Festive Lights and a Photo Album

Today my parents, Beanie and I went to see some festive Christmas lights.

A family, in the town next to us, do an annual Christmas light extravaganza. One can drive one's car through their grounds and see the lights for free. I had heard of it, but never went there since my Dad gave me horror stories of going there years ago with my sis and there was such a long line they turned around. I hate long lines and waiting in a car so I opted to not do it the past couple of years.

But this year I wanted to since I knew Beanie would enjoy it. 

I decided today would be a good day - the local schools are having final exams, its mid-week, and if we went around 6pm (when it opens) most people will be having dinner.

Well, my calculations paid off!  We sailed right in and in fact, we went around twice since it was not at all busy. The lights were beautiful and particularly impressive since its done by a family (with a designer's input, of course) but still, not by a city or big enterprise.

Beanie loved it. Later we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, so a lovely evening was had by all.

I have also finally managed to put together a photo album of Beanie (2013-2016). I have wanted to do one for years, and had received a very nice album for my baby shower. Then in Nov this year, my Mom was mentioning wanting to make a small album for Beanie with some of her friends.  That got me energized and I realized I should get my big album done.  I went through my hundreds upon hundreds of pictures, picked out the one that told a story, were too cute to pass, her many "first's", holidays, birthdays etc. I managed to whittle it down to 200 photos to match the size of the album.

I got the photos printed at Tar.get - little did I know it was so easy to get prints (duh!), and have already put all the pictures into the album. They tell a lovely story and Beanie LOVES it!!

The first picture is the embryo, followed by my positive pee stocks, a couple of pics of my growing and her in the hospital (52 min old)...then of course all the monthly and weekly picks I did of her and others, including first day at daycare, first day at Montessori, holidays, our trips, etc and finishing with Christmas this year.

Of course I now have to caption the pictures and I hope to get that done before the end of the year. I think if I do 20 at a time I could get it done without my hands cramping!

Lesson to learn - don't wait until your baby is almost 4 (!) to begin your album.

Now completing her  baby book is a whole other story which I hope to tackle in the Spring :-)