After months of being held hostage by a rogue WordPress plugin, I can finally add images and create new posts! I hate how off-track things have been this year — I have months of photographs to organize and share — and I’m so behind on documenting my favorite moments. This year has been such a huge shift in all areas for me and I think blogging might just be one of those. I’m hoping to play catch up over the next few weeks, but I’m probably going to disable ads and affiliate links and get back to sharing my family’s memories. I miss the days of low stress blogging and I think removing the pressure to “make something out of this,” will really help me regain focus.
baking | We’re gearing up for another solo holiday at home, so Sophie has been brainstorming dessert ideas for the big day. She practiced a new chocolate chip cookie recipe yesterday and, aside from an adjustment on the baking time, I think it’s a winner.
decorating | I swore we would decorate even earlier than usual this year, but after declaring that nothing would be done until I painted the walls of our first floor, I got a little behind. We put everything up the week before Thanksgiving and we all think that everything is better by twinkle light. We added candles in our windows and new trees in the girls’ rooms, but I also purged so many unused decorations. After a few years in this house, I’m finally getting a sense for how I want our holiday house to feel. I’m hoping to get our outdoor wreaths up this afternoon and we can officially call it done!
gifting | I’ve been done with my shopping for several weeks and it’s the earliest I’ve ever finished. COVID makes Josh a little paranoid, so we decided to be done by Thanksgiving… just in case. It’s a great feeling and I can enjoy the next few weeks with little stress. We opted out of most other gift giving this year and are trying to keep things simple for the holidays.
hoping | We can all agree that this has been the weirdest year, so I’m hoping that I can make our holidays as special for the girls as possible. We aren’t making any firm decisions about how to celebrate until a little closer to Christmas, but I’ve stocked up on all of their holiday favorites in case we celebrate alone. The tent where we normally get our real tree has already closed for the year and I read today that our normal Christmas light display won’t be open — these are such little things to lose, but I’m hoping to find exciting replacements!
sending | Christmas cards are being ordered today and I CANNOT WAIT. Polly’s Santa session was hilarious and our family photographs are my new favorites — our card are on track to be pretty special, despite everything else this year has brought about.
