Glimpses from my iPhone and more…

Can you believe that it is 2013 already?  I can’t.  I swear these years are just flying by too fast for me!  With the new year always comes new goals and resolutions.  Have you started thinking about yours?  I do like setting new goals each year, even if I don’t reach half of them. 

Anyway, here are a few glimpses into our holiday break.  I am sad that today is the last day.  It has been so nice staying up late and sleeping in.  No struggles with the kids over homework and bedtimes.  Just lazy days spent doing anything and everything we wanted.  I hate to see it end.  As fast as time seems to fly, it will be Spring Break before we know it!

Anyway… one of our annual traditions over the holiday break is to go Auntie Anne’s for our favorite pretzels.  We just don’t ever get over to that part of town so it’s become a tradition to go over the holidays.  I found a recipe online that has gotten rave reviews and is suppose to be just as good.  We’ll find out soon. 

 

I bought myself an early Christmas present.  I couldn’t resist this Jeep charm for my Pandora bracelet.  Is it not the CUTEST thing ever?  I LOVE my Pandora bracelets.  I only fill them with charms that have a special meaning to me.  I plan to blog more about it (and the other charms I got for Christmas) later. 

I think I might have a slight obsession with puffy vests.  What do you think?  Yes, that is my closet – not a pic from a store.    I get so hot inside when I wear coats and I HATE HATE having to take it off and carry it around.  These are perfect to keep me warm but not sweating.  LOVE them.  I resisted the urge to buy another one when we were in Nashville last week. 

 

This was the first year that all of our presents for the kids were under the tree all through the holidays.  Usually, the only gifts are the pajamas they open on Christmas Eve and gifts for other people.  Then all the Santa gifts come out on Christmas morning.  Since we don’t have any “santa believers” anymore, we just wrapped and put out presents as we got them.  The kids had fun going through them every day and seeing what new ones were put under there.  They would shake them and try to guess what was in each box.  By the way, I LIVE to disguise gifts.    LOVED their excitement that kept building up as more and more gifts filled in under the tree. 

 

One night while Eric was out of town, my parents picked us all up and took us out looking at Christmas lights.  It was so much fun.  We found some really great decorations and houses. 

Kendall bought this new little doggie ornament for our tree this year.  She thought it looked like our sweet Zoe.    

Then that ADORABLE little snowman is still one of my VERY favorite ornaments on our tree.  Noah made it at school a few years ago.  I have blogged about it numerous times so I won’t tell the story again of why we love it so much. 

 

Kendall made this sweet ornament at school this year.  LOVE LOVE it.  Inside it has her Christmas wish list.  Don’t you love handmade ornaments?  I had big dreams of making lots of them this year.  Didn’t happen. 

Kendall has some sweet friends at church that she enjoys sitting with.  One of the mom’s snapped this pic.  Love it. 

That handsome little guy is my new little cousin.  Isn’t he adorable??  I so hope I get to see him soon.  He lives in California which is too far away!!! 

 

I actually got our Christmas cards designed, printed and out the door before Christmas.  Hopefully everyone received them in time. 

Eric bought me the camera remote for my iPhone as one of my gifts this year.  LOVE LOVE it.  We took this photo of us on Christmas Day night.  I realized we didn’t get a pic all day of just us so I made him pose with me.  Plus, I was dying to try out my new gift.   

 

Is this crazy or what?  I would say that the kids were a tad bit spoiled as usual?  This is all the gifts from us and my parents.  They almost filled up the whole family room!  I might have to do some rearranging for next year’s decorating and set up through the holidays.  Needless to say, we spent all morning opening gifts and loved every minute of it! 

 

Eric got tickets in the company suite one night for the Grizzlies game.  He only got two tickets this time, so we had a little date night!    

 

 

Santa left us all Cheesecake Factory gift cards in our stockings this year.  Needless to say, we couldn’t wait to use them.  We packed up our stuff and headed to Nashville for a couple days. 

 

Kendall had Christmas money burning a hole in her pocket, so she was ready to SHOP!  One thing she was determined to buy were a pair of brown BearPaw boots.  She found them!!!  She had gotten a pair of gray ones for Christmas and fell in love so then she wanted MORE.

Here’s our sad looking Christmas tree after the presents were all gone and the tree was quickly dying.  I had to take a picture of my last night enjoying it and a nice warm fire.  I really hated to see the tree come down this year.    I am usually so ready to get rid of the clutter, but not so much this year. 

I feel really bad because we had a rather lame New Years Eve this year.  Eric had been out since 2:30am hunting all day and I had been doing the Costco, grocery store, bank, post office, etc errands all day.  Then dismantling that tree.  We were both exhausted.  My parents came over to watch the ball drop with us.  We snacked on a meat and cheese tray, had some sparkling apple juice and then went to bed when it hit midnight.  I didn’t take any pics so I snagged this quick one before we headed off to sleep. 

 

It was a WONDERFUL holiday break though.  I know the kids think it went by way too fast but I feel like we did take time to enjoy all of it.  I especially liked that Eric took off the whole break so he could spend time with us.  It was so nice after he has done so much traveling over the past six months or so.  I am dreading all of that starting back up now.   

Happy New Year everyone!  I wish you all a happy and healthy 2013!!