I haven’t taken as many photographs this holiday season as I wish, but now that I’m done working for the year (that feels so good to say!), I’m planning to over-document the remainder of Polly’s first Christmas! In an attempt to catch up and share some of my favorite moments of December, so far, here’s a photo filled post for your enjoyment.
If you’ve been reading for more than a few Christmases, then you know that we make an annual date around the acquisition of our Christmas Tree. I’ve probably said this every year, but we always joke about the cars coming from “the city” to our hometown to cut down their Christmas tree on a farm, while we drive into town and buy ours out of a parking lot! We tried tree-cutting one year and the girls hated it and our tree died two weeks before Christmas. We will forever be a red striped tree tent family. Usually, we go the morning after Thanksgiving and fill up on pancakes before choosing our tree. We decided to wait a little later this year, since Thanksgiving was so early and we were all so exhausted from Disney World. After December came, the days kept ticking by and we could not coordinate a morning to go. It was always raining or we had some plan that prevented one of us making the trip. Josh had to take a quick trip to Louisiana a few weekends ago (more on that next month!) and I loaded the girls up that Friday night and we went on our adventure without him. Girl Power, am I right?!
Full disclosure: my parents met us there, so that I could take some photos of Polly’s first Christmas Tree trip and my dad carried the tree home in his truck. We did eat pancakes for dinner, though, so it wasn’t a complete departure from the usual. Also? I kind of love the tree lot after dark — so dreamy!
Josh got home on Saturday afternoon, so the girls were all clamoring for daddy snuggles. That is definitely a thing at our house — we all fight for his attention. I think I cooked dinner that night and we were piled in our bed watching many episodes of Survivor when all of a sudden Polly started laughing. We had gotten several chuckles over the prior weeks, but nothing more than a few syllables. My camera happened to be on the dresser, so I quickly grabbed it and captured her first real laughter on camera. I am so thankful for this video. Predictably, she laughs like this almost any time Ella does this song and dance. It’s like the laughter switch or something!
I’m probably not going to share a fancy home tour this year, but I have been snapping photos of my favorite spots around the house all month. I’m sure I’ll share another round since we’ll be spending the next ten days in cozy clothes around the tree, but this is what our home looks like today.
