Christmas 2013

Exactly two weeks after Emory was born, Christmas was here. I really made it a point to be organized this year and have my shopping, cards, etc done early because I knew I'd be in no shape to do it after her birth. I'm glad it worked out that way because my mom was here to help and we were really able to just relax and enjoy those two weeks leading up to Christmas.

Our card was from Tiny Prints as usual :) I just love their cards -- their paper is nice and thick and I think the print quality is excellent. I actually had Tiny Prints mail our cards for us this year, we just supplied the addresses.

Our first outing as a family was when Emory was 6 days old. Landon had a Christmas program at his Mother's Day Out (which is at our church) and I really wanted to go and hear his class sing. It was SO cute and I'm so glad I went because originally we had planned to just have Joe go and record it.

My parents let Landon open his Christmas present early, which was a green tractor. We are OBSESSED with tractors right now. :) Joe's parents got him a workbench for his bedroom, complete with a set of matching wooden tools. It is so cute to see him walking around with a little hammer or wrench. We scaled back in terms of traditions leading up to Christmas. We didn't do Elf on a Shelf (I don't know that we will ever do the regular Elf on a Shelf anyway), but we did bake some cookies and just have a lot of "the four of us" time.

My mom went home a few days before Christmas so she could spend it with my sister and her kids and the rest of our family. The night before Christmas Joe put together our big gift to Landon -- a train table. The stockings were stuffed and we arranged everything neatly under the tree. The first thing Landon said when we went to his crib the next morning was "Santa!!" - haha!

We had such a nice and low key Christmas and it was perfect for 2013. Next year I'll be glad to be able to incorporate some more traditions because our kids will be older and I'll be glad to be able to see more of our families because we'll be living in Kansas City. :)

Christmas 2012

Like I said in my last post, our Christmas was very different this year than it has ever been. I feel like we're still trying to figure out what our groove is for holidays since we don't live in the same city as our parents. Yet! :) Usually, we travel to Kansas City and spend Christmas Eve with Joe's family having a nice meal, going to church and wake up Christmas morning and do the traditional Christmas then. And then we spend the next day or two at my parents'. But this year, since Christmas fell on a Tuesday and due to the rotation Joe is on this month, he couldn't leave town. So we celebrated our own "Christmas" on Christmas Eve and day and then went home the following weekend.

We always open one gift on Christmas Eve, which is a new pair of pajamas. This is one of my favorite traditions. I love PJs! Landon got really into opening his gift (he did not have the same enthusiasm on Christmas day as you will see..).

Joe got me a nightgown from the Disney Luxe collection. It sounds totally immature but it's actually so nice and we have a total Disney theme going on this year so it was fitting. The print has tiny little pumpkin carriages all over. I love it!

Since Joe had to work a half day on Christmas day, Landon and I actually woke up and acted like it was a normal week day. I put him down for a nap after lunch and during that time Joe got off work and we set up all the presents under the tree and Santa came ;-) So when he got up from his nap it was kind of like Christmas morning. He doesn't know the difference anyway!!

Unfortunately, Landon had no interest in gifts. We kind of forced him to unwrap a few and then unwrapped the rest for him. I put about 1/2 of them away to "introduce" again on a rainy/snowy/boring day. Hah!!

The biggest hit was definitely this Melissa & Doug cookie sheet. It is so cute and yes, I realize probably a little girly but he doesn't know the difference and he loves "cooking" and watching us cook! :) It has little wood cookies that velcro on the cookie sheet and a spatula you can use to scrape them off. He plays with it every single day!

On Friday we headed up to Kansas City to spend time with our extended families! We were so glad to finally be able to go home. We visited with Joe's family first. We had a really good time playing games with his brothers. Joe's parents got Landon a drum set he loved!!

On Saturday night we went to stay the night with my family and do Christmas with them. The celebration just kept going on! I love visiting because my sister's two kids play so cute with Landon :) My parents got Landon a Medieval Knight dress up set and he walked around all day with the shield and sword. It was so adorable!

We had such a good Christmas this year! I hope you did too!!

Christmas Tour 2012

I've finally had a chance to sit down and collect pictures from Christmas! I am so sad I didn't get a chance to do a "home tour" before Christmas. I still want to do it now so I can remember the details for myself. This Christmas was really special because it was our last one in Kansas and this house. I am keeping my decorations up extra long too; they may not come down until we move in June - hah! Also, it was different because it was the first year we didn't go back to Kansas City to visit our families over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Joe didn't get a day off for the holiday so we had to wait until the weekend following Christmas to visit. So we had Christmas for just our little family and that was really special too. :)

Here is our main tree in the living room - I call it my "fancy tree". I decided to just decorate in whites and silvers this year instead of doing a lot of color. It's simple and classic and suited us this year. I didn't really put up any other decorations around the house. I really liked being simple this year. And it was the easiest to do with a toddler!

oh hello :)

 I had about 95% of the ornaments I used for the tree already! I always buy ornaments at after Christmas sales and organize them by color into tubs I have in our basement.

I bought little feather poufs from Hobby Lobby - they are actually hair clips I found in the sewing department for $1!

I almost always have birds and flowers in my Christmas trees because I just think they are more interesting than all bulbs.

I don't have a tree skirt that I love so I just used a "fur" blanket I had and scrunched it up underneath. 

My friend Katie's sister made us the stockings last year. I absolutely adore them!!!

click to enlarge

Here is Landon's tree. I put this up in early November because we had just gotten back from Disney and I wanted to use his ears as a tree topper. We are starting to collect special ornaments for him we can put on his tree every year. We also have our own family "special tree" I put in the basement family room. I LOVE this tree. It's where we hang up all of the ornaments we've given to each other over the years, collected on vacations, been gifted, etc.

we always write on the back who the ornament was from and the year :)

this is a very special ornament. when I was pregnant I recorded Landon's heartbeat into the recorder

And the last thing I did this year was just put up a really simple mantle decoration. I kept it pretty monochromatic too. :)

I had this silhouette made of Landon at a local toy store. I love it!!

The 25 are just cheap wooden letters I spray painted. And I put buffalo snow in a jar next to it.

The wreath I made during a Craft Club night with my girlfriends - it's all cupcake liners!!

Here is our Christmas card for the year. I used Tiny Prints and put in a picture from Disney: On the back of the card we set up a page through Tiny Prints where people could look at more pictures online. : )

Hope your Christmas was as great as ours!!