Joyfully Weary

We has such a good Christmas this year. I actually feel like we are still in the midst of it, Jer has until January 2nd off. Having him home is such a joy!  Everybody is happier when he's at home, and everything just feels slower and more peaceful. I wanted to share a few...ok maybe not a few... pictures of our Christmas. I'm also going to throw in some from the weekend we spent with Jer's family. You can see some pictures from the holiday celebration we had with my family here . The kids' favorite activity we did with Jer's family was building gingerbread houses. Some of the kiddos have celiac so we used gluten-free graham crackers . Each of the kiddos had their own tray to build a house, but Mini Man and Big Buddy decided to work together. They made a fort - it was really just a group of little boxes to dump candy aka weapons into. We packed a lot into the weekend. In addition to gingerbread houses we also went to see the Nutcracker, exchang...

This week the kids did a simple craft and made a nativity silhouette to hang on our windows.  The materials needed for this craft are: vellum, watercolors, a paintbrush, a glue-stick, scissors, and a nativity silhouette cut out of black construction paper. I found our silhouette through Google images and then Jer tweaked it a little bit and used a laser cutter to cut all the details - there is no way I would of been able to cut this out by hand.  😬 A simpler nativity would work just as well.  The first step to this craft is to paint the vellum. I cut the vellum a little bit larger than the nativity silhouette to make gluing easier. Vellum won't work for detailed paintings, but is great for skies, etc. Little Lady was the inspiration for this craft; she's currently very into painting sunrises and sunsets.  Once the vellum has dried, use a glue stick to attach your nativity. Then you can trim around the edges to make the final product look a bit nice...

It's been forever since I've done one of these post, be prepared for a lot of outfits. I figure if I take the time to take the picture, not to mention convincing Jer or one of the kiddos to play photographer; I should complete the process by sharing. The first couple of outfits are from late October...if you scroll through them all, you can actually see the effect the cold weather has had on our yard. The above dress is an old favorite from Anthropologie . Green is my favorite color; I adore this piece so much that I have found countless ways to layer it so I can wear it all-year-round.  Playing around on Etsy one night I stumbled upon the shop Bumbleebuck Vintage  - it was such a happy find! She carries a lot of unique pieces at affordable prices. I picked up this dress and a 60's watercolor velvet dress. The shoulders on this dress are very 80's, but I loved the color and pattern so much that I was determined to make it work. This time I layered it with a l...