lately.

so, i am many many many posts behind.  it's a bummer because i really enjoy writing and know that i will value this record of our lives...but after working on a computer all day, i usually am not super psyched about the idea of sitting down to write on my laptop at home.  and, the evenings just go by in a flash - especially during the week.  anyway.  enough complaining.  i am adding better blogging to my list of new years goals (oh, it's so expansive already, what's one more thing to aspire towards?).  before the new year, however, i hope to post about: emme's 12-month update, emme's 13-month update (embarrassing that both of those are overdue), emme WALKING!, crafts, house projects, the thanksgiving holiday, and all sorts of other things. 
for today, though, i will just share a few recent pictures of things that have been going on lately.  first, we have decorated for christmas.  this has been ridiculously daunting for me for several reasons.  we weren't home for the weekend after thanksgiving, we aren't going to be in town for the actual day of christmas, it's my first year with a mantel (something i consider to be momentous, even though i'm pretty sure justin now has full confirmation that i'm a crazy person), and our house is gigantor now, compared to our old house.  oh, and the weather outside has been frightful - haha! - so decorating outside just seemed like a bad plan.  so.  i overcame (kind of) these obstacles, and this is what's happening.  we have a tree.  it is a full, adult-sized grown up tree.  it was acquired on a super wet and rainy sunday morning with temps in the 30s.  it was kind of awesome and wintry, to tell you the truth, and it was the fastest tree decision we've ever made (you like that one?  i like it too.  sold!).  ek loved the guy with the chainsaw who cut the base, and she was entertained by the guy tying the tree to the roof of our car.  she also passed out completely on the way home, as the whole experience clearly just wore her out.  we (still) have not put a roof rack on the car, so i had to be extra careful driving home.  justin helped by criticizing my driving from the passenger seat, and i let him know how much i appreciated that. 

beyond the christmas tree, we also have a nice nativity scene set up (i don't have a picture of that as it tends to not photograph very well), and a mini-twig tree thing i created from a branch in our yard and some spray paint.  i hung lights and little ornaments from it - it's a total eye-sore when it's daytime, but i think the glow of lights is lovely in the evenings.  and then there's the mantel.  mantle?  i'll go with mantel.  it went through about 16 iterations before settling in its current state.  i'm pretty sure the only reason it really settled is because it's mid-december, and i had to stop at some point.  anyway...it is ok.  our mantel is challenging because it's not very wide, and it's hung poorly, so there is a slope that makes heavy and/or smooth objects slide right off.  dangerous and inconvenient.  maybe santa will bring us a new mantel by next year.  the major christmas item that i have yet to cross off my list (besides shopping...) is making new christmas stockings.  i sewed the polka-dotted ones several years ago when i was just learning to sew and our family consisted of me, justin, ollie, and pippa.  SO...my plan is to make new stockings that kind of align with emme kay's stocking, but that just hasn't happened yet.  i'll fit it in when i'm updating the blog. 

other items for the holidays have included making a few gifts for emme's teachers (and for my boss).  i found some cute ideas on pinterest, and ultimately decided to make good use of my many many many fabric scraps and sew coffee coozies.  these are just a couple that i made and i wrapped them around starbucks gift cards and tied them with a bow.  i was pretty please with the way they turned out, especially since i hammered out four or five of them in about 2 hours.  i could probably have gone even faster but i was doing laundry and organizing the room at the same time....

we also went to justin's office christmas party last saturday night and it was really fun.  we brought emme with us, thinking we'd only stay for a couple of house and her bed time wouldn't get that messed up.  well, we ended up hanging out until nearly 10 and she was a total trooper.  she was obsessed with the christmas tree and ate all the tasty food they had catered.  she passed out around 830 or 9 in my arms and just stayed asleep throughout the white elephant gift opening (we acquired a goldfish that is, thankfully, now employed by justin's company), the departure, the car ride, and the pajama change.  she went right down when we got home and slept until almost 830 the next morning.  champ.  this is her in her carseat after the festivities.  

 finally, here are just a couple more pictures of lately.  we’ve had some cold weather, which has given us many tremendous opportunities to employ ek’s vast collection of hats.  i love them all.  this one with ears is hilarious, if still a little big.  gotta love a chin strap that prevents her from pulling it right off.  we also have, as always, many musical interludes in our family time.  this picture is from sunday morning, before we even had breakfast. the look of intense concentration may have had more to do with what was happening in her diaper than in her musical stylings, but i digress...

i love this season…the busy-ness aside, it’s a time of year that always makes me feel so happy.