Pre-Christmas Begins!



comfort candle
accompanied by frankson the festive flamingo

So it was decided by Diana yesterday that we would do an office breakfast together this morning in early celebration of the big day. Diana and Marc made a baked French toast of which I regret both a) not photographing, and b) eating, but both of those ensued just that way, and that’s that. Breakfast was accompanied by the gifting of aromatic candles catered perfectly to the individual stylings of each of us, plus a very nice little bonus. My two staffing consultant colleagues did not disappoint in their thoughtful gifts, either. Between the French toast, white-chocolate pretzels, homemande puppy chow, miniature fruit cake, and various other festively-sugared adornments, it was a wonder we all weren’t bouncing off the walls by the time we bid the office adieu for the long weekend.



sydni & her guests:
pappy | nana | aunt heidi


My parents and sister were on their way in from Ohio, and, with medium amount of fuss, arrived at our *house* late in the evening. This is special in that Joe and I have been blessed with a house that very unique arrangement between us and one of the families at our church here in IL. Long story short, the townhouse we originally shared when we first moved here was working out just fine as a temporary thing. A couple at our church was in the process of a job-related relocation out-of-state, a situation requiring them to buy a home at their new destination, but also leaving them with an unsold house here. The only catch for us was that they had already enlisted the services of a real estate agent. In the meantime, they decided to entrust their beautiful home to a young family in their church [ooh! That's us!]. So we're here, disguising this house's mortgage payment as monthly rent, and in doing so being blessed with the space and amenities of an actual house, not a townhouse apartment.

God is good. God is faithful.
Thank you, Lord, for your blessings.



family shot | sisterly jam session | duets with paul & heidi



Anywho, so here we are, and there my family was, walking through the front door under the semi-false pretense that they were making a pitstop at the home of some of our church friends. Not a total lie, no, but we wanted to give them a big surprise for their first visit to our house. Needless to say, our near month of careful awareness in passing conversation paid off; they had no idea.

We got another surprise for the weekend: My sister's beau, inspired Christian Contemporary artist Paul Clark, made his way from Kansas to spend the evening with all of us. That meant an inevitable chunk of the evening dedicated to guitar-playing, singing, and eventually an impromptu photo shoot of the whole family loaded up with guitars and huge smiles. We have a blast around here :).



happy almost Christmas eve!



I love my family.

The lineup for this weekend looks pretty solid: tomorrow, we'll relax here and spend the day together before the Christmas Eve service at church. On Christmas, we'll enjoy the church's Christmas Day celebration, and then we'll cook our hearts out for our Christmas dinner with our family, the Babots, Pages, Sandvens, and Jarod :).

This is gonna be a great weekend. I can't wait!

xo | cmd

Last Day :(

… And here I thought my dinner last night was above and beyond! Today Deb showed up with this gem from Servatii. It.Was.GOOD. J

Both Joe and Sam arrived in town yesterday [separately, of course], so the four of us rendezvoused for lunch at Panera.

KP surprised  me with this little guy, and it smells pretty intense, in a good way.. like you almost wanna eat it. Mmm.

After work, Joe headed off for a poker night at Ted’s with Eric, JB, the Hookoms, and the rest of their buddies. Sydni and I resigned to the task of wedding shoe shopping. Hint: Don’t shop for heels, wearing the heels you’ve been wearing all day. I woke up in the middle of the night with one of those debilitating calf Charlie horses through which you can only be very still and wait. It made me nauseous. Yuck, yuck, yuck heels.

Tomorrow’s a big day!

Off to sleep, now.

xo | cmd