So This Is Christmas + Give-a-way Winner Announced!

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! The anticipation of what the new year holds, the blessings, the lessons, the memories yet to be made, makes my heart happy to imagine. God has been so good to us this year. 

Dustin had 10 days off for Christmas vacation which was SO terribly needed, for BOTH of us! We'd been looking forward to this break for a very long time. It was so nice to have him here with us to play all day and do fun things as a family. Yesterday morning, one of my favorite movies to watch as a kid was on. Clueless. I think Clueless is where my love for all things Paul Rudd started. My sisters & I knew every single line from that movie, and apparently SO does Dustin. I was shocked when he started reciting it. He said the only reason he knew every line was because he didn't have any friends growing up and watched a lot of T.V. Clueless was always on, he says. But I say, As IF. I know he had friends, but if watching Paul Rudd taught him anything about being super cute and sensitive to woman, than I'm totally ok with him having no friends. 

Before the vacation, I spent about a week or so trying to get Elle on a solid schedule but having Dad home kind of threw it off a bit. I feel like my children are robots or something and here's why. They are seriously such sleep soldiers. It makes life very un-spontaneous. Elle is the happiest little buttery biscuit  if i wake her at 6, put her down at 8, wake her at 1030, put her back down at 1, up at 330 and then she's up until bed at 7 and sleeps the whole night through. If I deviate from that schedule (if i decide to sleep in and not wake her) her whole world falls apart. Conrad was the exact same way when he was a baby (and still is). It's like their happiness hinges on whether they sleep or not. It's been good though having her on a solid routine because once I lay her down for her morning nap, I wake Conrad up and we spend the morning doing pre-school stuff, which has been good for both of us to have that quality time together. 

This Christmas was one of the most exciting Christmas's we've had together. This was the first Christmas that Conrad knew what was going on and it was so much fun to wake him up and bring him into the living room to pull the sheet off of his big boy bike Christmas morning. We tried to give him only 4 gifts. Something he can wear, something he needs, something he wants and something he can read & it turned out to be a great tradition to start. I also wanted to make sure all of the gifts weren't set out until Christmas morning. I feel like it makes it more fun to not see the gifts wrapped ahead of time. Last year, we started a tradition of opening all of our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve after the kids were in bed so that we could really enjoy reading our cards and taking our time with it. I will look forward to this tradition every year. 

A few high lights from our Christmas: 

1. Carousel rides. 2. Lion dress up.

3. Story time with Dad. 4. Sibling snuggle fest!

5. Green pancakes with Dad, not from a box.

6. Sofie Giraffe. 7. First bikes.

8. Cooking with Papa Jim.

9. Christmas morning with Ama Cindi & Papa Jim.

10. Gingerbread sister face.

11. Elle trying out Mommy's new quilt. 

12. Lazy mornings.

***The beautiful & talented {Arielle} from a beautiful journey won 

the bow give a way!