Nov
13
On Sunday, we put up our Christmas Tree. It still feels a little early, but I’ve got some plans for some Christmas items for the PAPERCUTS shop, as well as a couple of tutorials for the blog here… so I needed to kick start the Holiday Season a bit early over here to get myself “in the mood.”
We bought an artificial tree a few years back. (I’ve heard varying arguments on whether an artificial tree is actually eco-friendly or not, but I figure as long as we keep using the same one over and over, it’s better than cutting down a new one each year. While I miss the romantic nature of going to the tree lot & the smell of a real tree, I’m a big fan of pre-strung lights and not vacuuming up dead pine needles.)
Jonah is pretty excited. He put the star on top (with Tod’s help, of course) but we did the rest of the decorating after he went to bed. I feel like this year will be pretty magical for him. We’ll also undoubtedly spent a lot of time with my family, which will bring a lot of the holiday magic back for me, too.
Tod & I have a yearly tradition of getting toasty on spiked eggnog and singing Christmas songs while decorating the tree. This ornament was a gift from my mother the first Christmas we were married…
…and we made these Cinnamon Ornaments together the in 2004, living together in a 1 bedroom apartment in San Diego – the little gingerbread kitty was made because we’d just gotten a tiny little Puff named Rocky. These ornaments are 7 years old, and they still smell great!!
Before we’d set up the tree, I “caught” Jonah reading one of the Christmas books from last year. He loves to read, and we read books every day, but this was one of the first times I’ve seen him sneak off to read on his own. Needless to say, I spent a lot of my childhood hanging out with my nose in a book, so this photo makes me pretty happy.
Oct
31
We had such a fun time Trick-Or-Treating with Jonah. My dad and my sister came with us, and Jonah had a blast. We went last year, but since he was only two and a half, it was really just going once around the block in the wagon. This year was another story; we probably walked about three miles and Jonah came back with a heavy bag full of candy! (Which, I’ll say, he’s been very eager to share with everyone! I must be doing something right!)
To me it was a night spent in my home town, re-living every Halloween when I was a kid, running around in my own home-made costume. Jonah was very literally getting candy from the same houses where I used to Trick-Or-Treat.
Jonah did a great job. He remembered to say “thank you” and alternated between walking with Grandpa, riding on Aunt Jordan’s shoulders, and riding in the wagon when he got tired.
Here are some pictures from our fun night!
Oct
29
Saturday morning, we wandered down to a local craft show with my sister Jordan and her husband. Jonah rode his bike (now that we have plenty of sidewalks, he’s riding a lot more now. He can get going super fast on that thing, too!) and we had a lot of fun. There were lots of beautiful handmade things and a book sale, too!
I also got to see one of my best friends from High School, Erin. We were locker partners in Middle School and used to make friendship bracelets and watch Space Ghost together when we were teenagers. We always had a lot of classes together, and we were both nerdy overachievers (she got way better grades than I did, though!)
Erin makes incredible crochet beanie hats & felted wool items, and has illustrated note cards and prints, too. She and her mom were set up at the show with so much great stuff.
I really love Erin’s hats. She sent two to us as a gift after Jonah was born and they’re such great quality that he still wears them! (You can see the blue and brown one in the photos above.) My favorites are her cupcake hats (so cute for little girls!) and her new Snowflake hats (I’m a sucker for ear flaps.)
You can see more of her hats and other handmade items in her Etsy Shop, and you can find her cute illustrations here!
Erin’s mother is crafty, too, (check out her Etsy shop here!) and together they had a whole booth packed with all sorts of gorgeous hand made items. I got these awesome new mittens, which, despite my expression in this picture, I am actually super excited about!
I wore my skeleton leggings (again. I told you I was wearing them constantly.) with one of my favorite thrift store dresses (it’s brown with tiny polka dots and a ruffles on the front, layered over a charcoal grey American Apparel tee & my chucks.
PS: Check it out: Jordan braided my hair all fancy!
Oct
24
Poor Jonah just figured out what he’s going to be for Halloween: contagious. :( He caught a case of “Molluscum contagiosum,” which sounds like a Harry Potter spell (“Molluscum contagio-SUM”) but is actually a fairly common virus which shows up as a skin infection.
The good news is that it’s not painful and mostly harmless, and fairly easy to treat. The bad news is that the poor kid will be missing out on some of the Halloween celebrations that his classmates will enjoy, because he can’t go back to school for a week. We’re still going to take him Trick-Or-Treating, but he’ll miss a couple of school activities.
As you can see from these photos, he’s not too phased. He’s not a big fan of getting rubbed down with the ointment, but I have a feeling we’ll get used to it in a day or two. We spent the afternoon watching cartoons, doing an art project, playing with his Fisher Price Little People city and riding his bike.
Oct
23
This weekend we spent lots of time outdoors, walking around town and enjoying an unseasonably warm October weekend. (We even got ice cream!) Here are some photos I snapped while we were out and about:
