Life Laid Bear

Currently November

 

The tree is up, finally! And it is beautiful. Lights are mostly up on the house, and the rest are to come this weekend. Christmas cards are out (with only one spelling mistake, I call that a win). The 23 days of Christmas is going smoothly, and I just need to get the first week and a half into my ProjectLife. So let's just say, it is all things Christmas around here. 

My mind has been racing with plans for 2015, and I just can't wait. We made a couple reservations for some very exciting vacations this past weekend, so I feel like we are ahead of the game. 

My sister in law is coming to the states soon, and I will finally be able to meet my beautiful niece. My heart is overjoyed that I will get to hold, kiss, and spoil her in a matter of days. 

Home renovations are on the brain, and I am wishing for an Ikea to be closer. My plans for the house are almost done, but we are just lacking in execution. 

The best gift list there is, here. Speaking of gifts, we are done shopping and now are on to the wrapping part!

Drinking lots and lots of tea. Teavana, you are the downfall of me. 

The mister is sick this week, and I just wish I was home snuggling with him. 

The weather is so perfect here in North Florida right now. The heat isn't on, but the heated blankets are! We have a fire and gift wrapping planned for tonight. 

What is new in your world? 

 

Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! It is a lazy day full of lunch with the best and lots of roaming around. Kyle has to work so it is just me and the pups. I hope you have a fun and safe dog day afternoon. 

Happy Day

Happy Cinco de Mayo Williams style. We are spending the night in making homemade margaritas and being silly. Hope you had a margarita and remembered the reason for the season.

Easter Weekend at the Beach

Have you ever had one of those weekends when things just worked? A weekend of relaxation, no running around, not working too much, or really much of anything important. Those are my kind of weekends. And this was our past weekend. Our two families decided that over the Easter weekend, we would all get together and rent a beach house near St. Augustine. It works for our families, it is how we like to get away. So we got away to an adorable cottage style house by the beach. 

We had a couple days of yucky weather, but one day of really good beach weather. That is all you really need. Just one good day of perfect weather to sit on the beach with snacks, drinks, and good company. The other days looked a lot like this. Relaxing on the front porch with 4 pups and 9 family members. 

 

We had a couple of really great family dinners locally, and everywhere we went was absolutely delicious. 

The weekend was over too quickly, but it makes it easier to come back to the work week if you had a relaxing weekend. So we are back to real life feeling great, and looking forward to the next family weekend and hopefully getting off the sofa sleeper. 

 

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. 

State of the union - Williams style

(in phone camera pictures, sorry guys!)

I am so crazy in love with this season in my families life. In general, just so in love with this season in life. It is beautiful, magical, and truly the best. Everything just seems right. Even maybe too good to be true, but I will gladly take it!

Our little tree this year is really kind of pathetic funny looking perfect for us. For the past two years we have gone about our business and put up a really nice fake tree, but it just didn't feel right. You know that feeling when you open the door and you get a rush of that glorious Christmas tree smell. Yes that amazing smell that always brings me back to Christmas mornings at my grandmas. The smell is just heavenly and I had to have it this year. So in comes the hunt for the perfect tree. I might have thought about fainting at the sight of a 80 dollar tree. So after careful consideration off to Walmart we went in a hunt for a reasonably priced "perfect for us" tree. FYI, we found one! It was on sale. We paid a whopping 18 dollars for our little guy. I think we did well. 

So now the tree is finally up, the decorations are hung, and the spirit of Christmas is definitely with us. Now we just need to get our lights up, we are a little late on that one. Mostly because Kyle doesn't like doing it, but up they will go!

I have snuggled under my portable heated blanket many nights lately. This was honestly in the top 5 best gifts ever received! The weather has been nice with just a little chill in the air. That little furball in the corner, yep that is Tillbear. She is looking a little scraggly these days. She is a little mini me. Always needing a comfy blanket and a warm place to nap. Please don't mind the cheesy smile or the awful flash.

The first of the Christmas gifts are wrapped and under the tree. I am beyond thankful that both sides of our family will be gathering at my house this year. It will be one full house of so much love and laughter. I am counting down the days. 

How have you spent the first 5 days of December?

December goals

(This is about the best family photo of us three we could get)

We are back from an amazing trip to see my parents for Thanksgiving. We were gone for 4 nights and it still seems like we needed another two weeks. We did a ridiculous amount of Christmas shopping, eating and laughing. As usual, my parents are just great to be around and I am so thankful for that. I can't wait until Christmas when they come to visit. 

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we are full steam ahead for the Christmas season. This season will be filled with many firsts as we haven't had many chances to start new traditions in our last two married years together. Like most newlyweds, It was filled with trying to be with both sides of the family around the holidays. Now that we have this down, this year we are making it a priority to start some of our own traditions. We couldn't be more excited. 

Our goals are simple and I hope to have them all checked off by January 1. 

- Find a perfect for us tree. This will be our first year with a real tree. 

- Finish up the Christmas shopping. 

- Spend more quality time together. No excuses. 

- Decorate the house. We were seriously lacking last year. 

- Make an amazing Christmas dinner for both families. 

- Make someones day with genuine kindness. 

- Pay it forward. 

What's on your December list?

Happy Day!

For all of you celebrating today, Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. We are eating mass amounts of amazing food, and then shopping until we drop. It's tradition, and one I am gladly going to participate in. Have a safe and wonderful weekend. We are off to spend some quality time with the family as we get in the Christmas spirit.