christmas.

Christmas is always a special, fun time of year, but it was even more exciting this year because we had our little gracie to celebrate with! even though she's only 2 months old and has no idea what Christmas is nor can she open or appreciate any presents, it was still fun to add her little stocking to the mantel and wrap presents with her name on them :)

gracie and her favorite uncle Jordan on Christmas day

I didn't take hardly any pictures of our festivities this year. too wrapped up in spending time with our sweet little family to bother. this year, jae surprised me with a new kitchenaid mixer, I got him some nice stacy adams grey church shoes, and gracie got some new additions to her wardrobe, as well as some toys and books. zoey's present was getting to rip open gracie's presents for her. she loved it.

we had a great holiday season. hard to believe it's already over. we had a great time spending time together, which is what's important. I love my little family and it is so fun celebrating these holidays.

jazz game.

for Christmas, i gave Jae tickets to the Jazz vs. Golden State Warriors game.

we were in the upper bowl, and

naturally, the Jazz lost.

but it was still fun to be at the game.

sushi & lights

we had a fun christmas date night with the oveson's and green's.

yummy sushi and amazing christmas lights downtown?

i could do this kinda thing all year 'round.

**thanks to mary for the photos. again...mine are all still stuck on my camera.

brunch.

{i will preface this post with a sorry and a get-over-it.....i'm way behind on all my holiday blogging, so i've just got to get them up. read them or not, whatever you prefer.}

basically, i'm up for any reason to get together and make breakfast/brunch.
it's my favorite food for sure.
so since my friends from way back when we were wee elementary school kids haven't gotten together in quite some time, we decided it was about time. and food would be the main attraction.

everyone came over to our house the weekend before Christmas.
we made all sorts of yummies to eat and sat and blabbed.
we also did white elephants, which is customary, of course.

new yearly tradition?
i think so.

 

**pictures courtesy of torrie. my photos on my camera are all still on my camera....makes blogging with them very difficult. thanks torrie.

Christmas 2012.

we had a good Christmas this year, as usual. we are blessed. throughout most the month of December, i spent a lot of time making traditional chocolate chip cookies. my favorite. (and trying to eat something a little healthier - fruit - inbetween cookie bites.) we had our annual sugar cookie decorating party with the Horrocks's the sunday before Christmas.

we spent Christmas Eve with my family (everyone but the China couterparts). we had a huge breakfast/brunch at my sisters house. pancakes, eggs, fruit, bacon, sausage, juice, milk, muffins...you name it, we had it. soo good. we all opened gifts from eachother, which was fun. all the grandkids got remote control monster trucks from grandma and grandpa, which they loved (even the girls!). it was snowing most the day, which made for such a pretty backdrop for our party.

my parents, oldest sister and her family, and jae and i had Christmas Eve dinner together at Texas Roadhouse. it was super crowded, which surprised me a little. but was delicious as ever. afterwhich, we went back to our house for treats, games, and Elf watching.

Christmas morning, we woke up to our own little Christmas present opening with just Jae, Zoey, and i. Jae got some new slippers (our floors are SO cold), sour patch watermelons, tickets to a Jazz game, eye glasses cleaner (super exciting, i know), and probably his favorite gift - dark knight rises on blu-ray. i think i could've just given him that alone and he would've been happy as a peach. i got some clothes, lots of new nail polishes, jewelry, make-up, long cozy socks, and of course - plenty of reese's trees. Zo got two new chew toys (which were chewed up in pieces literally within about 4 minutes) and a new collar.

we stopped by my parents for a few minutes to see everyone that was there and stuff our faces with some brunch leftovers. i surprised Jae with a (gigantic) framed picture of Paris and the Eiffel tower for our living room wall. i had to hide it at my parents because there's no way i could've kept it hidden at our house. he loves it! success.

next we headed to Jae's moms for Christmas present opening with his family. Jae was "santa", as he is every year (wears a santa hat and is in charge of passing out the presents). we got more fun gifts there, and ate another meal. Jae had to quickly be off to work, but only worked a few hours and was home for dinner, so it wasn't so bad. Zoey and i went home and took a quick snooze while Jae worked. it was such a great holiday with lots of family.

a few photos from here and there during our Christmas season this year:

the day after.

well, we stayed up entirely too late last night (for a girl who was supposed to get up and get to work at a reasonable time this morning) watching the dark knight rises on blu-ray (one of Jae's gifts). but he was like a kid in a candy shop and couldn't another second to watch it. and i finally made it into work at about 930 today. and tonight, we're using one of Jae's other Christmas gifts....going to the Jazz game! 

so it's all good.

i haven't quite got all my pictures put together about our Christmas fun yet, so i'll post on that a little later. for now, a snippet of what the pup and i did on our Christmas afternoon (while Jae had to go work for a few hours...boo.) hope your holiday was as busy and fun as ours!

Zo and i snoozing watching one of my all-time favorites - the muppet christmas carol.

cozy.

christmas tree lights.

fuzzy blanket.

hot cocoa.

cuddles.

perfection.

cheers to the last day on earth ;)

ps: happy last-minute shopping!

perhaps i'll see you out there.

{un}wrapped.

i finally got a couple presents wrapped yesterday before Jae got home.
there are only two, but i was excited to have something to put under the tree.

a couple of hours later, Jae and i were painting (yes, painting again...or still...whichever).
it was too quiet in the house, so Jae went to investigate.

our conversation went something like this:
J: uh Mara, did you put some presents under the tree?
M: uh oh. what did she do?
J: she tore one apart.
M: well which one?? don't look at it! can you see the present?!? don't look!!!

that little stink pup!!

needlesstosay, that present is re-wrapped (and the ribbon on the other one was re-done as well...) and they're both sitting up on the entertainment center now. seriously, i feel like i have a toddler in our house!

gifting.

i decided to pull out my best crafty-ness and make a little something for a few of my neighbor friends.

yes - this is about as crafty as i get, so be impressed.

i thought they were fun!

what you'll need:

*container with a lid (i got mine at michael's for 50% off!)

*hot chocolate

*red & white peppermints 

(and something to crush them up with...i just used a spoon)

*mallows

*chocolate chips

and bam!

simple, i tell you.

what are your fun neighbor/coworker/friend/whoever else gifts this year?

christmas wishlist 2012

a few things i wouldn't mind seeing under the tree this year...

 

skirt - old navy

fun tights - nordstrom 

jacket - the north face

phone! - iPhone

mixer - kitchenaid

black pumps - steve madden

**i feel like i should comment on the events of this past friday in connecticut. but i'm not really sure what to say. and i feel a little silly posting about high heels and mixers while there are families that just had their worlds turned upside down.  i am grateful i got to spend more time than usual with my nieces and nephews the last couple of days. i don't have any children of my own yet, but my heart hurts for those moms and dads, brothers and sisters that lost someone this weekend. they are in my thoughts and prayers.

frame of mind.

i've been thinking about this Christmas season on a deeper level a lot lately. it is so easy to get caught up in the gifts and buying and lists and hurrying and sales and errands and money.....all of it. and i am totally guilty of it! it's just all so much and i just stress myself out most of the time. and for what? so we have nicely wrapped presents that probably cost too much to put under our perfectly decorated trees that took hours to put together?

this year, being in our own home, i wanted to make the Christmas season a little more special for Jae and i. we bought a few new items of decor (mostly because we didn't have much of anything), spent an hour or so setting up our simple tree together while listening to Michael Buble's Christmas album, and put a wreath on our front door. we agreed to keep gifts for each other simple - one or two presents and then stockings. and you know what? it's so much nicer that way. don't get me wrong, we both love getting each other presents and doing those fun things, which we still do, but we keep in mind to not go crazy with gifts or stress about what to get. because really...it doesn't matter all that much.

we only get this time of year once, and although time seems to speed right on by most of the time, i need to remember to stop and pace myself. enjoy the music, the lights, the hot chocolate, the extra snuggles, the company of good friends and family. enjoy the simple things. more importantly, remember why we do all of this. remember what happened those many, many years ago. remember that tiny baby that was born in a manger and changed all our lives forever.

i am so blessed.

holiday spirit. {or something}.

we decided to make sure our pup is part of our holiday celebrations and bought her a stocking to hang with ours. (of course, that makes it sound like our stockings actually have a place to hang, which they, in fact, do not, but ya know...)

cute right?
well, if you look closely, you'll find it has become flawed. i very foolishly left our stockings sitting on top of Zoey's kennel the other day. i knew as soon as i set them there 'just for a minute', it was a bad idea. i made a trip to the store that afternoon, and when i got back i found both her stocking and one of ours pulled down in her kennel. i kind of had a mini freak out, since all our stockings are brand new this year. and i knew Jae would be none-to-happy to know i left them where pup could chew on them. i was relieved to only find our stockings in good shape still, and only hers had been affected by her chewing.

 but i figure it seems fitting, right? of course Zoey, master of chewing all things, would chew a hole in her stocking.

in other news, i painted my nails, and tried a little harder than usual to be...creative, i guess? not much, but a little. that's about as good as it gets 'round here.

{i know, Chelsea the nail queen, they're still not up to par ;)}

life without internet & cable

turns out day-to-day life is totally different when you are living without internet or cable at home.
have you tried it?
i mean, of course we "tried" it when we were younger and those things were a rarity in homes.
but now, everyone has at least one or both, and it's weird to not.

so why did we ditch both, you ask?
to be honest, i was just sick of paying for it.
sick of forking out $82 a month, and then $94 a month,
and eventually $105 a month for it.
you know how they do it,
they just creep up and up until you're paying double what you were paying in the beginning.
and that's lame.
so i said (after a few months of back-and-forth) be gone with you!!
and now it's gone.

weird.

now, in the evenings when both Jae and i are home, we don't get some dinner and sit down to watch a basketball game or catch up on DVR.
we don't search the web for awesome things for our house that we can't afford.

some of you may know this, but we still have two bedrooms that have not been painted/finished/organized/anything yet since we finally moved in our home 8 months ago. why haven't we finished up those two rooms? why have they remained closed-doors junk/storage rooms all this time?

two reasons: because we've been busy, and because we've been lazy. avoiding them like the plague.

well, now that our internet and cable is no more, what did we do last night after work?
we went through our "office" (it will someday be an office..) and started the finishing work to get the walls prepped for painting. how long has it taken us to do this???

well folks, if getting rid of the net and cable is what it takes to get those darn rooms finished, then so be it!

it's not even just about getting work done on our house, though. it's like all of a sudden we have time to make dinner or sit and chat about our day or play with the pup. our house is much quieter without the tv always on, and it's kind of really nice.

but i'll be honest, not having internet at home and not even having regular tv much less DVR is a little sad at times. it has put a little damper on my blogging habits.

someday i'll post about our Thanksgiving and our work at home and stuff. and perhaps there will even be pictures! just maybe.

until then, please love me anyway. and enjoy our sweet little tree :)