The long weekend.

Thanksgiving break.
While it isn't like the old days from college (or like my mom the teacher) where we get an entire week off, we did have four days.
Four days of food and family.
Our tummies and hearts were full.

We did however throw a flu bug into the mix. It's a good thing Miss Charlotte is loved so much, or her aunties and uncles might have been less willing to hang out with us.

Right about here is where I think she passed it to Auntie Courty...

And here to Uncle Hans...

And not one to leave out the parents, we each had a day of it as well.

Diaper on head=Uncle Paul's latest favorite trick to play with Charlotte.

Thankfully there were lots of hands around to play when I was feeling under the weather. And thankfully we were cozied up at the island with our "Family Divided" to watch the Apple Cup (3/4 Cougs, 1/4 Huskys).



Complete with a betting game-board. Even Charlotte bought in for a few squares.



And with the close of Thanksgiving, we open the door to the most-wonderful-time-of the-year. Oh happy day!! Keeping with tradition, we went back to our favorite little tree farm in Redmond and found our tree. Cute, and little, and darling...we knew it was ours.






I had a little helper this year with the decorating.



Helper may be a loose term here...but having her explore and excite in all things Christmas that I pulled from the boxes made my heart skip a beat.



This is going to be so very much fun!

Gratitude.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

--Melody Beattie

Happy Thanksgiving friends. My heart is full.

Truth.

The last few weeks/month there has been a lot of this...

And this...

And more of this...

The meltdowns have started.
With a vengeance.
And let me tell you, they can come out of no where. And most often only with us. School tells us she is "the happiest baby they've ever had"and she was great with Grammie.
I tell myself it's because she's most comfortable with us and we are her safety blanket where she can be herself.
But it's tough.
Nick and I plopped onto the couch the other night after Charlotte went to bed and we got the house back in order and agreed together that those infant days were most definitely the easiest of days.

Lack of sleep?
Sure. But some days I feel like I'd take that over the mood swings that are currently occuring in our house.

Who knows what it is...possibly the razor sharp molars that are still trying to poke through. Or maybe just getting back into routine after having us gone for 6 days. A stage perhaps? The terrible two's starting early? Or mostly due to the fact she can't communicate everything she wants quite yet, although she most certainly knows what it is.

Whatever it is, I've decided parenthood is no walk in the park.
Truth.

But last weekend?

My happy, sweet girl seems to have returned to me. We had a weekend of family time, with no real plans to speak of...and it was wonderful.

We explored...made messes...

and we relaxed...

Oh, and we dressed like twins for church, ha!

And when the meltdowns came, they were short lived.

Truth?
Challenges are good for us. It helps us appreciate even more those days that are easy and everything just flows. I'll take those challenging days because it means I am her mama. And she is my world. Even when she's a monster.

Zihua.

I planted myself here the instant we got to Zihuatanejo.

It was an amazing six days.

Six days filled with relaxation, reading of teen-lit novels ("May the odds be ever in your favor"-- Hunger Games anyone?! Loved!), lounging by the pool, time with husband, time with friends...and to top it all off, my best friend got married. I'd say it was a once in a lifetime experience, however we all vowed to someday get back there together.





I really hope that promise/wish comes true because waking up to this every day was certainly not hard to take...















Our buddy, Salvador: "Anything you want, anytime, 20 times". Well, thank you very much Savador...it's no wonder we became fast friends with the guac he would bring us.










And while it was extremely hard to be away from Charlotte for that long, knowing she was in good hands allowed us to truly relax and recharge our batteries. These type of vacations don't come around all that often, so when they do...we absorb it and feel oh-so-thankful to be in that particular moment.





Moments of sun, sand and friends. It's pretty great stuff.




















To top off all that great stuff though...is a wedding. A gorgeous, special, intimate and most memorable wedding of my childhood friend and constant companion...the sister in my heart. And she was a beauty!










Nick taking in the scene...










It WAS hot though...had to do some breaks in between photo shoots to cool off our bride.










Thank you Michelle and Brad for picking such a magical place to get married! I was so honored to be part of your special day. Cheers to your happiness forever!




xoxo

Reunited.

And it feels SO good!

We are back from our amazing vacation and the absolutely gorgeous wedding of Michelle and Brad (much more to come on that!)...but right now, I'm focusing on doing a lot of this today...

Snuggles, snuggles and more snuggles.

Oh how I missed this little squish.

The first of the Big Three.

Halloween. The official start of the season of holidays.
I recently read in a post from a favorite blogger that "the last months of the year are the grand finale" and I couldn't agree more.
Each month brings a new holiday, a new reason to celebrate and more traditions to craft and create for our family...culminating with the mother of all holidays, Christmas.

This month was the first...Halloween, and we partied it up.

Our little Strawberry got quite good use out of her costume this year as she was in it three days straight over the holiday weekend.

Engaging in a little ghosty craft at our PEPS party.

We got to welcome the newest member of our friend family, Miss Taylor Rose, with a Spooktacular themed "Sprinkle" (Sprinkle instead of Shower for a second baby...is that not the cutest?)

And even hit up a few houses for some Trick or Treating this year with our little friends...

As expected, Charlotte knew exactly how to grab for the candy.

The holidays are officially upon us, and I am officially stoked.