Cabin Fever

We have been stuck at home for almost a week. 

It has been 5 days of fevers, coughs, whininess (is that a word??) and crying. Not me - them. (ok, maybe some nights it was me). Finally, today, both of the girls are starting to feel better. We still have a nasty cough, but I think we'll be able to taste freedom... urm.. I mean, go to school on Monday. 

In our boredom today and amidst playing our favorite Christmas movies over and over, I decided to play with the camera and something I'd seen online. Enjoy!

And I may have decided to change up the tree a little. Not massive changes, but I think I like the ribbon better this way. 

I seriously can't wait til Christmas now - and I haven't even started shopping yet. Or re-designed our cards so I can order them... speaking of, I better go do that.

Contrast ... and thankfulness

This week has definitely been filled with contrast. Ups and downs, ins and outs, back and forth. Things rescheduling, running late, being forgotten and then good things happening in their place instead...

I suppose most holiday weeks would be characterized like this. People are just naturally emotional, and any household with children, well, you can just count on about 45 days of straight-jacket inducing melt-downs and seasonally bipolar behavior - not just a week here and a week there. School is a perfectly heavenly place this time of year. Even when it takes me 30 minutes to walk there in this amazing weather to drop them off.

Even the weather lately has decided it wants a part in this bipolar mood shift stuff. Just yesterday, our windows were coated with this wonderful stuff:

Only to wake up this morning to beautiful, bright sunshine (cell phone pic). It was actually almost warm walking to school this morning. I wondered for a second if the weather man was wrong. 

He wasn't. It's been an off and on game all day of this great stuff, but this time with winds involved. Yay for holiday weeks and holiday season weather! (insert sarcasm here)

No matter what else this week brings, what ups, what downs, I know that I will be able to enjoy the next few days doing what I love most - cooking, spending time with my family, and then photographing the memories of other families, too. 

Bring it on, Thanksgiving. I'm ready to just be thankful. 

Welcome to our Blog ... and "Happy Christmas"

I used to blog. A lot, actually. Not just like every day, but sometimes multiple times a day, and about a lot of little things. My mind is sort of an odd place, you see, as it doesn't really stay on a single topic for very long.

Unless it's Christmas. That one topic, my mind can ruminate on for months at a time. Once the season of Halloween and such is in the air, *poof* there is Christmas. It's everything I can do to not just hop over the spooky decor and bring out the snowflakes and twinkle lights and skip all the candy gathering altogether. There's still a lot of candy involved with Christmas, right? (I was trying to convince my kids of that this morning - they're not buying it).

Lucky for me, my husband is a good sport. Last year, we waited until after Thanksgiving to put out our decorations. This year, it was if angels descended from on high and started singing the Hallelujah chorus when he sat down on the couch and said to me "Let's get a fake tree this year."

A fake tree? Are you sure? As in, we can put it up NOW?!? I think I may have just signed that marriage certificate in my heart a little more ;)

Our tree is up, folks. Our lights on the porch, the bedroom windows, all up. I even got to snap some cute-tastic shots of Wyn and Brae being beautiful in some snowy white dresses this week too. And we may have even turned on our Christmas Pandora channel. Let's do this Christmas thing ;) Hope you enjoy!

Oh, and as Brae would say "Happy Christmas" -- even if it is a month early.