On November 30, my girls went to sleep with no complaints and a smile on their face. They suspected that our elf, Scout, would show up the next morning and they were so excited. When I went into their room that morning, they immediately asked me if I had seen him. I hadn't even looked for him yet, so we talked about where he might be. I thought I heard something, but the girls didn't and so we went about getting ready for school. A few minutes later, Josh yelled out that the doorbell was ringing. Ella gasped and launched herself out of bed. It didn't take her long to realize there was no one at the door, but she did find this brown paper package (this was a huge win for Scout, but it did prompt all sorts of questions about the hour of delivery, timely doorbell ring and the lack of a postal ...
holiday
The North Pole
I know I boasted about the amazing Santa setup we found last year, but I somehow managed not to secure an appointment this year and they didn't have a walk-in option. To say I was bummed is an understatement. The ability to take your own photos, have an appointment AND a beautifully decorated venue was some sort of Christmas trifecta! We heard there was another local option and were able to get an after-church appointment on Sunday afternoon, so we gave it a try. This "North Pole" did not disappoint. K and I were both anticipating crocodile tears from this kid, so we were pleasantly surprised when he walked right up to Santa, gave him a big hello and climbed up in his lap. He promptly displayed his muscles and informed the big guy that he is a "stronger boy now." It was pretty much all ...
Glory to God
It's hard to believe that it's been five years since Ella learned to recite the Christmas story from Luke 2, but it is easily my favorite video of all time. What do you say we revisit it today? "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be registered. The census first took place when Quirinius was governing Syria. So everyone went to be registered; everyone to his own city... Now in this same country, there were shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And behold the angel of the LORD stood before them and the glory of the LORD shone all around them and they were greatly afraid. The angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I came to bring you good news of great joy that will be for all ...
DIY Printable Holiday Gift Tags
Ummm, there are only nine days until Christmas and if you are anything like me, you might need a little help getting everything together before the big day?! I'm thrilled to be joining these girls again this month to bring you all sorts of holiday inspiration. I've said many times before that birthday parties are my love language, but wrapping gifts is a close second. I collect fun papers and washi tapes and ribbon all year in anticipation of those first few weeks of December. My husband gets irritated because I always select a few rolls of paper for all the gifts and I hide everything else so he won't use them. I love seeing coordinating papers under the tree and figuring out how to make each of the gifts look different is so much fun! I knew I wanted to design some printable tags ...
November Rewind
Here we are a week into December and I have a hundred photos from Thanksgiving weekend that I still haven't shared. Let's just rewind a few weeks and recap all the fun things we had going on over here! The weekend before Thanksgiving, my parents hosted a rehearsal dinner for my cousin in the barn. It was seriously gorgeous (I'll share some photos at some point) and since it was still festive with tables everywhere, my mom decided that Thanksgiving dinner should be in the barn, too. We were blessed with amazing weather for the holiday weekend with highs in the mid-seventies and all the sunshine. We had about fifty people for lunch and stayed until well after dark. My dad even had the forethought to move the television out to the barn so the men could stand around and watch football... ...
Lights Up at The Summit | 2015
It's been a few weeks now, but just before Thanksgiving Ella got to dance in a holiday parade at our local open air mall. Every year they have a huge event outside with a parade, fireworks and Santa Claus where they "light up" all of the trees and buildings for the holidays. We were lucky enough to be the only dance studio in the Birmingham area to participate, so the girls felt like royalty. The entire place was packed and it was super hard to get photos while they were dancing. I was literally running down the sidewalk with my camera trying to catch up with them a few times along their route. Obviously, the studio isn't named after our daughter, but I figured we should mind our internet safety, no? We were lucky enough that Spark & Arrow does a ton of work with The Summit and ...
Holiday Home Tour
You guys, can you even believe that Christmas is right around the corner?! I am such a kid when it comes to the joy and wonder of the holiday season and we have been giddy with anticipation over here. I warned you that I started my holiday decorating pretty early this year and when my girls went to bed on Monday night they were grinning and giggling because they were going to wake up to DECEMBER. It is so so easy for me to get caught up in all that I have to do and everywhere I have to be that I forget the reason for our celebration. I could tell you that our focus is always on Christ, but in the midst of elf antics and wrapping paper and credit cards, it is easy to turn our hearts and minds away. It seems like such a silly thing (and I know the Thanksgiving police might disagree with ...
Holiday Garland DIY
Affiliate links appear in the following post. Although shopping the embedded links won’t cost you any additional dollars, it might earn the blog a small commission. Your support of this space is always appreciated! I spent much of the day Friday getting my holiday decorations finalized. I used to be that girl who waited until December to decorate. Then after we had kids, we started picking up our tree right after Thanksgiving. I decorated mid-November last year and I have to admit -- it didn't make me any less thankful on that Thursday and it was a huge help overall. We got to enjoy our lights a little longer and I wasn't completely run ragged trying to unload ten plastic bins over a holiday weekend. I did something similar this year, adding a few things along the way for the last several ...