December 2011 Update

We survived another holiday season. Other than the fact that I was behind on shopping until the very last second, it wasn’t too bad.

Skylar was a wee bit skeptical of Santa this year. Not him so much as the fact of whether he exists or not. Red Robin, our Elf on the Shelf, certainly helped her to believe. She loves that little elf and was SO sad when he had to go back to the North Pole. Last year, that elf was on the chopping block as I feared he took away too much of the meaning of Christmas. While there was still some of the gimme-gimme-presents attitude still going on this year, she was much more concerned with making sure her “friend” came back each day. It gave her a bit of a sparkle and left some of the magic alive. It was just the right amount of make believe so I decided he could stay.

One of my new favorite holiday traditions is going to the Nashville Christmas parade. This year it wasn’t freezing cold, which was nice and our best parade buds were there with us. Skylar loves the bands and spent the majority of the parade “drumming” with her cotton candy stick. The best part of our little holiday tradition is visiting Krispy Kreme afterwards. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the Hot Dounughts Now sign. 🙂

Another fun thing for this year was making homemade gifts. I won’t say that I’m addicted to Pinterest but it certainly gave me a lot of ideas. I think all of our little homemade gifts turned out very cute. Even Mike got in on the action by making some wooden blocks for our youngest nephew.

We spent Christmas with Mike’s family and my Dad, Mimi, & Whitney came up to visit shortly after Christmas. In fact, Skylar went back with them and is spending a few days making her rounds in Alabama. Mike and I are busy trying to get this house back in order. So much has fallen to the wayside in the past few months with me working an extra job and Mike working too. I’m hoping we can get on track to start 2012 on the right foot.

As for Mike and I, we are doing well. Mike has recently started playing the trumpet again and is enjoying that. As for me, I am finally registering to get my doula certification. It’s been a long-time goal of mine and I am finally going for it.

Thanks for following along with our little family this year. We are looking forward to 2012!