Browsing Category

Family

Blog, christmas, Family, holidays, Vlog

Christmas Cheer


This post contains affiliate links

It’s that time again!! One of my favorite times of the year. Decorating the Christmas tree with my family in matching pajamas! This is our 3rd year doing it and I don’t see us stopping any time soon. Well, hopefully not. Teenagers still like to match their entire family and pose for pictures with them, right? Someone tell me that they do! For now, I will cherish these moments while they are still young enough to not only match us, but to actually love matching us! My pregnant self actually just teared up a little bit thinking of how fleeting these moments are. But I know we still have a few years so I’m going to enjoy it while I can!

This year we got these new pajamas! We had been wearing the same elf sets for the past 2 years so it was time for a change..especially since some of the kids’ pants had holes in the knees from wearing them so much. This year I decided to go with something a little less Christmas-y so we could rock them all year round. Not that we didn’t already do that with the elf jammies. But now I could actually photograph them all year without looking out of place. And can we talk about how much my husband enjoys it too? Because I know there are some husbands out there who would be totally opposed to the matching jammie thing. But Don is completely on board.

Before setting up our tree, I asked the kids if we could snap a few family photos. The focus and coloring is off on pretty much every picture but I still absolutely love them! My favorite part is seeing everyone’s personalities shining through. (Except sweet Clementine who would have rather not been in the pictures with us. I suppose she’s already embarrassed haha.)

While I was setting up the camera and testing out the camera remote, I happened to snap this adorable picture. Desmond’s smile melts me every time I look at it!

All of these pictures were taken the week before getting our new camera a lens so now we’re going to have to retake them to get better quality 😉 Anyway, after we were done taking pictures, we drug all our Christmas decorations out and started putting up the Christmas tree!

I didn’t start taking pictures until they were probably halfway done because I was helping them put hooks on the ornaments. But I did get a few photos!

And of course by the time I pulled out my camera, Desmond was pretty much done. I managed to find one picture on my camera to document the fact that he helped 😉

I love these pictures of the boys reaching up to hang the ornaments as high as they can. It won’t be long until they won’t need to find things to stand on.

When we decorate, I let the kids put up all the ornaments on their own. It ends up looking like colorful chaos. It’s beautiful because it’s their creativity shining through. But I’ll be honest, I want my tree to look nice too! So after they are done decorating and have moved on to other things, I go back and rearrange it how I like it!

The past couple of years they didn’t really care. This year I could tell they were kind of wanting to keep it the way it was. I mentioned buying them a clearanced tree after Christmas to put upstairs so that they could decorate however they wanted. They were so excited! They love the rainbow tree that we ended up with. But I know they’d also love to have a bit more control with creativity. So I’m excited that we found a solution that everyone is happy with!

Clementine had been napping up until this point. When she came out, she had so much fun playing with all of the ornaments. It made me very nervous that we’d spend the whole Christmas season redirecting her. But thankfully it hasn’t become too much of an issue. It’s kind of funny that I prepare myself every year to have a toddler destroying our tree and then they barely notice its existence.

I love our bright, cheery rainbow tree during the day. And also the cozy, magical vibes it gives off at night. I saw Don playing around with the camera by the tree so that made ME want to do it. I always love the glow it casts on everyone’s faces.

And this itty bitty Clemmie hand reaching for an ornament!

Also, this super grainy, but super adorable picture of the kids. They all kept lining up on the window sill and asking me to take pictures. The way Desmond is looking at his big brother is just the sweetest so I had to include it in this post!!

Before you go, make sure you watch the vlog from our Christmas tree decorating!!

And if you want to see our tree decorating from years past and see how much everybody has grown, you can click HERE for last year’s and HERE  for two years ago! Have a happy weekend!

December 8, 2017
Blog, Fall, Family, st. louis

Apple Picking at Centennial Farms


Happy first day of fall!! Of  course, with weather in the 90s for the next few days, it definitely doesn’t feel like fall. But that won’t stop me from busting out my fall scented candles and pretending that I won’t melt if I step outside the front door.

Last week, we noticed that one of Don’s weekend days was supposed to be in the upper 60s. We had been planning on shooting our gender reveal photo that day but the baby wouldn’t cooperate so we didn’t find out what we’re having. I was definitely pretty disappointed so I decided to cheer myself up with a trip to the apple orchard.

Apple picking has been a favorite family tradition of ours for years. We usually end up going on super hot, sunny days. I was seriously giddy over the fact that we could wear “fall clothes” and I didn’t have to worry about kids complaining about being hot. It was cracking me up looking through last year’s apple picking photos and noticing a lot of similar pictures–including a picture like the one below of Desmond’s scrunchy face and wearing the same exact shirt haha. Yes, he still fits into that shirt one year later. I also noticed that I posted that blog post on the first day of fall last year. I guess you could say that I’m pretty predictable?

With Don’s work schedule this year, we were unable to visit our usual orchard. But we were able to find another one, Centennial Farms, that was open on weekdays. We thought it was great but my major complaint was the lack of apple cider donuts. Huge disappointment for this pregnant woman! Donut worry, I did get my donut fix from my dear friend who got an extra one from the other orchard.

Of course this year was special because it was Clementine’s first time apple picking! She spent most of her time practicing her walking and throwing our apples out of our apple basket.

Those faces! Don’t they make you want to pinch her cheeks? Clem’s bonnet is from Stitched Hearts Co. The shop is taking a short break through October 21st, but I wanted to share a bit about her shop. The mama who makes these bonnets just lost one of her twin girls, her beautiful 10 month old daughter, Vivian, to a heart condition a few months ago. As I scrolled through her pictures, I fell in love with this precious baby and my heart ached for their family.

Bekah (the mama) is so sweet and thoughtful and has decided to start her shop with a mission to donate a bonnet to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for every bonnet purchased, in memory of her daughter. I only recently “met” Bekah on Instagram but I was so encouraged by her story. She’s been such a sweet person to get to know. I also love her bonnets 😉 I get so many questions about Clem’s bonnets so I thought you all would love to know about this shop too! I’ll go ahead and link her business and personal Instagram accounts in case you want to follow along!

Can I just say that as much as I love having a family vlog, sometimes I get really annoyed that there’s a phone or GoPro in all my pictures haha. But I get fun family videos out of it so I guess I can’t complain too much.

These pictures of Clem! They make me smile every time I look at them! We pulled her in the wagon on our way to pay for our apples and she absolutely loved it! She kept giggling as she bumped along.

Also, Evangeline’s outfit? Total love! Her hat and dress were found on clearance from Old Navy the day before.

So the whole day started out all fun and happy but I feel like there’s just always a point where everything goes downhill at once–and quickly. And that was pretty much right before we took these group shots. There was a certain 2 year old that kept crying about apple peels stuck in his mouth and the sun was starting to peek out from behind clouds. So there was whining starting to come from every direction (I won’t lie–I was complaining too haha) So when we realize things are getting to that point, that’s when we usually pack up fast and leave whatever we’re doing. Of course I had to quickly get these group shots before we left and I’m so glad we did, even if we don’t look like the most chipper bunch.

I’ve been waiting nearly a year to get a shot of them all standing in a row! Now I need a new stair step photo with them all standing!!

As much as I was disappointed to not find out the baby’s gender last week, this trip definitely made up for it! Plus it gave us the chance to put a lot more thought into the actual gender reveal next week (pending baby’s cooperation!) Seriously, it was so fun! Now we need to put together a fall bucket list. Obviously we’ll hit up the pumpkin patch but please let me know some of your favorite fall traditions!

I already linked last’s year’s apple picking post, but I’ll go ahead and link again down here and the year before here and here if you’re interesting in seeing them!

September 22, 2017