Christmas 2000

This daily journaling project has been so fun! It has also helped me realize where I have holes in my photos and other things.  This Christmas is one that I can't find any photos from.  I know that my inlaws visited us and spent Christmas Eve with us and then later in the day, we drove up to my parents house to spend the evening and night with them.  My brother and his wife had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Mykayla 2 days earlier.  I'm guessing that because we were so busy with family and traveling, I just didn't get any pictures.  I may check with other family members to see what they have!

That Christmas I was also pregnant with my 3rd baby, and we had just learned that it would be a girl!  My husband was finishing up his last year of his bachelor program and had started the process of applying to law school.  It was a busy time and it was also a very financially lean time of our lives!  We were blessed with family who helped to make up the difference and my inlaws were great about spoiling us with so many gifts!  I remember that year we didn't get anything for each other and put any extra money given to us towards bills.  It was tough, but looking back, I think the difficult years helped us appreciate years when we had more!  My husband was working as a waiter at Chevy's, a Mexican restaurant in the mall.  I have such fond memories of those days!  It meant long hours as he would go to school during the day and then start his shift from about 4 pm to 11 pm just about every night.  We only had one car so most days I stayed at home alone with the boys while he went to work.  But some days, when I was just so sick of being home, I would take him to work and keep the car!  This, of course meant, that around 11 pm, I got to drag 2 sleeping babies out into the cold to go pick him up.  Ah, the memories!  My favorite memory of this time was the nightly Christmas movies ABC family would show.  I would feed the boys early, around 5 and at 6, I would spread a large blanket out in front of the tv.  We turned off all the lights except the tree and tv and we would lay on the floor and watch the cartoons together until bedtime!  It was a lot of fun!

So, yesterday, I opened up my new shop!  It was so fun! And I'm just buzzing with ideas for the coming year!  Today, I have some layouts to share.  Most are using my templates and kits that I receive from other designers, in exchange for scrapping with their products!

This first kit I have to share is one that excites me so much!  The fabulous Yari of Jady Day Studios custom made this kit for me!  I am making an album for the theatre teacher from my son's school of the recent  Grease Production.  Here is the darling kit she made!

Isn't that darling?  And here is the layout I scrapped, so far! It's the cover page of the album:

I used one of my big photo templates for this page!  It is in one of the new packs I just released.  Because the quality of this picture didn't support being any bigger than it is, then I just used a background paper behind it and made a black mat for it!  The tall boy in the middle (the one hugging the girl in pink) is my oldest son, Chipper.  Can you believe how much he has grown from his earlier Christmas photos?  He's over 6 foot tall!!

Here is today's freebie:

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