Is it Mid-January Already?

Christmas is over, right? You see, I'm asking because I noticed that there are many houses around my city with full blown Christmas decorations adorning their homes. 

Normally, I wouldn't bat an eye at this, but the sight of multi-colored lights and fully decorated trees in windows have made me more than a little irritated this year. Am I wrong? Do you still have decorations that need to be boxed up?

Oh… r i g h t. My blog is still decorated for Christmas, you say? Umm… The thing is… You see… What had happened was…
I'll redecorate the blog before the month is over, I promise. Maybe.
But really - when is the lat day you should be allowed to have Christmas decorations up without attracting side eye glares from the neighbors?

An Advent Calendar + An Auction

I few weeks ago I was contacted by Ekubo Ministries to donate an item for their holiday auction from my Etsy shop. I knew exactly what I wanted to donate! 

You see, some moms in my area have been working hard at making felt Jesse tree ornaments for a holiday advent calendar. My creative juices started flowing and I stayed up way too late for a few nights creating some printables to go along with the ornaments for these lovely mommas. I am not selling them in my Etsy shop, but you can get one theough the Ekubo Ministries Holiday Auction - here!

Hurry! The auction ends on Sunday!

Decorating for the Holiday Season

The weather has been dreary all week with rain and now cooler temperatures, so I feel like winter is well on it's way. It sort of feels like we skipped right over fall, but that's probably me just being dramatic. To go along with the chilly weather, I got the itch to do a little decorating around the blog.  

It's still a work in progress and I'm not in love with certain little parts (like the social media buttons), so don't get too use to this look.  Suddenly today, I got this burst of energy to create and redesign.  First, it was my living room. You know, completely normal redesigning… like trying to arrange the furniture to accommodate a nonexistent Christmas tree, in October. 

I love the holidays, but I am not one to rush through fall to get to Christmas. I normally cringe when I see Christmas commercials come on so early or hear 'Jingle Bells' anytime before December. However, this year feels different. I'm ready to skip fall and dive right into winter. 

As I'm typing this, I realize that my desire to skip fall this year might be my subconscious wanting to ignore my fall birthday (the big 3-0). Whatever the reason, I'm ready. Ready for the snow (even if it's only a dusting) + ready for boots + ready for scarfs and lots of layers + ready to celebrate lots of winter holidays with our family of 4.
Are you ready for winter already?

Christmas Morning Traditions

Christmas is really one of my favorite holidays and not just because you get to give and receive tons of gifts.  I love all of the traditions that each family adopts over the years.  One of my favorite traditions is our family's Christmas morning breakfast... does it really surprise you that a pregnant woman's favorite tradition involves food?  We always have delicious sausage pinwheels, cheese grits, Moravian sugar cake, eggs, and -of course- bacon.  The conclusion of breakfast always leads to the opening of presents and more time spent with family.

We also have a tradition of opening two gifts on Christmas Eve; matching pajamas to wear the next morning and a Christmas story to read that night before bed.  

One of my favorite gifts was a matching t-shirt set for Ellington and her new baby sister.  I cannot wait to get  my two girls dressed in these adorable shirts for a little photoshoot.

One of Ellington's favorite gifts was her new kitchen!  It has not made the trip to Durham yet, but she talks about it often and I know she will just be thrilled when it finally arrives in it's own special place at the new house.

And a Christmas post could not be complete without Ellington's reaction to the gift that Santa brought her.  Here is last year's video... I cannot believe how much she has grown in just one year!

A Very Merry Christmas Eve

We started our Christmas Eve with a visit to John's parents' store.  Harabujee asked if Ellington wanted any candy and she decided that meant that she could go on a candy shopping-spree.  Don't worry.  She didn't keep all of it... I think we maybe just let her have a few m&ms when all was said and done.

Next, it was off to Mommo's house to spend time with my side of the family.  Ellington loved opening gifts this year and even 'helped' open a few gifts that weren't hers.

One of her favorite parts about the day, was handing gifts off to each person.  She really liked when Birdie (the dog) got a gift.  I think Birdie was trying to sleep, but Ellington kept waking her up with more gifts.

Ellington has really enjoyed her new plates and cups.  Each morning or evening or really just whenever she gets a chance, she'll offer me coffee or tea in her tiny cups.  It's a good thing they're tiny too because she will keep 'pouring' refills until we leave the house.

 This was one great Christmas Eve celebration and I know that Ellington really enjoyed all of the excitement this year!

Santa Baby

Is it January already?  I feel like Christmas just flew by... I have found that visits and holidays always go by a lot quicker with little ones around.  We moved over the Christmas holiday, so our visit to Charlotte was cut short a little.  I almost didn't think we would have time to make it to see Santa this year, but we drove down the weekend before Christmas to see him.

**Sorry for lack of a Santa photo.  The scanner is on the third floor of our new house and my pregnant self just hasn't made it up there yet**

Santa was an hour late (he must've been busy making last minute toys for good little girls and boys), so we waited in line forever.  Entertainment included taking Ellington to her favorite store, Pottery Barn.  She would live in Pottery Barn if they would allow that sort of thing. Once we finally got to the front of the line, Ellington waved at Santa and shouted 'Hi. HI. Hi, Santa!' trying to get his attention.  Unfortunately, this enthusiasm did not last long.  As soon as we had our chance to meet the big man, Ellington froze up and wanted to move back behind the gate.  No crying was involved, but I did have to make a cameo in the Santa picture this year.

Our trip to see Santa may not have been a success this year, but decorating Ellington's very own Christmas tree at Mommo's house was a HUGE success!

She very patiently and carefully put each ornament on the tree and even gave the angel her own purse to carry.  What girl doesn't need a good purse?  Even an angel. :)

We also took a nice walk with Mommo.  The weather wasn't really cold enough for Ellington's faux fur coat, but she insisted on wearing it and it does look awfully cute on her.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Deck the Halls... er Blog

Sadly, we will not be decorating our house for Christmas this year.  We have a very good excuse though.  We are closing on our new house on the 21st and all moved in by the 27th.  This is going to be one crazy holiday season for us!

So instead of a fresh smelling douglas fur or neatly hung stockings by the fireplace, we will be surrounded by cardboard boxes and lots of work to be done this year.  I'm not even sure that I will get my act together in time for a Christmas card photoshoot.  :-/

I hope y'all are well on your way to bringing Christmas joy to your homes or Hanukah joy or whatever holiday you celebrate during this season.  This year, my blog will have to be my creative outlet to break the Christmas spirit out of these packing boxes.  I might just have to overdose on Christmas decor next year to make up for it... watch out new neighbors. :)

Happy Holiday - Cards!

I know that it is mid-January, but I just had to share some of my favorite holiday cards that we got this year.

First up is the amazingly-strangely-cute card that John's cousin sends out every year.  This card borders on the line of creative and cute.  I love her dogs (even though they are not big fans of Ellington), so my vote is for cute.

Second, and my favorite, a postcard that we got in the mail from Disney World!

An old classmate / coworker from John's graduate school days sent us this sweet note.  When I asked about the randomness of this card, John gave a response that made me almost shed tears of joy.  This particular friend is a student from China, who has been in the US for the past few years attending school and working through holidays for a not so friendly boss.  He had requested time off in the past to visit Disney, but was told 'no' every time.  Finally, he got the courage to leave that lab and join a lab with a nicer boss.  And this year he was granted his time off to visit Disney!  I am so happy for him!

Last up is a creepy Christmas photo of John's mom and Santa.  Talk about bad Santa impersonator.  I think that this Santa is probably in the top three of worst Santa pics ever.

 

Did you get any holiday cards that were creative / beautiful / or just plain creepy?  Sorry for the bad iPhone pics.

Still Talking Christmas :)

I know that Christmas is long gone, but there is still lots to talk about with this being Ellington's first Christmas.  I'll keep this short and sweet.  I just wanted to share what was always my favorite part of Christmas, Christmas morning. :)  Enjoy!

Little Panther's Fan

Ellington got the cutest Panther's outfit in history from her Aunt Karl (my sister, Malone).  A simple onesie and a very adorable Panther's tutu.  I am in love.  Now, I want her to wear a tutu every day of the year.  Isn't she just the cutest?!

She wore her Panther's tutu all day and loved opening gifts. It took her a while to figure out that the gift wasn't that she got to tear up paper.  Eventually, she figured out that there was usually a toy or book underneath all of that paper.

She was not so thrilled that everyone had to leave after gift exchanging.  Ellington and Birdie stood at the door for a good 10 minutes in hopes that someone would return for more fun.  Okay, maybe we made Birdie stand next to Elli for a good picture.  Just maybe.

Hope everyone has a safe New Year's celebration!

Merry Christmas :)

Ellington Meets Santa!

We took Ellington to see Santa at the mall (which just isn't the same as waiting in line a BlackHawk Hardware - you know what I'm talking about Charlotte peeps).  She loved it!  She was a little skeptical at first, but then was all smiles when the camera started flashing.  And, of course, she had to make sure that this man that calls himself Santa wasn't a fake. :)

Okay, I know that the trend nowadays is to not lie to your kid about Santa and some parents are just doing away with the whole Santa thing altogether...  I'm not one of those parents.  I love everything about Christmas.  Santa, caroling, decorating, stockings, the tree, family meals, traditions, nativity scenes, reading stories, everything!

My absolute favorite part is that moment right before you run downstairs to see what this magical Santa delivered overnight... waiting at the top of the stairs trying to imagine what awaited you at the bottom.  At the same time 'gently' encouraging your way-too-tired-parents-because-they-are-really-Santa to wake up and hurry down the steps.  I love it all, but mostly it's the imagination part that gets me excited.

I still feel like a child around Christmas time which has been odd as I am preparing to create a lifetime of Christmas memories for my little one.  My husband will say that I still believe in Santa and that would be true.  After all, Santa can't bring you any gifts if you don't believe in him. :)  hahaha.  I cannot wait to see the joy and excitement in my little girl's eyes and read her numerous Christmas stories for many many years to come.

Chritmas Day with the Wade Family

So my family thought it would be fun to put us on the spot this Christmas. We had to participate in 'The Newlywed Game" to get our Christmas gift. They should be prepared for a similar game show when they get married. :)

Our 1st Christmas Tree Hunt