…a (big) birthday. an anniversary. major family time. thanksgiving. and the very beginnings of winter and the christmas season…with just enough ordinary life thrown in to help maintain my sanity!

left: “main” spread; right: the first of the extra pages – party invite + napkins + cards I didn’t want to cut

first up, the birthday week. my typical 2-page spread with three extra pages (and oh my how I love having a place to keep the cards and cocktail napkins and a few other momentos!!)

left: more party + uncut cards; right: cut cards!

cut cards galore!

left: the last of the cut cards; right: the 2nd side of the “main” weekly spread

I laid out everything and had two empty 4×6 spaces on the last page – I put out a call for photos – surely someone had something of me, hopefully not looking too silly, and maybe even standing with my (very immediate) family. my dad came through! the rogovin family in the upper right is a great one of all five of us. and that lower left photo is probably my favorite one…in a long time.

I don’t remember the exact moment the photo was taken. but marc is in the background with a real smile on his face. and holly is in my lap. and how about that look on sara’s face. you just know something good was going on!

it was really fun to cut up all the cards to get just the right bits of the fronts and the greetings to keep. hoping I can do something similar with christmas cards, too.

I combined the last almost-two weeks into one spread so I could start december 1st on a new page…and so I could finish it before too many of those december days had passed.

(apologies to my sister and my mom for the terrible glare on that lower left photo)

I did the layout last tuesday/wednesday and left two spots in the lower right for thursday and friday. we bought our tree friday afternoon – and I’m glad I know how big it is and how much we paid for it for future reference!

so now I’m in full december christmas mode. all four* trees are up and decorated. and except for our mantel (the stockings are not yet hung by the chimney, but amazon promises the holders will be here early next week :-), the rest of the house is too. our neighborhood is into outdoor lights…we aren’t. but I did get a big-for-us wreath to hang on the garage at costco today. and marc has promised to hang it. stay tuned…

*yes, four. after a good night’s rest, marc came around and even brought home five & six for the front porch… I returned them today. four inside is plenty. perfect.