December Daily 16 :: Our last day of school for the year!  We were given permission to leave campus at 12:45 pm so we left as soon as we could to pick up our little munchkin and enjoy some much needed sunshine.  I created another 3×3 grid using my sewing machine and added photos to document the course of the day.

December Daily 17 :: Samuel’s first visit with Santa was traumatic.  We went at a good time — we were the only people there so we were able to give Samuel some getting to know Santa time.  Unfortunately, that didn’t help.  He wailed and screamed as soon as I left him in Santa’s arms.  It must have been really traumatic for him because he woke up 3 times that night screaming.  Ha!

December Daily 18 :: Had an early Christmas dinner and gift exchange with some dear friends.  K and J both gave Samuel some awesome books to add to his growing library.  I love the sparkle in his eyes and joy in his face when he looks at books.  I hope he continues to be fascinated with books as he grows up.

December Daily 19 :: Our friend Mee Cha and Alfred came to visit with their 6 weeks old bundle of joy, Benji.  Love the two boys in their matching hats!

December Daily 20 :: Celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with latkes and good friends.  Samuel had a great time playing with his buddy Simon.

December Daily 21 :: For each night of Hanukkah, we gave Samuel a new book.  I was thrilled to capture these two photos of Samuel before and after opening the book.  He’s such a character.

December Daily 22 :: Although he can’t spin it yet, Samuel loves watching the dreidel spin.  It will be fun next year when we can actually play dreidel.  (I used washi tape at the bottom of the right page.  I am really diggin’ the washi tape and would love to play with it more in 2012!)

December Daily 23 :: Annual Hanukkah dinner with family and friends.  This year, there were 13 of us at the table!  There were plenty of latkes and cannoli to go around.

December Daily 24 :: Around here, we had a sick boy on Christmas eve.

December Daily 25 :: Busy Christmas day for us.  We slept in, had breakfast and opened a couple of presents at our house.  I baked a cobbler and we were off to my mom’s.

This layout took me a long time to put together because I wanted to incorporate as many photos as possible along with a story (in the form of a letter to Samuel) for the day.  The letter to Samuel is behind the photo collage on the left — you actually have to pull out the page and it fold out to reveal the story of the day.

The circle above is a mini album I found in my stash.  It opens up to reveal more photos from the day (see below).

My sister — the amazing knitter — made each of us a hand knit item for Christmas.  The other side of the circle mini-album shows some of the items she gave us.

For Christmas, everyone in my family got an “I heart Samuel” shirt from Samuel.  To make sure that everyone knows who Samuel is, we ordered Samuel an “I am Samuel” shirt.  There were plenty of laughs from all of my siblings.

That wraps up December Daily 2011.

Some thoughts …

1. I love this project and want to do it every year.  I spent some time this December going through my albums before Samuel and love seeing all the stuff I documented before becoming a mom.  Samuel makes this December a bit different and awesome and special.
2. Having the foundation pages done ahead of time is key.  It serves as a motivation because I don’t want to see any blank pages in my book.
3. I love the size (6″ x 8.5″) of this album.  I wonder if American Crafts will make more albums this size in the future.  I would love to get another and transfer last year’s DD into it.
4. I spent way more time on this book than in years past.  Because it was Samuel’s first holiday season, I didn’t want to miss a thing.
5. I did not document anything about school or grading papers this December.  Yay, for me!
6. Photo collages and grids are awesome.  I was able to incorporate more photos into my album this way.
7. I love that all of the pages are protected in sheet protectors.
8. Some days were chalked full of events I did not have time to complete a layout.  For those days, I jotted notes and sketched a layout to help jog my memory when I did get to it.
9. I switched over to Aperture and love it as a photo organization tool! It makes selecting photos a breeze.
10. Keeping up with Project Life and completing December Daily was a bit challenging.  I had some late nights (stayed up til 2 am once) but I ended up with an awesome project that I can share with Samuel in the years to come.