December Daily 2015 │ Days 8 to 15

Well we successfully pulled off a pretty big surprise for my daughter. We flew her to Disneyland for 4 days to celebrate her birthday. My daughter has been reluctant to fly for the past five years and she recently started talking about flying again. After many conversations to gauge weather she was truly ready we decided to book the trip. The flight is only an hour so we thought even if it didn't go well, it would be quick. It ended up being a really amazing trip and she did so well that she is eager to take another flight. We are thrilled!

The flip side to travel in December is getting back and having so many days to catch up on. It was daunting to say the least but I sat down yesterday and today and got myself caught up.

Day 8

I didn't have a chance to work on this one before we left but I always try to get one good shot of our tree for the album. This was a quick and easy spread to put together just a photo and words. Which seems to be a theme this year. Simple. Simple. Simple.

Day 9

Its tradition that on my daughter's birthday I by her a big Mylar balloon but because we weren't going to be home on her birthday I did it a day early and made it part of the reveal that we were flying to Disneyland after school. I purchased the airplane balloon on line and had it filled at my local party store where I bought the giant number eight. As you can see I'm doing better about embracing her personality in the photos I snap and use. This one is so her and I love that.

I added in the envelope given to us at check in and adhered the baggage tags to the back side. The silver glitter alphas are from my stash and pretty old but I had all the right letters left, yay!

Day 10

I kept this super simple with just a few of my favorite photos from the day, my journaling is on the back of the pano pic of the tree. Thanks to a kind Disney photographer who took this one for me. He loved doing it and was very excited to see how it turned out.

We stayed at the Disneyland hotel this trip and the diamond postcard was in the desk for guests to send, I of course knew it would be perfect for this album.

They had some really fun and unique photo ops spread around both parks. This one for the Matterhorn was my favorite.

Day 11

Because it started on the right hand side I added in the transparency to help break up the days. As you can see above I added my number right on top of one of the circles on the transparency.

This elf was the cutest, her name was Cranberry.

We visited Santa and California Adventure and it was a brief visit but it was perfect and the message of what she wanted was delivered. Seeing Elsa and Anna was another highlight of the trip.

Day 12

Our last day in the park so just a few photos and some journaling about the last day. I was kind of disappointed in the holiday decorations this year. The castle is usually much more elaborately decorated but I think because its the 60th Anniversary the Diamond Celebration stuff is taking center stage instead. It was still lovely and the parades and fireworks were amazing, but to me it was just lacking the Christmas spirit I have seen and loved so much in the past.

Day 13

Our flight home and a simple picture and words about how well the flights went.

Day 14

Back home and back to school and boy was it cold. Well cold for us here in California.

I added in the screen grab of the weather I had snapped and it fit well on the back side of the tag.

Day 15

Our Christmas cards arrived right before we left so I didn't have time to send them out so I made sure to get them out yesterday.

Its become a thing for me to do something funny on the backside of our cards and this is what I did this year. I saw it on Pinterest so my friend who took our photos helped me make it happen. I created the text part of it myself in Photoshop Elements. It was super fun to work on for sure.

I'm so happy to be caught up again and hope that I don't have to work so hard and fast again this month. If you have any questions on what I used or anything else, please don't hesitate to ask below.

See you soon,