Category: holidays

Every year my family is supposed to finalize our Christmas lists by Thanksgiving. When I was coming up with mine, this is what came to mind:

• New tires for my car
• Our carpet replaced
• Hire me an electrician to fix the broken outlets in our house
• New blinds in our bedroom
• Exterminator services
• Cloth diapers

In the past couple of weeks it’s turned into fall around these parts. Although we’re still in an outrageous drought, the weather has been beautiful. Over the weekend we visited a tiny pumpkin patch, went to the zoo, and dressed up for Halloween. Here is a post with gratuitous baby pictures. Be ye warned.

Pumpkin Patch

The pumpkin patch was tiny and picked over, but all we needed was a little bench and a pumpkin to prop her up.

She wasn’t so much into smiling, but was really enjoying sticking out her tongue.

Meredith’s cousin Cameron, nearly two years old, was there with us.

He was being sweet to share the little pumpkins with Meredith.

And of course she wanted to eat them.

Look! I was there too.

Finally, a smile!

The Zoo

We went to the zoo on the day before Halloween, not knowing that it was “Boo Zoo” day and people arrived hours before opening to find a parking spot. We got so frustrated looking for a place to park that David ended up just dropping me off (with a few other family members) and driving around for a few hours. Once we were inside it was nice, but I really wish David would have been there.

It was sunny, so Meredith broke out her shades and basically napped the whole time.

She woke up while we were taking a break, I nursed her, then put her in the Ergo for the rest of the visit.

I can’t wait to go back to the zoo when Meredith is older and can really enjoy it!

Halloween

We have been calling Meredith “Mer-maid” as a nickname since before she was born, so it only made sense that she would be a mermaid for Halloween. This costume was 0-9 months, which is a huge range, and it was quite baggy on her so I had to pin it from the back. It still worked out though. Witness the cute:

Her cousin Cameron was fat Elvis and Lucas was Buzz Lightyear. Unfortunately this is the only picture we could manage with the three of them. Nice finger, Cameron.

We walked around to a few houses just to show her off. I think she had fun. :)

Unfortunately somewhere along the way Meredith caught a virus. She has had a wet cough and congestion since Tuesday, had a really rough night of sleep last night, and woke up with a fever this morning. I decided to take the day off and take her to the doctor (who basically told us to keep her comfortable and monitor her condition until it runs its course), and now we’re resting at home. Thankfully she’ll be with my mom tomorrow so I can go back to work, and hopefully she’ll be well enough on Monday to go back to daycare! I can tell she’s uncomfortable, but she is mostly still her sweet, smiley self. :)

Don’t stone me, but even though it’s not even Halloween I am about to talk about Christmas. Some of you probably shun all things Christmas until after Thanksgiving but it’s my favorite holiday, I want it to last as long as possible, so as far as my blog is concerned Christmas has arrived!

I like almost everything about Christmas including the gifts, shopping, delicious food and cookies, holiday music, lights, and family getting together. I also really love sending and receiving Christmas cards. One of my only serious crafty hobbies is making cards, and I actually have done that several times in the past for Christmas, but it’s a huge undertaking and I obviously do not have that kind of time anymore. Besides, all anyone cares about now is Meredith, so we want to send out a photo card with her picture on it.

I’m so happy to be partnering with Shutterfly this year for my holiday cards. I’ve heard great things about them (my mom used them to make a photo book from our wedding), and they have so many choices it’s kind of ridiculous. I have spent WAY too long picking out our design, choosing pictures, and editing.

I had specific criteria for my card: one main photo, must be flat because I don’t want to have to write anything (hey, it’s either that or don’t send cards at all), stationery paper, simple. These were some of my finalists, but it was hard to narrow it down. I’ll be placing my order this week!

What’s even better is that I have a code for three of you to win 25 free cards of your own! Use it for your own holiday cards, or even for regular greeting cards or birth announcements. To enter, fill out the form below. (If you have trouble seeing it, make sure you have Javascript enabled.)

Oh, and merry Christmas. ;)

[via]

When I woke up Sunday morning I kind of expected to be at least a little bit depressed. I mean, there’s this huge buildup to Christmas and then all of a sudden it’s over and a whole year away. That’s sad when it’s your favorite holiday and you don’t have any kind of vacation to look forward to.

But I wasn’t sad. I woke up in a great mood on Sunday! So then I expected to be depressed when I woke up on Monday and was faced with going back to work. But I wasn’t! Why am I not experiencing the post-holiday blues?

1. I really like my job. There is nothing that I dread about it except simply having to wake up early, and since I go to sleep between 7-8 p.m. every night now, I have no trouble with that.

2. It’s a four-day work week once again, and I get to look forward to a quick trip to Irving, TX to visit a friend for New Year’s Eve.

3. I got a lot of great gifts from my family this year. My husband bought me so many new clothes and a fantastic over-the-shoulder bag from Fossil, my parents and brothers got me the Sony Reader Daily Edition, and my in-laws gave me a generous gift card to Lowe’s which will go toward fixing up our house. I also got a bit of money which I plan to spend on some new boots this week. Gifts make me happy because I hardly ever spend money on myself.

4. I love the beginning of the year and the fresh start it implies. That idea really works for me. I’m excited to get it started, and soon I’ll let you know my plans & goals for the upcoming year.

What about you? Are you battling post-holiday sadness or are you looking forward to the new year?