An easy Christmas

I usually go all out for Christmas, but this year I cut back A LOT. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but living with a toddler makes me more excited for some aspects of Christmas and less for others. I did make one new decoration this year - I hand stitched these numbers on a home-made advent calendar. Easy peasy. The messier looking, the better in my eyes.

Added some gold picks to a vase and a hand stitched Mother & Child (thanks for selling this at our garage sale Adele!) and a miniature nativity to our already stocked shelves.

Nothing says fun like a billion plastic ornament bulbs for Chloe to throw around.

Unfortunately we only have a small (faaaaaaaakeee) tree this year. (PS - note the introduction of C's new rocking horse. I bought it for 4 bucks at a garage sale and repainted it... great buy.)

Represent.

The most integral addition to our holiday cheer: Our elf "Peppermint" who sits around watching Chloe miss-behave all day and who reports to the big man up North at night. When Chloe is being especially naughty I like to remind her, "Who are we supposed to be good for?" And expecting the answer to be Jesus, Mommy or Daddy....she almost always replies, "for Peppermint!" Well, one step at a time.

Merry Christmas Ya'll!

A visit with St. Nick

Chloe has settled in now and finally gets the hug she had talked about for weeks on end! This is her "I'm-in-awe-of-this-moment" face.

Santa's gift: 3 silver coins to spend at the mall.

Royal Oak Christmas Parade

A coffee a day....

MMMMMMMM.

This just makes me happy.....so happy, in fact, that I've been sampling it ALL DAY LONG!

Our new hometown

Britton staking his claim on our new city.

Oh the Nomad life. This June we will be moving for the 7th move in our relatively new life together (I count a "move" as any place I lived for more than a couple months). I think the moves have been really challenging for us, but have always afforded us with innumerable learning experiences and we've developed a sense of independence that we definitely didn't have when we first got married. Thankfully we've moved so much that we know what to expect. I think the only real challenge this time will be finding new friends.

This time we are headed to the smallest town yet, Traverse City, MI. Britton and I went on our first 'vacation' since C dawg was born to scope out our new town.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm more than a little nervous about moving "up North" -- beauty is definitely not lacking, but I am used to the luxuries of living in a city: trips to the zoo, museums, virtually any store is within a 10 minute drive and a lot of people... there are infinite possibilities for rainy day activities in Detroit. Luckily we really enjoyed Traverse City. Even though it rained the ENTIRE TIME, it really is very very cool and has a bit of a city vibe and amazing restaurants...we'll just have to get our 2 year old adjusted to snow shoes and cross country skis during the winter!

And this is Britt's future office...gimmie a break. Chloe and I will be deep in the woods somewhere all day while he will be gazing at sailboats on crystal clear Lake Michigan.

Britton

Oh how I love him....he's wonderful inside and out!

Ladybug Princess

As Halloween came around it was becoming apparent that Chloe was not going to wear the lion-tamer costume I made for her. Luckily Nonny and Grandpa brought her a sweet little flamenco dress from their latest trip to Spain. It saved the day because Chloe, deep in the midst of an obsession with princesses, thought the flamenco dress was a ladybug princess dress and wore it more than willingly!

She totally understood the concept of Halloween from day one of trying to explain it to her and she was so excited to get dressed up, go to our neighbor's Halloween party and then "say trick-or-treat and go get candy." Chloe loved absolutely every minute of it!



First stop on the trick-or-treat trail: Home - she couldn't run fast enough!

The loot.