2011

Somehow New Year's always sneaks up on me.

Maybe it's because it's just another day.

Maybe it's because time always seems to speed on by without a glance back.

Maybe it's because it's so close to Christmas.

Maybe it's because staying up until midnight is no longer a special occasion.

Whatever the reason, it provides a time to reflect, and a time to look toward the future. The future will come on its own, no matter how hard I try to prevent it; but thankfulness for God's abundant blessings in the past year is something I myself have control over.

2011 held many adventures, challenges, and changes. I thank my God for every single moment. He is so in control :) And He loves me. So much. :)

Happy New Year :) I love you all!

oh christmas tree

Our Christmas tree had been sitting undecorated in our living room for a week, just begging to be decorated with some sparkly lights & shiny ornaments.

So finally, on Sunday, I put Christmas music on Spotify and we decorated the beautiful tree.

As always, there were exclamations over whose ornament was whose, sad voices saying their fifteen year old dough ornament finally molded, & lots of happy memories of Christmas past.

I'm not a huge fan of the pictures, but I thought I'd share anyway. That giant tree really does look great :)

 

sigh... :)

Sooo... there's this absolutely adorable movie coming out on Valentine's Day no less, and I'm just super excited! It makes my girly heart oh so happy :)

cookie baking

I love cookies. I mean, who doesn't? And I also love my friends. A lot. Aaanndd I love Christmas. It's just my favorite ever. So when all these things come together it makes me super happy :)

We started the tradition when I was just a little sophomore. When we all went away to college we vowed to keep up the tradition.

Sooo... when we all began breathing again after finals, we realized we were all traveling at different times over break. The last day possible was Saturday. Except someone had to work 11-4, someone else had a swim meet at 3, and I had to babysit 5-9. Someone joked that we'd just have to do it at 6 am.

They should've kept their mouth shut. I rolled out of bed at 5:15am Saturday morning, grumpy but super psyched for our beloved tradition.

By 11:30, we'd baked six kinds of cookies, been completely covered in flour & powdered sugar, danced to lots of Christmas songs, and said lots of silly things due to our lack of sleep. On a normal day I would've just woken up. How productive of us ;)

  Now for a few candid pictures... oh how I've missed these girls :)

Merry Christmas :)