And here we are for day thirteen.

Each year, I like to have a page about the wrapped Christmas presents and how each kid gets their own wrapping. We also make a special one for Christmas-eve presents. And we get the same present for both boys for Christmas eve. So this page is all about that tradition.

i love the way this album mixed the magic of holidays and the magic of ordinary life. I love looking at the joyful photos and the typical life photos and the moments that are so specific to where we are in life in this moment. What a gift this little album is each year.

And here we are for day eleven.

Today’s story is about taking a rest day and then having it be really busy anyway. I wrote a bunch of all the different things I did today but the main part is about meeting my Young Adult book group and how wonderful it was.

this year’s album is so much simpler than usual for me, but I still love looking through it.

And here we are for day nine.

Today’s story is about Hannukah. I captured this shot and then as I looked at it, I realized it had a menorah, christmas ornaments and the turkish evil eye so it struck me how it was such a perfect capture of the many sides of my life and identity so I decided I wanted to write about that.

and here’s the back with the story:

I loved the original page 9 page a lot so I left it as is and will do the back for day 10.

And here we are for day seven.

I liked the layout of this page and thought it was a great opportunity to tell some of the smaller stories from our week, so I made 3 little 2×2 photos and then journaled each of the stories in 3 journaling cards.

Here’s the before of this page:

and now the spread:

a closer look:

The stories I wrote were about how I am now driving on the freeway all the time (and had to on Saturday to take David to this new school), how I’ve been going to work a bunch lately, and how Nathaniel and I had a date night while David and his friends were working on their Tech Challenge (and Jake was away.)

I love having these little bits in my album and am planning to do the same for the backside.

And here we are for day five.

Today’s story is our Breakfast with Santa. We’ve been doing this for many, many years. It’s our neighborhood tradition. This year, as it worked out, David had an appointment at one of the middle schools he’s applying to so we weren’t sure if we were going to make it. But we didn’t want to miss it so we registered for the 7:30 slot so we got to go, eat our breakfast, take some shots with Santa and then leave for the appointment.

We ended up making friends with another family during breakfast, their daughter is also super-into science so we decided to make sure to meet again soon. Then when Santa asked the boys what they wanted for Christmas, Nathaniel said a “science kit” but David said “A quick and easy way to take over the world!” which Santa thought was funny and then asked him what he would do once he had the world. This stumped David momentarily so we all laughed. And then someone suggested he give presents to others and then Santa said then he can sit at home and we all laughed again. Our new friends took a photo of all of us with Santa and then we rushed out the door to make it to the school on time.

I am so glad we decided to go despite it being a bit stressful. I feel like having these events we do each year it something I cherish because I can see how the same event feels so different each year as the boys grow up and our life changes.

And here we are for day three.

Today’s story is the Niles Christmas train that we take every year. I think we started taking this train before Nathaniel was born and it’s one of my favorites. We always have a lot of photos so I wanted to make sure to honor that and added a new page to put the ticket and some of our photos.

on the back is a photo of me with the boys and Jake with David.

and here’s the actual page I had for day three. I love that we have a photo of all of us for once. I wrote the story of how we always take this train and what it means to me.

I also journaled about how this year, Jake had to go to San Diego right after and even though it meant he’d have to drive all night and sleep for 4 hours and drive some more, he still came on the train with us. I wanted to thank him and remember how he did this wonderful thing for us even though it made it harder for him.

I’m so grateful for him and for my boys.