Season's Greetings!

It's that best time of the year again, isn't it? The season of appetizers, stockings, twinkling lights, vast arrays of cookies, listening to Tran Siberian orchestra on repeat for an entire month, laying around on the couch for days at a time with your family members the weekend after Christmas. The tree at our house fell down a total of three times, two of the times were on top of our own dear Paisley. Luckily she was never hurt, and would only shout in surprise from underneath the tree, "OH NO! Christmas tree fall down AGAIN!!!"

Our Christmas has been lovely. We've been spending time with family, playing new games, eating too much food, watching It's a Wonderful Life, and fighting over who gets to snuggle with my mom's new kitten.

And so here we are, Merry Christmas from us! Here's a few pictures of our festivities. If you were wondering where Paisley got her extremely adorable Christmas outfit, my own dear mother made it. Including the little black velvet jacket!



And here's the Christmas post from last year! Fuzzy memories, and the like.

A first time for everything!

So I participated in my first craft show last weekend! It was held at a local church here in Cloquet, and I had a great time. The hubs helped me create this awesome display to showcase my note cards and prints. And my mom stayed home with my noisy, albeit lovable toddler! Thanks guys.

Please to observe pictures below.

Overall I was pleased with how things went! This being my first time, I was just hoping to cover my costs to purchase my spot in the event, but I was pleasantly surprised by my profit. Yay! I'm hoping to do more shows in Duluth this next year. Up nort ya know.

I haven't shared a ton about my art or projects lately, but I wanted to give a little update of the new items in my Etsy shop! We've got a few Christmas cards, and a new hummingbird and robin that weren't in there before.

Check them all out here to shop for your Christmas cards or unique gifts for your pals and fam!!

Oh, and happy turkey week, folks.

my christmas candles are still locked up tight

And so winter has arrived, with much to do. Six inches of it! Paisley was absolutely thrilled, a little more thrilled than myself, but that's usually what being a toddler is all about. Being thrilled about things that create work for your parents. And while the plus side of our new place is that there is about 60% less snow for us to shovel than our last place (or should I say, for the hubs to shovel), the downside is that we only have a small, old, one car garage with no garage door opener and a tiny driveway on a horrible slope that makes it hard to dig our two cars out of and get them out of the driveway without a good push.

And despite it all, despite the slippery roads and the necessity to give yourself twice as much travel time to your snowy destination, despite the mitten-less fingers that freeze as you scrape windows and buckle seat buckles, I'm not feeling quite as put out about it as I usually am. Instead I'm feeling a little bit...cozy? Dare I say...even a little bit Christmas-y? I am typically one to give an absolute strong "NO" to any type of Christmas ANYTHING before Thanksgiving is over, but this year I'm having a hard time not turning on the Christmas music. I'm trying to find the strength to turn on my chai tea Scentsy instead of pulling out my Christmas tree candles. After playing out in the snow yesterday we came in and started our fireplace and made hot chocolate and cuddled in blankets on the couch, and I was wishing that we had our stockings hung from the mantel with care. Christmas cookies, I want to eat all of you. What's happening to me? What is this place?

Here's Paisley's expression when the snow first started falling on Monday. Maybe it's the pure joy and glee of my child that makes me a little less of a snow grinch this year?

Well all I can say is that hopefully these cozy feelings last, because I'll bet my bottom dollar that we won't be seeing anything but white on the ground until April.

Obligatory Christmas Recap

The day after Thanksgiving I sink into a deep obsession with very specific Christmas music - about 5% A Very She and Him Christmas, about 5% old Happy Christmas albums, and about 90% Transiberian Orchestra. I wrote about this problem last year.

The poor hubs doesn't complain too much since he knows it's completely temporary (I stop cold turkey the day after Christmas) but I also know he's relieved that it's over now.

So anyway, here's my Christmas recap! It was simply a grand ol' time, I'll let the pictures from various jolly celebrations speak for themselves. Enjoy! It may be the last pleasant thing you experience before we are thrown head first into the very worst part of the year - the bitter cold desolation of never ending misery, also known as the months of January and February. Was that too dramatic? I'm just saying my feelings, as the weather is forecast to be less than 0 degrees this week.

You should probably send help.

49/52

I have no idea where I'm at with these 52 pictures lately or what week is what, but here's another one! Carry on, carry on. More Christmas photos coming soon, because I'm sure that nobody has seen enough holiday pictures yet. My mum made this lovely, classic dress for my baby girl!

Pastel Giraffe - Recent Work

I haven't posted any of my recent projects lately - here's one of them! If you'd like to stare into this guy's sweet droopy eyes forever, he's available as a print or a note card in my shop.

Hope the holiday plans and to-do lists aren't putting you over the edge! I'm determined to survive! I even finished all my Christmas shopping yesterday, which is a milestone event for me because usually I'm a save everything until the last minute - panic - not get things there on time - panic some more - shop on Christmas Eve while panicking kinda gal.

Thanksgiving and Christmas and also Sledding

I wanted to share some pictures from our Thanksgiving/early Christmas celebration with the hubs' family. Because two weeks later is better than nothing! Is what I always say. And when I say always I mean not usually.

There was of course lots of driving. My favorite parts of the the driving were Brian reading Hop on Pop in Arnold Schwartzenneger's voice and also when we had been singing Old MacDonald for so long (Paisley cried every time we tried to stop) that we ran out of normal animals and started including electric eels, Minnesotan tourists, and Octopi. Making electric eel noises with your husband - it doesn't get more romantic than that.

My least favorite parts of all the driving were the icy roads and the part where the toddler puked. Gross.

And there was of course lots of delicious food! And there were games to be played and kitties to be snuggled and presents to be opened and snow pants to be laboriously pulled on. Paisley discovered that she really really really loves sledding. And swinging. But she already knew the part about the swinging. The only thing that could end her heartbreak after being lifted off of the orange car swing that Grandpa put up for her was to be sent down the driveway in the sled.

I took lots of sledding pictures. I also took at least fifty pictures of chickadees but I decided to only post one so that you will still be my friend.

Turkey turkey gobble gobble!