christmas photos.

happy christmas, friends! i hope you all had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed spending it with loved ones. i usually go crazy this time of year taking a million pictures (and video!) with my family, but keeping an eye on teddy made it a little harder to document as much as i usually do.

i'm a little devastated that i wasn't able to put together a family video this year like this one, this one, and this one, but i'm gradually accepting that having a baby has made my priorities different.

next year i'll be more prepared. maybe.

anyway, here are a few pictures that i managed to snap while we were with family in texas this year.

we had a family nativity and teddy was the sweetest little angel, right?

 ollie and teddy. what hunky cousins, right?!

i'll upload more pictures when i'm not so sleepy. deal? :)

stay warm, friends!
(especially texas friends-- holy blizzard much?!)
xo

christmasing our apartment (with a video!)

we finally got a tree over the weekend. teddy wasn't super impressed with the farm we went to, but i'm thrilled with what we picked. it's bushy and full and fits perfectly under our staircase. 

it's a harry potter tree.

this is our first christmas with teddy, and i didn't want to forget it (especially the little things) so i set the camera up and made a little video of us decorating our apartment. it's not too interesting now, but i think we'll look back on it and have sweet memories.

memories of how sweet teddy is right now (those eyes!). memories of how little i get ready these days and how many chins i have... memories of the awful stockings we bought at some cheap store six years ago (good suggestions of where to buy nice stockings welcome!), and all of the other decorations we got when we were newlyweds and haven't replaced.

memories of our little loft apartment. memories of our harry potter christmas tree.

i keep telling myself one of these years i'm going to go to pottery barn and buy everything seasonal, and then i remember that after i pay for christmas decorations, i still have to shop for christmas, and then when i look at our little things they seem cute again.

this time next week i'll be in an airplane heading to family. i can't wait.

christmas cards
teddy's striped blanket

happy december, guys.

winter photoshoot, or "poor teddy"

guys, we were lucky enough to grab some family christmas photos 

by the incredible kylie fly turley last week which was a BLAST FROM THE PAST;

she and her cute triplet sisters were my neighbors in college,
and she did this photoshoot of gid and i in hawaii when we were newlyweds six years ago.

six years!! 

time, man. it flies.

anyway she did great work, especially considering this was poor teddy's first experience with snow.
(who'd have thought we'd get such a lovely backdrop just by driving up the mountain a few minutes?!)

enjoy, friends. and tell me which one to use for our cards. 

i'm still trying to decide.

i call this one "poor teddy", lol.

thanks again for the pics, ky!

 gid's top
my top, necklace & boots
teddy's top & boots

(everything linked is on SALE! you're welcome.)

breast milk heals most things, and other stuff going on.

you guys. breast milk.

teddy scratched himself on the cheek. (enough to draw blood!) and the internet told me to put breast milk on it. the cut healed overnight. a few weeks later he scratched his eye, and i tried the same thing. healed. i use it when he has the rare baby pimple pop up. it works every time. this stuff that my body makes is incredible. so basically, i am incredible.

he grabs his toes. he's even starting to use his abs (can babies have "abs"? should i say tummy??) to sit up. when he does, he gets this self important grin on his face and it makes my heart melt. what a little stud.

he's decided he'd rather not sleep through the night after all. (at least he gave it a try for a few days, right?) his prime time for flirting and cooing is around 3:30 am. this little boy is so sweet, but he's driving me crazy.

gid and i had a date for the first time since the delivery and went to a drive-in less than five minutes from our house because we're crazy parents who can't be too far from our baby. you guys, don't eat junk food if your body isn't used to it. trust me. woof.

if someone would've told me a year ago that last season's diapers would get me excited, i would have groaned and rolled my eyes. whatever. they're cute. and on sale.

(honest co. also just released five new prints for the current winter season. also cute.
we just ordered a bundle. teddy's bum is seasonal for the next 200 diapers at least, y'all...)

most days my incision is numb. (that's normal, right c section mamas?) but every now and then i'll get sharp, intense pains that last a few seconds. isn't it crazy that four months ago, a surgeon cut me open, moved around all my organs, pulled a person out, and sewed me back up? and i'm still alive?! science, man!

i'm not sure i'll ever feel strong enough (or brave enough) to do a real jumping jack again.

teddy and i are getting better with outings. the other day i took him to the mall and target in the same trip. he smiled at sales people and had the most unbelievable blowout in jcrew while i was in the dressing room. i can't decide if his explosion means that he hates shopping and was dying to get home, or if he really wanted to have his diaper changed there because he has expensive taste.

6:30pm feels like midnight. i hate these short days.

i'm thinking of doing a giveaway on my blog. do people still do that? is that a thing still? i feel like social media blew up into a completely new thing while i was in graduate school, and now i don't understand it. i wish i was more of a hipster. maybe i should get gid a man bun for christmas. (omg. i think i will...)

i thought i'd fit into all of my old clothes by now. (wrong again, alyssa.) but i'm stubborn and refusing to buy more clothes, because i feel like that's giving in to the enemy. i don't know who the enemy is, but i'll never surrender.

unless surrendering is wearing leggings a lot. in that case, i surrendered a long time ago.

we took christmas card pictures yesterday on top of a mountain in snow covered trees. (stay tuned!) i know it sounds silly, but taking real family pictures for the first time felt like a big deal.

man, this post was all over the place.
if you made it this far, you're a trooper.



ps- but seriously, are giveaways still a thing?

catching up to christmas...

Oh, friends. Haven't posted a thing since Halloween. Haven't had a chance.

Every year of grad school; every semester has been challenging in its own way, but nothing could have prepared me for this last fall. Putting on a thesis concert is no joke. 

Ups and downs, that's for sure. But I have to say, and I could not be more honest right now, that my five dancers were completely enchanting, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the end product. The stage design was (dare I say) perfect, thanks to a friend calling in a favor at hale theatre down in provo. And the costumes! They were exactly what I envisioned. I remember leaving the last night-- feeling like I was gleaming on the inside. Without a doubt, the best piece I've ever created. That feels good.

After the concert I exhaled, got on a flight, and when I woke up, I was in Texas.

Texas. With it's warm starry evenings, and its big-sky sunsets. Texas with the home I grew up in, steeping me in memories every time I walk in. My parents have been doing a lot of remodeling the last few years; every time I walk in the house, there's a room that seems completely new. The memories though, they stay. Every time I go into the kitchen I walk by the wall that I accidentally kneed a hole in while I was horsing around once with my brother Josh. Then there's the bathroom that I'd have "spa days" in when I was a kid. There's the feeling my parents leave in the house--it feels like a warm hug and a cup of cinnamon tea. Goodness. I don't know how I ended up with the best parents in the world.  

Then I watch my niece and my two nephews playing in the same rooms that I grew up in. Having their own shenanigans. And then I just ache with baby fever. (No, unfortunately this is not an announcement...)

And as I watch little miss mimi singing to herself as she prances around the larger guest bedroom (used to be my brothers' room...), and watch gabey patiently looking into the glass window of the oven waiting for his Christmas cookies to finish baking, and then see Alex (the newest nephew) sitting with a big gummy grin, I think of the sweet memories my nieces and nephews are building for themselves, and for us. And then I think about how the best part about Christmas is being with family.

(sigh) It really is the best time of the year, isn't it friends? Can't wait for next year.

a farewell to a lovely tree.

well,

our tree is down.

When we found it on top of the snowy mountain in salmon idaho,  i wasn't too impressed to be honest.

It was quite small. About 3 1/2 feet. It had few branches. What few branches it did possess, they would shed pine needles insistently. The tree was sappy, and I was skeptical that it's trunk was thick enough to fit any tree stand. However, we had cut it down, and it deserved a fair shot into our tiny apartment.

 When we pulled it out of the trunk from the long trip, our little 2011 christmas tree looked even sadder than it had on the grand snowy mountain. The trip from salmon had claimed a few more hundred of it's pine needles, and it maintained the shape it held during the road trip. I was right- it was too small to fit into even the custom sized tree stand. The circumference of the trunk was about as big as my lower arm. We used a large glass votive filled with rocks to stabilize the trunk and water to give a little life to the almost lifeless plant. It seemed fine. Small, but stable. We had to use less lights, and only the lightest of ornaments.

The night after we set it up it fell down around 4 in the morning. Gid and I flew out of bed to rescue our carpet and fake wood floors. Luckily- nothing broke, nothing was damaged, and after a few minutes of wiping with towels and setting up a fan, we crawled back into our warm bed.

The next day we set it up again. Gid put nails into the lovely cinderblock walls, and fastened the tiny tree trunk to the nails with yarn. We never had a problem with it again for the rest of the holidays. It was bold for us to leave it, unattended for almost three weeks straight, but the tree stayed steadfast.

Every day that its been up, I've left the christmas lights on the tree (and on the snowflake garland) regardless what time of day it is. It gleamed back at me, sneakily charming its way into my heart, replacing the soft spot I have for going out and buying a nice full 5 foot tree at a city christmas tree farm.

It was painfully short. Sadly scrawny. It shed countless needles. My walls had a thin, yet stubborn splotch of sap that needed to be cleaned. We spent a few hours last night vacuuming and scrubbing the aftermath of the tree.

Oh, how I miss it.

I never realized how sad the corner was before the little tree graced it with the fragrant scent of pine, tiny white lights, glittering ornaments, and cheerful holly berries. Has our apartment always been so bare in that corner?

Oh sweet christmas tree of 2011:

you will be sorely missed. and you are dear to my heart. the end.

Happy Monday to you all, dear friends.

dear christmas 2011,

thank you for bringing us a white christmas. 

even though we're in texas.

thank you for bringing my sweet family together. 

including (perhaps especially) my sweet niece and nephew.

thank you for the unforgettable Christmas morning memories, full of pjs, giggles, and bad cases of bedhead.

(winner of best morning hair)

(grandma is singing a song. naomi is clapping along- and gabe seems a little confused...)

(gabe loves playing with anyone's toes. naomi does not like having her toes played with...)

thank you for giving me good reason to watch "Its a Wonderful Life". 

three times. 

so far. 

I cry every time, but thanks just the same.

thank you for another holiday season with my handsome sweet husband. 

can not believe its our third christmas as a married couple.

2011 Christmas- you're my favorite Christmas so far.

Be sure to have an extra thank you in your prayers tonight, friends. 

A lovely Christmas to you all.