New Change: Christmas Traditions Part I

I have never been a person that likes to change traditions. My family Christmas traditions began to change a few years back when our family dynamic changed. I also became apart of a new family, so I actually added new traditions along with keeping some of the old ones. One of the first major changes was when we stopped eating breakfast at my Mema's house on Christmas morning. That was a very hard tradition for me to change. I loved spending time with my family and enjoying a nice homemade breakfast together. Mema always made us homemade gravy and biscuit, which has always been one of my favorites.

My family has always did a majority of our celebration on Christmas Eve. We eat a nice dinner together and we open gifts. We also opened our gifts with just mom and dad too. Once Santa clause stopped coming on Christmas morning things slowed down a lot. Now that I'm married we still spend Christmas Eve with my family and then we spend Christmas day with Chris' family. Even though I've had to let go of some traditions I have also added some great new traditions with Chris' family. Change isn't always a bad thing.

This year the biggest change came. Chris was  on call at the hospital this past week. Thankfully he is a chaplain at the small hospital in town and he didn't get called in over Christmas at all. Being on call meant that we couldn't leave Wilmington this Christmas. We actually celebrated Christmas a week early with our families and Christmas weekend was more quiet and relaxing. Our friend Brian came up and stayed with us, so that was a nice addition to our Christmas weekend. Most likely we will experience many more early Christmas' in the future, but the older I get the more I welcome new traditions! I just hope to always carry a little part of the old with the new!

Here's a few pictures from our Christmas with our family:

We drove to Rocky Mount the weekend before Christmas on Friday night. Saturday we spent all day with Chris' family opening gifts and sharing a nice meal together.

(Ken & Emma)

 

(Chris & I)

We tried to give very creative and personal gifts this year. We made this little bag of coal and filled it with licorice, which my father-n-law loves! Chris also made his dad a special gift using one of my images.

Kristi loved the gift Emma picked out for her!

(Memaw & Emma)
We made a little snow globe for Jess & Lee that had a giftcard to a few different restaurants and we are giving them movie tickets. We figured it would be nice for them to have a little date night!

I made Emma this fun little hopscotch mat. This is something that she can use for hopefully quite a few years!

Emma opening some presents with her dad (Lee). She got lots of cool gifts of course :)

(Emma & Daddy (Lee))

Emma loved Chris' singing bowl that he got for Christmas.

Chris' cool new hat!

My awesome new kindle. Now I just need to order (loan) some books :)

We also got a new vacuum cleaner.  We were very excited to get this new toy! When we got home Chirs wanted to be the first one to use it, which was kind of cute! I didn't mind him cleaning one bit.

I love all of Emma's different expressions in these images!!!!

We got caught by mommy (Jess) putting Emma's UNC chearleading outfit on! I LOVE IT :) We also taught her to say "Go Heels!"

(Emma & I)

(Emma & Uncle Ye Ye (Chris) )

Chris & I went to Church on Sunday and then we headed to Mema's house to celebrate Christmas with her, my mom, and my brother.

Mom had been wanting to few updated pictures of Chris & I, so Chris snapped a few of us when we came home for Thanksgiving. I surprised her with this cool canvas that I made for her.

Kevin & Chris both got these very cool hats!

I'm not sure how long ago this tradition started, but we give Kevin penguin boxers every year. This year the plastic penguin kind of gave the gift away, but I couldn't resist!

We all got swiss army knives for Christmas!

(Mom & I)

We try to get a family picture around Christmas. I sure hate that the rest of the family wasn't with us this day, but I'm glad we still had fun with it! This was Kevin's idea!

This was our shot at a "normal" family picture. They don't always turn out like you expect, but we sure won't forget this one!

(Mema & Mom)

(Mom, Kevin, & Me)

We got lots of very nice gifts, but more importantly we were very thankful to be home with our family!

New Change: Busy, but HAPPY!

Lately I feel like I just have not had enough time in a day. I'm sure most people feel like this. On a good note, I haven't been stressing out about my long to-do list!

Here's a few things I've been up to lately:

Coming up with art projects for the kids I work with

Three Weddings & a Kids Photo Session (editing, editing, editing)

Traveling

For two of my weddings I had to travel out of town. It also worked out for me to go to my niece's 2nd Birthday party. Chris was able to make it to Rocky Mount for her party too!!!

Personal craft projects

I made these for Emma's Birthday! It was such a fun project to work on. I also made two more owl's for Sara's (one of my bride's) flower girls. I was really happy to find out that one of the girls sleeps with her owl every night!

I have a few other projects going on at the house. I'll look forward to EVENTUALLY sharing those!

Keeping our house clean (on going of course!)

Clearing Clutter (again, on going!!)

Planning Parties

Preparing for something big in my future ( not referring to babies....more to be revealed later!)

I know someone who would love to see me post a few pictures of how her baby shower is going, but that's not going to happen!

This list could continue on, but I don't even have time to post anything else! Back to work! Tomorrow I'm planning on going to Church and spending the rest of the day with my husband!!!! NO WORK!!!

Crafty: Creative Minds

(Created for my friend, Amie, for her Birthday)

We all have creative minds, we just use them in different ways! I like to use my creative abilities by making crafty projects. Usually I either make gifts for friends or make something for our house. Here's a few of the recent projects that I have created:

(I sold these on Etsy to a Bride)

(I made this one for a photography friend whose last name is Peacock)

(I made these for a friend for her Birthday)

(I also made this for my friend, Brandie, for her Birthday)

(My latest creation for my friend, Kerri)

Check out my Etsy page if you are interested in purchasing one of my crafty projects :)