The Merriest of Merriment: Christmas Day 2014!

♥♥♥♥♥♥!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! 

Yayayayayayayay! 

♥

Friends & Family: I hope today was a beautiful experience for each and every single one of you! In our house, the celebrating started bright and early, once Sydni realized Santa had delivered on his annual promises to visit and bring goodies. Lila was perched in her rightful spot, embracing the Christmas ornament Sydni made, ready to oversee the decimation of wrapping paper.

hi, lila! 

We wasted no time:

someone was a very good girl this year! 

Santa brought a pile of dolls, travel toys, markers, coloring books... and this: 

for my little artist! 

Rob and I assured her that Santa would be stopping at Nana and Pappy's this weekend, and that our Christmas presents would come then; today was all about Sydni!

Well, except for just a couple things...

merry christmas, pup pups!! ♥♥♥

^ The fur kids were definitely not forgotten, and would soon be chewing away to their hearts' content. Santa is quite the puppy lover, too!

Since we spent the majority of the day unashamedly jamming away in our PJ's, there was little photo action, so I thought I would share a glimpse of us from around this time last year when we held our post-Christmas celebration at my parents':

Christmas flashback, 2013! ♥♥♥

This year, I couldn't have hand-picked a better way to spend the day if I had the choice to do so. My little family is the greatest gift I could have under this roof, and celebrating our perfect saviour with the people I love the most is what I would trade for any thing the world could offer.

So from our family to you and yours: 

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2014!!!

xo | cmd

Festival of Lights!

Tis the season.... for LIGHTS!

I thought to really dig into the holiday spirit, it would be fun to take Sydni out to the zoo for the annual Festival of Lights. It was chilly out, but we bundled up and headed down to join a happy crowd meandering their way through the zoo's gorgeous display of twinkling lights and exhibits.  

hello, zoo lights! 

The indoor displays were open for everyone to see, and out of all the wonders of the insect house, reptile house and manatee tank, Sydni decided this guy was her favorite:

winner winner, rodent dinner..... 

We strolled, we took in the light displays, and even took a pitstop for some photo ops, at Sydni's bidding.

love these two to the moon & back! 

It was finally time to go, and after picking out a tiger laser-light sword [aka, Sydni's ninja sword], we bid adieu one last time to the towering Christmas tree and headed out.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Brrrr!
Stay warm out there friends, and Merry [early] Christmas!!

xo | cmd

'Tis the Season to Be GENEROUS

She finally got me.
Sydni the germ-buster brought her sniffles home on Monday this week, and somehow I didn't contract anything until today. Fortunately, we were able to get out of the house for a few short hours to take care of some shopping:


1. Christmas Tree Lights

round lights! 

We don't have them all up yet [we didn't buy enough strands; go figure], but this year, we decided to go with round Christmas lights, as opposed to the traditional slender strands. At this point, only half the tree is lit, but that half sure is beautiful ;)

2. Christmas for SOMEONE ELSE.

♥& be merry about it, too! 

We are called to GIVE!

"Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to." - Dt 15:10 NIV

Anyone out there who's ever been to a church around Christmas time has probably seen some version of this practice: You draw or pick a name of a child, and with that comes your commitment to provide for that child [or children] gifts appropriate to their age, gender, needs and possibly wants. Our church is of course participating, and it was our pleasure to choose a name and give Sydni a reinforcing experience of giving generously to someone she doesn't even know.

Sidenote: Parents, if you and your kids have never participated in this, I would strongly encourage you to do it. Not only does this give you and your family something you could do as a team, it is a teachable moment built to easily give us a platform to lead by example in giving generously AND joyfully to those in need. In our case, we reminded Sydni that not every little girl and boy has a family like ours and sometimes the only gifts they may receive could be the ones we choose.

And JUST LIKE THAT, my 5-year-old's response gives me as the PARENT a very obvious and very BOLD reminder:

Give not JUST joyfully, but give nothing but what would be fit for a queen [or king!]. 

Whoa.Right?! Because it would've been easy for us to pick out some random, maybe even knock-off versions of what was listed on her little slip: clothes, princess items, baby dolls. We could easily have finished our "obligatory" shopping for this 2-year-old girl in a matter of minutes, but Sydni proved a reminder to us that this little girl deserved the best:

"Oh, MOMMY! I know what we should get her!! Let's get her................."

And just like that, she started spouting off lists of things she would enjoy. And I realized that, although we weren't planning on the cheapest way out for this little girl, I had not actively been approaching this as though I was buying for my own child. I would want the prettiest doll, most fun little game, fuzziest PJ's and functional clothes that would keep her warm. And so for the little girl being assisted by my family and me this year, that's what we did. ♥

#truth! 

3. Christmas Decorations & Of Course... Knitting

The last thing on our agenda today was some comfy family time at the house. Sydni and I perused some Pinterest ideas for fun Christmas decorations. I had to laugh, because of all the crafty, more "kid-friendly" ideas floating out there on the interweb, Sydni has adamantly chosen mock faberge painted eggs. In this case, Sharpie'd faberge eggs. But still. Thanks, kiddo.. haha. Leave it to her to pick one of the most delicate projects on the entire site ;)

thanks, pinterest! 

Although, I've gotta hand it to her - they are gorgeous!
Maybe next year. For now, it's back to these [knitting] needles; these scarves aren't gonna finish themselves! ;)

xo | cmd 

Christmas Tree Time!

I realized today that Rob and I have participated in many, if not all, of this year's seasonal or holiday-related traditions. From New Years 2014 with friends, to Easter Egg hunts, Memorial Day weekend boating trips, pumpkin carving and Thanksgiving road-hauling to see much of our family, we've managed to stick to the traditional things that were focal activities of our own childhoods. We continued on tonight as we got our first family Christmas tree!

@ the tree lot by our house  

I have been excited about this moment since we decided to do it nearly three weeks ago. I was nearly itching in anticipation all last week, but the thought of picking out a Christmas tree without Sydni was never an option... soooooo... this week it was, and tonight was the night!

we found the one!
[sidenote... these two .. ♥♥♥♥]

ready to load up our tree!! ♥

We managed to both support a local business and have the entire tree lot to ourselves for the five whole minutes it took Sydni to pick out THE tree for our house.

We made a pitstop at TR for a celebratory dinner, and then headed home to get our new-found fir up and ready to decorate.

ready to decorate!

I.. love this little family of mine. ♥

TGIF!

xo | cmd 

Thursday Christmas Kick-Off

I am happy to report that this week provided a few of those breakthrough moments that we [and I] have desperately needed to happen, where work is concerned. There's nothing more gratifying than seeing the tangible results of the efforts invested, and with that, we were all a little rejuvenated around here.

..... SO much so that we decided to haul out the Christmas tree and get her up and going!

heeeere she comes! 

We laughed the entire time we were decorating it, mostly because none of the three of us were even close to reaching the top of the tree, which was folded over inside the bag, fooling us at first into forgetting the actual height of this thing.

haha.. shush. 

We finally managed to get our little tree fluffed, re-decorated and situated in its spot for the rest of the month, and took a little of the pre-Christmas optimism for the rest of the day - much needed, since we also had an audit today.

There are some unlikely sources of motivation out there, and in the midst of our Christmas joy today, we still couldn't avoid the reality of why we're all here, working, in this office...every day. We've been on a path uphill now for a few months and although that's created some certain hope, I struggle often to "level up," as Anna Akana calls it. I stumbled across this and couldn't help but sharing, if for no other reason than for my own review later on.

Solid, realistic stuff... and funny :).

It is almost Friday.. just a few more hours & we're THERE.
I'm off to finish up all this knitting at hand.. so that's a wrap for me.
Hang in there, friends!

xo | cmd