Alone Time...

The girls are off on a vacation at their grandma's house for a few days (thanks mom). It feels so strange to be home alone and I already miss my babies but I know they are having a great time. I'm trying to be as productive as I can be while I have the chance to work uninterrupted. Tonight I'm working on some surprise holiday decorations for their bedroom and have lots more holiday decor waiting in the wings. Hopefully I can make a pretty good dent in it and still have time to catch up on some much needed sleep. Hope you all are having a great week too.

Shelf Elf

This year we adopted our very own elf from the North Pole. If you haven't heard of The Elf on the Shelf you really need to check it out. Santa sends a scout elf to your home to help keep and eye on things and at the end of each day the elf flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa. The kids get to pick a name for their elf and we finally settled on "Jingle Bell" for ours. Kinsley started off naming him "America" and throughout the course of the day (and watching the Elf on the Shelf movie last night) his name changed close to thirty times including pickle, ruffles, snowflake, jeff, sticker, baby and elfie. I think Jingle is a terrific name.

Our elf arrived Friday morning brining with him our first ever North Pole Breakfast, an idea I got from Jessica at Little Pumpkin Grace. It's such a sweet way to kick off the holiday season and to introduce the littles to their new friend.



We did our breakfast in the living room because it was the only room decorated for Christmas already (courtesy of our elf). We put up and decorated the Christmas tree together on Thursday evening and after the girls were in bed the elf came and decorated the rest of the room and set up breakfast. Wasn't that nice of him? He even left us his book and a little letter introducing himself. The girls were beside themselves with excitement and I'll admit mama was pretty excited too.












It was such a perfect way to kick off our holiday season and I hope we can continue this tradition every year. And I can't wait to see all the places our elf pops up, this morning he was sitting on top of the playroom shelves playing with some puppies.

Thankful

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great time with lots of food (lots) and so much to be thankful for. Especially these girls, they've added so much to our holidays and to our lives.






I am thankful every day I get to wake up and see those smiling faces.



And I love how well Kait's Thanksgiving dress turned out. Can you tell I am in love with these knot dresses? I've only made about 30 of them (not counting the doll dress spree I'm currently on). Unfortunately with all our running around this week I ran out of time to make one for both girls but it's about time Kait got something first and something that wasn't handed down from her big sister. It's only fair.

This Moment...

{this moment inspired by Soulemama} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

November

November is notorious for bringing with it a flurry of activity and sense of “busy”. This year I am making a concentrated effort to slow things down and enjoy the upcoming holiday season rather than rushing through it. I’m trying to step back and really enjoy fall rather than rush through in anticipation of Christmas. This season seems to disappear so quickly around here and I don’t want to miss a single moment of it. Somehow half of the month has already flown by and I find myself reminded that no matter how much we slow down, time will always continue on. A good reminder to savor every moment as it comes and to fully live in the present. Something I am proud to say that I am finally getting better at.

We're spending more time playing with our nature table and just being outside enjoying all that fall has to offer us. I don’t feel the normal stress and urgency to get so many things done this season (ask me again the week before Christmas) and am keeping our to-do list as short as humanly possible. It feels somewhat strange to have such a short holiday crafting list and I’ll be the first to admit that at times I feel just a tad guilty for not doing more. Almost as if I’m not quite sure what to do with all this extra time I have given myself. I am sure, however, that the girls will be more than willing to help fill that time.

Veterans Weekend

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, I know we did. We had a playdate with some great friends, made it to two of the local Veteran's Day parades and spent a lot of time together as a family.











One of the local parades had veterans drive all the fire trucks in their parade and we got to see two of our favorite vets. Definitely the highlight of the parade (though the girls would say the candy was a close second).

Sweet Snuggles

Listening to the wind blowing outside and the quiet inside and thinking how last night was quite a different story. We had some pretty fierce thunderstorms roll through last night and both girls were jolted awake by the thunder. Kinsley, who normally isn’t afraid of storms yelled out and proclaimed that “it isn’t fair that storms wake you up when you’re sleeping. It isn’t nice or fair.” to which I fully agreed. She crawled into bed with daddy and me and it was about that moment that Kaitlyn woke up crying.

I stood there in the dark rocking my baby girl and thinking about how quickly time has passed. I haven’t actually rocked her to sleep in ages and she has gotten so very tall and most days seems like such a big girl. But last night, with her snuggled into my arms she seemed so very much like my baby still. While I was rocking and singing and trying to console my sleepy baby Kinsley came sneaking into the room. Overcoming her own fears about the storm she came to the rescue of her baby sister to bring her favorite baby doll in “to help her sleep better”. This was one of those moments that makes your heart sing as a mother, to watch your children act with such unprompted love and caring for one another. Kinsley was willing to give up her favorite baby and leave herself with nothing to sleep with simply to comfort her baby sissy.

The doll did the trick and I was able to sleepily crawl back into bed. No sooner than my head hit the pillow two little hands reached out and held my hand between them. Night mama, she said as she snuggled in and drifted off to dream land.

Last night I drifted off to sleep holding hands with my girl, listening to the sound of her breathing and thinking how blessed I am to be a mama.

This Moment...

{this moment inspired by Soulemama} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Play Ball!

Kinsley got a new t-ball set for her birthday and it is a big hit. (pun completely intended) The girls have loved playing with it and daddy and I have loved the break from throwing the ball ten thousand times a day.







Even sister got in on the action for a few minutes.