Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours!

I sincerely wish I could send each and every one of my readers a Christmas card. It is one of my very favorite things to do this time of year. That and GETTING Christmas cards, of course! I have them all taped to our kitchen cabinets and love seeing so many friendly faces each day. Emma Claire loves it too! She waves at the cards and says "hi" all day long. It makes my heart happy!  

This year we sent out over 100 cards and I still had people I wished I could have sent cards to! Next year we will be bumping up our order so that we can send out more. For y'all who didn't receive a card in the mail I wanted to share our Christmas card on the blog today.

So from our family to yours....

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Real Life

I feel like so often my pictures are edited, cropped, and touched up before they ever make it on the blog. In the same breath I also feel like I am really good at documenting fun things we do, or special occasions, but I really want to be better about documenting what is REAL. What really happened during our day, how my house really looked, and what Emma Claire really acted like. SO here's our day how it really happened 

Funny story. I was making soup in the kitchen and Emma Claire was playing in a cabinet that holds Tupperware and bowls. I turned around and saw her carrying a big bowl into the living room. I was wondering what she would do with it. Turns out she had big plans. She flipped the bowl over in front of the loveseat and climbed on top. Then she grabbed my phone that she couldn't reach before she has gotten a little "lift"! Such a smart girl!

"What mom...I'm not doing anything wrong. Promise"

Then she decided to play with more bowls. Whatever works, right? 

Most of her teeth that have been working their way through the gums are almost through so she has been MUCH happier lately! You can see almost all of her eye teeth are in as well as her big ol' MOLAR that has been causing us all sorts of problems!

I made homemade soup so my kitchen looked like this pretty much all day.

....and I told you she's teething. 

SHE ACTUALLY ATE DINNER TONIGHT. Miss priss eats like a bird. It's usually a battle to get her to take two bites of dinner. Tonight she ate almost an entire hot dog {all natural, organic, and preservative free for those hot dog haters out there}, three strawberries, several bites of banana, and half a container of yogurt. SCORE!

And the entertainment of the evening...Gracie was trying to get the last cheddar bunny out of the box and GOT HER HEAD STUCK INSIDE. I just about fell out of my chair laughing. she ran around the room in circles trying to get it off. I helped her...after snapping a few pictures, of course! ha!

And here we are at the end of the day together. Not my favorite picture of me but she looks darling and this blog is for preserving memories. In ten years I probably won't care about how I looked in this one picture.

I only semi got ready today. I didn't do my hair, put on only a bit of makeup, and wore leggings and a t-shirt. Emma Claire stayed in jammies all day. We lounged around, we played, we read, we had fun, we listened to Christmas music almost all day, and the TV was turned off. With the cold weather it was just the day we needed. I love days like this.

There you have it. No fancy clothes, no bows, no photo editing/staging/photoshop magic, just us. Lounging around our house in comfy clothes.

Thank You

For choosing me.

For giving me a beautiful daughter. 

For being a man of God.

For always taking care of Emma Claire and I.

For turning on my heated blanket at night before I hop into bed.

For always being supportive of my dreams and goals.

For having a hard work ethic. 

For keeping me accountable.

For waking me up early for church on Sunday mornings.

For knowing I'm {almost} always right ;-)

For always listening to me. 

For creating family time when we need it most. 

 For talking to me. 

For being my best friend. 

In case you were wondering, this post was dedicated to a certain mr. of mine. ;-)

Blah Blogging

I don't know if it's the time of year, or that we have SO much going on, or that I'm running out of things to talk about...but lately I've been in a blogging slump. I think it mostly has to do with this busy busy season. I have too many other things to do during nap time or after Emma Claire has gone to bed than sit and blog. ;-) I know I'm not the only one who feels like this, right?!

So in light of my bah-humbug blogging attitude I still want to blog because this little place is my journal, and I love looking back on it so I can't stop just because we are busy. With all of that being said, here's a TOTALLY random blog post of some cute things going on in our lives this month.

Emma Claire is obsessed with books right now. We read close to twenty a day, several times a day. Little bookworm already. 

I bought her a couple vintage smocked Christmas outfits and I just adore them. This one was darling on. Lace and plaid, what's not to love? ;-)

I put this tree up in the dining room but have yet to decorate it. Fail. I'm not even sure if it will get done before Christmas. The plan was for it to be a burlap and salt dough tree. I LOVE the idea, not sure if it will actually happen though. It's still pretty. 

This is how snack time goes down every day at our house. Emma Claire LOVES it though. She has started teasing the dogs though. She will pretend to give them a bite and then take it back and yell in their face. She thinks it's hilarious. I do too. 

This is the dog's Santa hat. However, Emma Claire has claimed it as her own. It is in her toy bucket now and she will bring it to me no less than five times a day to put it on her. It cracks me up. She almost always pulls it right off but she loves it.

She has starting rolling around on the floor. She thinks it's pretty fun. 

We love hanging out with the twins. Emma Claire LOVES them ;-) ah, young love! Last week I did a family shoot for their Christmas cards and after we headed to the mall for dinner. The kiddos had fun running around the mall while we waited for our reservation. Their favorite store? Build-a-Bear. 

I am still {slowly} working on home decor projects. The other day I hung these frames in our master bedroom. I am thinking I want to do something different in them, possibly artwork, or maybe a bible verse in the middle and {DIY} art on the sides? 

Emma Claire's newest bath time obsession. Playing with this metal cover...I'm not even sure what the technical term for it is! She loves staring at herself in it, licking it, hitting it, and poking it.

 So there you have it. A completely random peek into our daily life. Emma Claire gets more fun by the day. We are just soaking up this stage with her. Although as I'm typing this she is protesting her nap, quite loudly. I put her down over an hour ago and she has been crying off and on, but mostly rolling around her crib squealing. I'm praying she isn't trying to potty. I always wrestle with the decision of going to check on her or just leaving her. Hopefully she will fall asleep soon!

Looking at Lights

Now y'all know I love smocking, big bows, and rompers. I also love vintage baby clothes. I found this darling longall on eBay a few weeks ago {for only $6! Score!} and just fell in love with it. The plaid, the santa and reindeer applique on the collar, the sweetness of it all. Now I know not everyone loves this style of clothing but I'm in no hurry to dress my baby like a teenager. 

I'm not going to lie...the fact that Momma got a smile just made my day. Usually she only smiles when getting her picture made with Daddy. After taking a few pictures we loaded up the car and headed to drive through a light display that is put on by the Virginia Regional Park Authority. The hubs and I had fun looking at the lights...a certain little lady fell asleep as we were driving through the park.

 At the end of the light trail was a little carnival. The temperature was in the low thirties so it was REALLY cold. But Emma Claire had SO much fun running around and looking at it all. I really do love this age, everything fascinates her.

By far my favorite picture of the night. Girlfriend did NOT want to leave the carnival. 

 We had lots of fun and I think this will most definitely be a family tradition of ours! I can't wait until Emma Claire actually stays away long enough to enjoy the lights! ;-) 

 

Life

First I feel like I need to address the tragedy that happened yesterday {December 14th, 2012}. A gunman open fired in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut yesterday morning and killed 26 people. Among those killed were children, teachers, and administrators. School is supposed to be one of the safest places for children. I just cannot fathom the evil that has to be dwelling inside of someone to commit an act of violence on such innocent children. Days like today make me even more thankful for my faith, my Jesus, and the knowledge that this earth is not my home. 

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:4

I feel like I'm a broken record saying this over and over but...I am so terrible at getting out my "real" camera lately so almost all of our life moments are captured on my phone. It's been a while since I've done a phone life update so here it goes. Here's a little of what we've been up to lately. 

Getting lots of fun packages in the mail. Emma Claire's favorite mail day was when we got our new fridge magnets.

Reading

Trying out new {not necessarily healthy} recipes ;-)

Going on walks

Being silly. Having jammie days. Wearing hats. Destroying the house. 

Decorating

Getting mommy and daddy to buy toys...she is a pro at this now!