in the land of woulda, coulda, shoulda

gangsters in a christmas paradise,

it should have been our christmas card.

merry christmas from our family to yours!

*thank you to our squadron christmas party for providing the props for this spectacular picture!

christmas tour 2012

this is hands down my favorite time of year.
and honestly, the decorations play a bigger role than i would like to admit.
i can't get enough white lights and red accents.
don't even get me started about sitting on the couch, with a lit tree, a cup of mocha hot chocolate with french vanilla creamer, and a warm fire.
it's the best.

 here's a little tour of our house at christmas.

my favorite spot in the house...

past christmas cards and the infamous stick reindeer...

my creepy nutcracker carolers

 beautiful outdoor decorations curtsey of fly boy

our first ornament together...from the DAFB 3rd squadron christmas party

a plane for fly boy

stockings, complete with our elf on the shelf 

(that charley is too young to care about, but fly boy and i enjoy hiding placing around the house)

fly boy really appreciates charley's help wrapping presents...

(notice the intricately wrapped stuffed animal, a hot pink manatee,  fly boy is working on)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

christmas 2011 part 2 (columbus)

if a picture is worth 1000 words, i'm not sure how many thousands this one is worth...

our christmas in columbus did not go exactly as planned, but turned out to be an (almost) perfect day.  (we were missing a few family members due to the always-hated holiday cold/flu.)

spending time with fly boy's family only made me more excited for the arrival of our baby girl.  i know it's cliched, but there is something magical about christmas with a house full of children.

watching our niece play with her new princess aurora, our nephew with his sister's pretty pretty princess camera and our other niece play with her brother's airplane...i couldn't get enough.

i can't wait for our house to be full of family, children, cousins, aunts and uncles.
it seems crazy to think that next year we will have a 10 month old and a new aunt jess.
crazy wonderful.
i.can't.wait.

christmas 2011 part 1 (syracuse)

i think 2012 is going to be the year of lists.
and organization.
(good thing lists generally aid in your organization.)

i've already started to make a list of things i want to make sure i (we) do for christmas next year with baby girl.
but more on that to come later.

i have to admit, i was a little skeptical about our big travel plans for the holidays.  we went to columbus a few days before christmas, spent christmas eve with fly boy's family, then flew out christmas morning to syracuse to spend christmas night and a few days after christmas with my family.  then flew back to florida.  we got a lot of looks when we told people our plans before we left.  crazy, i know.

the whole trip went surprisingly smooth though.  turns out most people do not travel on christmas morning.  go figure.

christmas 2011 in pictures.

columbus airport

JFK

arriving in snowy syracuse for a white christmas

christmas dinner in syracuse

"christmas morning" on the 26th

enjoying the snow while we can (i don't think we'll be getting much in florida this year...)

christmas part II (columbus) coming soon.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

i.love.christmas.
hands down, my favorite holiday.

part of it certainly is that my top love language is gift giving.  i love finding the perfect gifts.  my brother and i have an unspoken competition each year to see who can give the best gifts to our parents and grandparents.  (usually i win. though he is always in a more stable financial situation, i go for the homemade gifts.  no competition.)

we got a real tree this year.  fly boy grew up with fake trees.  i grew up with real trees.  last year we used his almost-real-looking-fake tree.  while it was very nice to not have to water the tree, or worry about it drying out while we traveled, i insisted politely asked that since we were moving to florida this year and there would be zero chance of getting snow at christmas, at least the house had to smell like christmas.  somehow, cough cough, the fake tree didn't make it in the move from delaware to florida. 

as my brother pointed out, it will be fun to see how high our electric bill is this month.

yes, lucy has her own stocking.  she is an essential part of the family.

probably my favorite christmas decoration...the twig reindeer.  fly boy's least favorite.  these may have been a last minute addition to our wedding registry last year that fly boy had no knowledge of.  in general, when creating a wedding registry, i highly recommend working together to choose items for your house.  in our case, we had some very generous guests, and while fly boy was out on a mission in the middle east or somewhere far away, i needed to add some more items to the registry.  the twig reindeer made the cut.  i honestly didn't think anyone would buy us christmas decorations, but knew we could get 10% off after the wedding.  i was thrilled when the massive boxes arrived at our doorstep a few weeks after the wedding.  my hope is that that one day fly boy will love the deer as much as i do.

i got this free printable from HERE, a cheap frame from walgreens and used some wrapping paper for the background. 

generally, my favorite room in the house, except during christmas (as you can't see the tree from the sunroom.) 

my last project for the season.  all thanks to paper source.

if it were socially acceptable, i would keep the christmas decor up all year.