I. SAID. YES!

Today was.... LOADED.

Holy friggin' COW, ya'll... I'M ENGAGED!!!!

Nononono....

WE .. are ENGAGED!!!!!!

WHAT?! YES... I SAID YES!!

Let me slow down for a moment and start at the beginning of what is now officially one of the greatest days of my life:

First things first, Santa - bless his jolly soul and all the overtime he's putting in this year ;) - well, he made another stop as expected last night here to the Dren Lodge, and what Sydni found under the tree this morning was a stockpile of wrapped goodies!

santa was here!!!! :D 

As is customary with Christmas presents, very little time was wasted before it was all hands on deck for the mass demolitions of paper, bows and packaging. Fortunately, Sydni's got a firm understanding of the "take turns" concept, which is very difficult to follow when it comes to spoils from Santa - I was very proud of her patience this morning!

nana & pappy took their turns :) 

sydni's biggest gift - a 4.5 ft tall dollhouse! O.o 

To say that Sydni was beside herself is a HUGE understatement; even we were impressed with the elaborate design - and size! - of this dollhouse that my sister and parents found asked Santa to get Sydni :) :).

Here's the part I did NOT see coming. I usually have a pretty good intuition about these things, and it is very difficult to surprise me [it's a curse more than a blessing, most of the time], but my man delivered and managed to blast my expectations of the day completely out of the park.

Guys Guys Guyssssss.....

♥WE ARE ENGAGED!!♥

How it happened [an entirely "us" story, too]:
I stood with Rob's arm around my shoulder as we watched my mom & Sydni tear into the dollhouse box. Dad, off to the side, had purposefully removed himself from the pit of the action, a move I of course didn't find peculiar. Rob kissed the side of my unceremoniously bunned up head and said, "I love you," as we often tell each other. I thought nothing of it, even when he repeated the phrase and hugged me tighter. I smiled at noone in particular, engrossed in the bliss of being with my family, in my parents' home, celebrating Christmas.

And then came out the box. He pulled it casually out of his pocket and held it in front of my face, to which I did what every movie-perfect recipient of a diamond ring does:

I cupped my perfectly-manicured hands over my pristinely-madeup face and nodded an emphatic Yes, YES! while tears welled up against my life-proof mascara, backed by the frizz-free, symmetrical waves of my red carpet hair. 

Uh.... yeah.

So what happens in real life in situations like this looked a lot more like what actually went down here this morning:

He held out the ring. I immediately started crying, but not the type of crying that makes you wish you looked like Rachel McAdams from The Notebook. Nope. The kind of crying I did was more like the ugly crying that Fat Amy does in Pitch Perfect when Bumper hits her with a flying burrito.

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes &....... yes. 

That's not an exaggeration. I buried my makeup-free [thank HEAVENS] face into Rob's shirt and sobbed. Snot and all. This is life, guys. This is real life. I bawled, for lack of a more sane response, because I could not process the idea that this man wanted to commit everything in him to one person for as long as he walks this planet.. and that that one person is somehow... me.

xbox one controller | dollhouse piano | engagement ring
looks like we all got the best for this year! ♥♥♥

I cried. Mom, who is more the emotional basket-case in the feely situations, stopped what she was doing and started crying. That's now two of us ugly crying. Sydni, who's now been left to her own devices to destroy the dollhouse packaging, slips and cuts [the.tiniest.cut.ever,btw..] her finger on a stray cardboard edge, and starts her crying, for the obvious & entirely unrelated reason. Dad, who by this point doesn't know if he's tearing up because of the engagement or because of Sydni, just stands there in between the two decisions.

Rob,
This is our life... welcome to it ♥♥
Hahaha... This was exactly how everything transpired, and in hindsight several hours later, I can honestly say that I would not have changed it. I'm one heck of a lucky girl, and when it actually hits me that I'm marrying this insanely amazing guy, I'll really start freaking out :).

For now, it was a morning to be envied here at The Dren Lodge: Mom's breakfast, followed by the sun pouring in through the gable windows to illuminate a Christmas morning marked by the sounds of my happy family.

dad & sydni : card games! 

Thanks to Rob's dedication to the cause for three hours, the dollhouse was finally erected and moved to its home in Sydni's room. The addition of nearly four boxes of my Barbie stuff from my younger years completed the furnishing of the new house, which was complete with a campground, thanks to the tents, grills and miscellaneous outdoor accessories. 

the house. + side garage. +campground. 

^ Oh, and the cards were moved outside to of course accomodate the horses, which obviously took precedence in residing in the garage stable. She's my mother's grandchild, I can say that much ;).

Mom & Dad took a short trip out together to complete a few errands and one of Mom's petsitting stops; we stayed back to hold down the fort, which added to the perfectly made-up agenda for today.

tickle. giggle. belly laugh.
repeat. 

[just] hangin' out @ the dren lodge! ♥

I'm still not over today. I won't be for a very long time.
I'm here in the house that [literally] built me, in which another irreplaceable memory was made today. I wouldn't have chosen any other place on planet earth for that to happen, but I didn't know that until it happened today. I'm here now, nestled in a bundle of blankets and tiny toes, surrounded by my family. This is perfect.

Good night from here, and from the proud-to-be future Mrs. Stokes! ;)
[it'll set in, eventually!]

xo | cmd

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

Christmas Eve!

It has been such a whirlwind of a week; I was more than happy to oblige the day off to hang out with my girl ;)

We ran a few final errands, which included delivering this bad boy [which is a day late in completion, but fortunately this one time, it's ok.. phew!]:

it's done!! happy birthday, andrew! 

Happy, HAPPY birthday, Andrew! I hope you love it! :)
I finally, finally, finally finished this thing, which took about three days longer than I'd anticipated, along with an entire extra skein of wool. Passing it along to Jessica for its actual gifting was both a relief and a loss; I've poured so much into this thing that it's bittersweet to see it go, but that's the life of crafting, I know... c'est la vie...

We dropped by Jess' studio to hand-deliver this bad boy, and caught her at the tail end of a client session. Sydni then had the chance to explore the likes of a fitness studio, and even got a quick sesh from its owner and personal trainer.

adorable. look at that form! ;) 

spartan in the making... 

OR....

aerial yogi in the making? ;) 

Hehehe... she's a gym lover! [Nope, not her mama's kid at all, huh... ;) pshhhh!]
We finished up with Jess and were on our way to complete a few errands and head home.

Workouts are exhausting, I'll give ya that, Syd:

zonked! 

Back at home, we relaxed into the evening and just before bedtime did our final preparations for the BIG day tomorrow. Santa has a lot of work to do, so we wanted to make sure he's properly fed and watered on his stop through here. She was so sweet!

come get 'em, santa! 

My sweet girl!! She just went down for the night, and I think it's high time we follow suit, so that we're not interrupting Santa's neighborhood route tonight.

See you then!

xo | cmd

Office Christmas!

I seriously hope Santa gets a Caribbean vacation after all the work he's putting in this year ;)

@ express, feelin' the festive Christmas love!! ♥

Sheesh, Santa! 

dave. "the twins" [elisa. cori]. carri

In spite of our sometimes [truly] dysfunctional conversations and wading through the sometimes messy gunk that our jobs here can produce, I love my little office family and am thankful to have shared a Christmas celebration with them! 

The rest of the day went by at a grueling pace; as I sat and dialed out the last few calls, I multitasked to pass the time.. Don't worry; everything is done and I even managed to make some headway on things scheduled for next week... Carri would say that's the Sagittarius in me, somehow accomplishing more when I'm overloaded. I can't explain it, so I just roll with it :) 

talking & knitting.
multitasking! 

At home, Sydni and I got busy preparing dinner for our incredible head of the house; Sydni so sweetly explained to me that we "needed to do this because he does so much for us." I may or may not have cried a little when she said that..... ^_^

my own little cooking show! ♥

Rob finally made it home, and while he and Sydni were finishing dinner, I spent some much overdue time with the pups, which I think went over well. Would you agree? ;) 

♥ pibbles! 

And to round out the night, our own little Lila was spotted inching her way closer and closer to Christmas Day: 

sneaky girl! 

^ Oh, and I spy the ornament Elisa gifted me for my birthday [thank you!] 

TWO. MORE. DAYS!!! :D

xo | cmd 

Moving-Stuff-Mondays

There's going to be a theme carrying on for the next few weeks: Moving.
If it gets old to hear, trust me, I'm with ya.

I headed out for work around the same time that Rob headed in the opposite direction to meet with a prospective employer [yep, still plugging away at that task, too]. My drive was far less scenic than his, apparently, but he made sure to share the jaunt out 32 with me:

hello, world! ♥

Nothing like a small reminder of the beauty that our God creates, every single day. It's been chaotic around here; a tiny glimpse of a much bigger - and gorgeous, at that! - picture, is always welcome.

There was another nice little break in the mayhem today, when the last part of the order we placed on NoMoreRack with SANTA... arrived at my office today, as part of Sydni and my Christmas present. (: To say that she was equally excited is probably a gross understatement. 

tablet! (:

After work, I picked Sydni up and we made our way to the destination of the new house. I was bound and determined to get the dining room table in from the screened-in porch to the dining room. I had no idea how I was going to do that alone, and if you ask me now how I did it, I honestly couldn't give you a straight answer, other than I am lucky to have accomplished it with all my fingers & toes in tact.

"raaaaawr!," exclaimed the ninja......
hello, dining room (:

Sydni helped me babysit the pups while I was creating and navigating through pathways of boxes and furniture. This place looks like a household goods bomb detonated right in the middle of every room; it's a familiar, overwhelming sight that I'm determined to change by the end of this week.

........ Challenge accepted.

xo | cmd

Christmas, CONTINUED! :)

So... Santa's rackin' up the overtime hours this week! Just as we expected, we awoke to find a front porch and countertop with nothing but crumbs remaining from reindeer food & cookies. There was an empty glass of milk to go along with it, and a Christmas tree layered with pretty wrapping paper and gift bags.

anyone in there? oh, yes... it's a Christmas monster!

I have a 4-year-old who terrorized Santa's lovely display, and when the flurry of tissue and wrapping paper subsided, we were left with an array of awesome new toys, books, electronics & of course a couple of things for the grown-ups, too.

excitement, galooooore

 

electronics from santa, for sydni and mommy.. haha

Our visit at the Drenn Lodge ended with breakfast, complete with all of our favorite things, before we loaded up the car and set our sights back south to Cincinnati.

I managed to capure this on our way down...

too. much. i can't handle them sometimes ;)

I had made plans last week with one of my favorite friends Jennica to meet up at some juncture today before she headed back to Utah. It's been nearly four years since I've seen her, and we missed out when she was home over Thanksgiving. This time around, we were adamant on making this happen. So, we picked a meeting spot at the new Cincinnati outlets in Monroe, where Rob, Sydni and I fiiiinally ran into Jen and her brother Mikey.

jennnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!! ♥♥♥

Ahhhhh! I love that girl. I promised her that once this whole moving thing is settled down, I'll start looking at a trip out to visit her in Utah for a weekend getaway, or something like that (:

Rob started feeling ill before we even got to the outlets, so after our visit, it was a beeline to the house for him to unwind and relax for the night. I took that time to pack up some more of the house and haul it into the car for dropoff tomorrow night at the new house. It's all coming together!

Tomorrow it's back to work again for a couple of days and then.......... it's 2014. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. The age old question, where did the year go, is of course streaming on loop through my head, but at the same time I am welcoming all of the changes rolling in with the new year. I saw bring it on! (:

*Phew. Christmas is finally completed, I think. If I missed anything, I'll catch up with it later. It's bed time for us.

xo | cmd

Christmas & Junior's Birthday @ The Drenn Lodge

Day 2 of waking up to this little pile of love (:

slumber party girls

We left early this morning with a car full of myself, Rob, Sydni and whatever Christmas gear we needed for the quick weekend getaway at the Drenn Lodge. We made it there in no time, and it wasn't long before the Christmas festivities were well underway.

here we go!!

Our first item of importance on the agenda was getting Sydni's little Christmas tree decorated in her room, and assembling her very own gingerbread house!

Christmas tree decorating

gingerbread house

her mickey mouse gingerbread clubhouse!

I'll stand by my word that this is my favorite place still, on planet Earth; holidays especially, make this place come alive and I most love that. We started out small, with just the five of us and some of our small gifts [Sydni's stocking stuffers included, of course].

duck dynasty, hahaha..

my succulents!!!!

stocking stuffers from nana & pappy

There was just enough time for us all to squeeze in a nap before my cousins arrived for the evening; once they did, it was a Saturday night filled with my laughing family gathered around the table in the living room. 

rob. ty. markie

my two goofballs ♥♥

my, how i love them.

probably my favorite picture from today... hahaha.. love love love her.

my gorgeous, age-defying, gravity-defying mother...

best. friend.

And of COURSE, my little cousin Markie, aka Junior's birthday! The kid turned 22 today, and for what that's worth, I feel older than ever before. Haha. Jokes aside, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my not-so-little-but-still-baby cousin, Mark (:

happy 22nd birthday, little cuz!!

The night finally started to wind down, but it didn't stop when the family headed out the door. Mom & Dad of course had prepared the annual bag of reindeer food to be sprinkled outside for Santa's diligent antlered team. Sydni very strategically dumped the bag across the front porch, and helped put out the cookie and milk on the counter before she headed to bed.

reindeer food!!

dad. me. syd. mom ♥ my family!

f a m i l y !

 Tomorrow we'll see what Santa brought us ;)

For now, we'll go dream of sugar plums and dancing fairies..... or whatever that poem said goes on while you're asleep through Santa's visit (:

xo | cmd