Life Laid Bear

Christmas Recap 2014

Christmas was a warm blur of good times with our families, and it was made even more special by the arrival of Kyle's sister, her husband, and our perfect niece. We spent the first week they were here totally mesmerized by everything our little niece did. To say we are madly in love with our baby P would be an understatement. 

 Christmas Eve was spent at our house. This was the first time hosting a holiday dinner by ourselves, and I think we can definitely use some practice. But all in all, it was good! Also, lots and lots of gifts and baby Penny's Minnie Mouse. 

Kyle soaking up all of the time he can with Penny. He looks like a natural, right?

On Christmas Day, Kyle had to work so I spent most of it opening gifts with our family and Facetiming with my family in Jacksonville while they opened their gifts. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner, opened more gifts and then came home to open our gifts from each other. Tilly really loves opening  gifts. More like sticking her whole body into the bag, but we will count it. Best gift of the night.... R. Kelly's  box set of Trapped in the Closet (all of the chapters). Huge R. Kelly fan over here! 

A little elf in the house! 

On Saturday, we took the pups and headed to my parents house for Christmas round two. We dressed Tilly up in her Christmas tree outfit and opened gifts for another couple hours! My dad loves his little Christmas tree. Her not so much!

And last but not least, two very stuck pups who had a little too much fun in the Christmas lights. We now have the tree and lights down, and I am one sad lady over here. The best time of the year is over, and now we start a new one. Tomorrow starts work again, and as glad as I am to be back in our routine I will miss the whimsy that is this time of year. 

2014 Christmas Card

Now that almost all of our Christmas cards have reached their destination, I feel like it is safe to go ahead and show them. This year, I tried my hand at making our own invitation instead of using a template. It felt more creative, and saved a huge amount of money. 

I started off by making a new blank canvas in Photoshop using 4.5x5.5 and then just added the pictures that I loved from the past year. I  made it into a grid, because it looked more cohesive to me that way. We didn't have one photo that encompassed the whole year, so it was special to get 20 great pictures onto one card. I thought it looked a little plain on the front, so I added a rectangle and some lettering over the top. The cards were printed from OvernightPrints.com, and they cost right around $15 for 50.

We had a big year, so I definitely wanted to add some writing on the back. It ended up being more of a long recap of the year, and we loved it! And of course, one spelling error. That I have tried to cover up with a white pen. 

I went with red Paper Source envelopes that the cards fit perfectly into! You can find them here. I had a white gel pen that I used to address the front and back of each envelope. 

We added a cute little ornament with each card, which seemed to be the perfect touch to me! We tucked everything inside and closed it with a white sticker to match the wrapping. 

Easy, simple, and most of all out the door! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

What a perfect weekend looks like

 This past weekend was so wonderful. We tried to make sure that we didn't plan much this weekend so we could spend some much needed time around the house. We wrapped gifts, took night walks to look at the neighborhood lights, and slept in both mornings. We took a break from relaxing to attend our annual work holiday party. It is always so much fun, and we came home with some great new memories. 

We have great plans for the next week. My sister in law is coming into town for a couple weeks, and I can't wait to see my niece for the first time. We also have some exciting things going on at work, and hopefully some festive holiday events this weekend. 

How was your weekend?

23 days of Christmas - 2014

I love Christmas. (I also can't think of a single person who doesn't love Christmas, but that's not the point.) It is just such a magical time of the year. It gets colder outside, people seem to be a little more jolly, there are beautiful twinkling lights, and most of all the family is together. It is just all around a special time of the year. And I love documenting the fun we have during this season. 

Last year, I decided doing the 23 days of Christmas was a really fun way to get our family in the holiday spirit while also documenting the small details of the month. You can see our list here from 2013, and the finished project here. This year, I plan on doing things a little different. Instead of using a seperate book to document December, I am going to finish up my 2014 ProjectLife book with Christmas. 

So here is our list for the 23 days of Christmas in 2014. 

1. Have a Starbucks holiday drink.

2. Watch a Christmas movie.

3. Make a fire.

4. Put the Christmas tree up.

5.  Attend a holiday party. 

6. Wrap gifts together. 

7. Take a walk around the neighborhood to see the lights. 

8. Make Christmas cookies. 

9. Listen to Christmas music while cooking dinner. 

10. Go on a date night, and order a holiday themed cocktail. 

11. Fill the stockings secretly. 

12. Turn the heat on for the perfect chilly night.

13. Make a homemade ornament. 

14. Send out Christmas cards. 

15. Buy some new Christmas decorations. 

16. Get pictures of the dogs in their Christmas outfits. 

17. Put the lights up. 

18. Snuggle up on the couch together as a family and watch tv.

19. Get comfy in Christmas footie pjs and order pizza. 

20. Go on a night bike ride while drinking hot chocolate. 

21. Write Santa a letter. 

22. Open one small gift. 

23. Make fresh french press coffee and sit outside talking. 

Merry Little Christmas

We had a most wonderful Christmas. It was just a relaxing day with the family. My parents were able to come spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us, and I was so glad. We spent most of our time laughing and making fun of eachother. You know all of the normal family stuff. 

Christmas Day was filled with so much joy, food, and of course gifts. In our families, it takes all day to open gifts. And this was no different, we opened all day long. It was a fun time, and our families went way above and beyond what they should have. We love you guys so much! You will see that Lukebear is not in any of these pictures. You ask why? Well he decided that he wanted coal for Christmas. He ran off with one of our hams. Thank goodness it was precooked and we had another one. It is pretty funny, we can laugh about it now. 

I hope you and your families had a wonderful day celebrating with your family and friends. 

stocking stuffers

Stocking stuffers are definitely one of my favorite things about Christmas morning. I love being able to reach in and pick out some great small gifts. It is like a really great appetizer before a meal. It wouldn't be Christmas without them. But if you are anything like me when it comes to stocking stuffers, you are still thinking of things to buy a whole three days before Christmas. How did that happen? Like really, it is Christmas week. I can say that this year I was really proud, I got all of the big items under the tree much earlier in the month. It's the small things that always get me though. It's always a last minute thing for me. I will get better next year (we will see). 

So in the fun of Christmas week, here are a couple ideas for anyone special in your life. I know I would be so excited to see any of these in my stocking!

1. Target map scarf. 2. Bobbi Brown classic to go palette. 3. Anthropologie coconut milk mango candle. 4. Wine tumbler. 5. Paper straws in blue. Essie nail polish in Parka Perfect and Mind your Mittens. 

 

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thankful

Gosh, is it really only 6 days until Christmas. I have said it before, but I just can't believe how fast this year went by. I will blink and it will be 2015 already. I guess it is part of getting older. I blame it on not having summer breaks anymore.

I want to do things a little different in 2014 when it comes to my thankful series. I just think lists can get a little tedious. Sometimes you can't get the full picture while you have to narrow a sentence down to a couple words. I need to be able to rant about how thankful I am for this beautiful, messy, wonderful, and yes sometimes heartbreaking life. So starting this week, you may see lists and you may see full paragraphs. It should be fun to mix it up! 

While looking through recent photos for this post, I kept coming back to this picture. I couldn't seem to pass it. So here we are. Kyle's eyes are almost closed, Lucas is being silly, Tilly needs groomed, and I look like I am hiding food in my cheeks for the winter. All in all though, this is us. The very unperfect family, just making our way. This week I am thankful for that. Thankful for this unperfect family that is so honest, brave, humbled and loving. We are not the most put together family, we are not always on time, we fuss, we fight, we are normal. And I am thankful that there is nothing in this life that makes us try to act differently. 

I am also thankful this week for Christmas spirit. I thought about the holiday as I was walking out of Walmart tonight. I went in for just one thing, and of course come out with ten,  I noticed an older couple while walking in one of the aisles. The gentleman smiled at me, and I smiled right back. No big deal, the same thing I do if anyone makes eye contact. Then we walked right passed each other. As I was walking to self check out I saw them again. He stopped me and said "you are the only person in this store that took the time to smile at me tonight". We casually talked as I was checking out, and as I was walking out of the store I couldn't believe that out of all of the people I could have run into, I ran into the one person who showed me how little it takes to make a difference. To make an impact in someones life, even if it was only a smile. 

Have you seen any instances of Christmas spirit this week? 

2013 Christmas Cards

I love sending out cards of any kind. Birthday cards, thank you cards, or just a I am thinking of you card. It is a nice change from Facebook events and e-vites. Actually getting something in the mail that isn't junk or bills is just so special! At least to me. Am I the only one? 

So Christmas cards are a pretty big thing in my book. They get sent out every year. Sometimes we are cutting it a little close, but they always get there. So cheers to ours being sent out yesterday! A whole two weeks before Christmas. I was so excited. 

This year I couldn't decide on one card. They are all just so cute. So instead, I went with two different styles. Most of the pictures are the same, but with different colors and layouts. Now that they are all mailed out, here are some peeks of them. 

Both of the cards were printed through Shutterfly, and I have to say the process was so simple and we loved how they turned out.