year. I'll miss spending part of Christmas Eve with friends that I've sung with for ten years, but I admit it will be nice to do a little less running around.

The boys didn't wake up until 8:00 this morning, which is late for them. I know it is very much wishful thinking, but I would love a repeat performance tomorrow. How is it that kids innately know that it's Christmas morning? I'll just have to check before I go to bed to make sure they don't have alarms set to help them out.

We will spend Christmas Day with my husband's parents and then the next day my parents and sister will arrive from PA. There is no such thing as a relaxing holiday in our house.

I'll finish up with one of my five-minute layouts. This is our family's Christmas card from this year. Merry Christmas!

Knitting Instead of Scrapping

I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted. I guess it's because I haven't spent too much time scrapbooking lately. I've snuck in a page here and there to get my "fix" but I will definitely not end the year on a scrapping high note. I started 2010 like gangbusters, completing 40 pages in January alone! The numbers steadily dwindled, and I hope not to end the month with my current four pages (which I suppose isn't bad at all considering it is only the 7th).

As I'm sure is the case with many others, scrapbooking is not my only craft. I also knit, albeit not with the same passion as scrapbooking, but I do enjoy it. Currently I am in knitting mode. I knit dishcloths for teacher Christmas gifts and somehow I have extra teachers to knit for this year. My kindergartner has his teacher and a classroom aide. However, he now spends most of his morning in a first-grade classroom; this brings his teacher count to three. My fourth-grader has his regular classroom teacher, plus his gifted program teacher, which brings the grand total to five. I still have about two and a half cloths to knit. Then it's back to the baby blankets, but that's another story.

I think I will have to try and get some sanity-saving scrapbook time in the mornings over the next week and a half. My fourth-grader has our afternoons/evenings booked nearly solid until Christmas break starts on the 18th. When my boys were babies I had trouble understanding other parents who claimed they didn't have time for things because of their kids' activities (I always just brought my kids along to meetings, etc.). Now I get it. So in addition to being proud of all my son is doing, I am starting to mourn the loss of my own life. I have always strived to maintain my sense of self, especially as a stay-at-home mom. I never wanted to be one of those moms who was only about her kids, and I always thought I did pretty well at that.

On the up side, I think my Christmas shopping is finished, with the exception of taking my oldest out to choose a gift for his brother. With his schedule, though, this may prove to be a bigger challenge than finding a chance to scrapbook.

Here's one of my latest pages. I was dying to get into my new DCWV Christmas paper, so picked some photos from last year for my album (leaving the rest of 2009 woefully behind).