are you with me?

if you didn't know already...i love the holidays.

i love everything about them.

i love the music.

i love the lights.

the food...

the movies.

the family gatherings.

i love it all. 

now, i'm also one of those who likes to celebrate each holiday as its own.

i can't stand how people rush though one holiday to get to the next one.

christmas commercials in october? 

no thank you.

christmas music before thanksgiving?

no thank you.

ok. ok... i lied.

typically i have the "no christmas music until the day after thanksgiving" rule.

then you can hear christmas songs blasting from every speaker i can get my hands on.

this year i am breaking that rule.

thanksgiving isn't until the 28th this year! 

that just didn't give us enough holiday cheer time. 

SO...

christmas music will officially start playing in our home at the end of this week.

{i am so excited!}

all that being said...

i saw a cute idea that i wanted to share with you.

{in hopes that you might share in the fun with me and do it too!}

and although its still 'thanksgiving time' in my mind,

 it takes a little preparation so i wanted to share it with you now.

this year i've made...

a christmas bucket list.

you make a list of 25 things that you want to do during the holiday season,

then, the goal is to do at least one thing on your list per day up until christmas.

a couple things from my list:

"buy a real christmas tree"

"take chloe to go see santa"

"make paper snowflakes"

i cannot wait to share the rest of my list with you, 

and then subsequently, post {with pictures} as i check things off.

i love this idea because i feel like every year i forget something.

after the holidays i'm always saying, "i wish we remembered to do x,y, or z".

not gonna happen this year!

i'm on a mission.

are you with me?!

{i've broken another rule by putting chloe in a christmas onsie already.
i had to though...it was too cute and will be too small in december. sigh.}

baby blessing.

in the LDS church, babies are not baptized.

it is our belief that individuals can be baptized starting at the age of eight.

we see the age of 8 as"the age of accoutability"

which means simply:

an eight year old knows wrong from right.

then can choose to make good and bad choices.

at the age of eight, a child can choose to be baptized.

when a child is born into an LDS family,
rather than being baptized,
they are given a baby blessing.
this blessing is typically given at church
during their first couple months of life.

in the blessing the child is officially given their name
as well as a blessing of health and happiness.
each baby's blessing is unique to the individual child.
for those non-lds folk reading, a blessing is king of like a prayer.
 {i'll write more about blessings in the near future}

i was lucky enough to have many family members attend baby c's blessing.
all of of the husbands immediate family were there
along with some extended family who were able to fly in from out of town.
almost all of my immediate family came too,
which was lucky for me because i didn't ask most of them until the day before.
i was really nervous, and didn't want to pressure them to come,
and I was nervous because many of them had never attended an LDS church service before.

it was such a special day, and to be able to share it with family made it even better.
here are some pictures we took after church:

{two of my 3 older brothers}

{my mom...aka grandma}

{the husbands' dad and grandfather}

{all the girls}

{cousins}

{it's a good thing you cannot tell baby c had spit up EVERYWHERE and was screaming throughout all the pictures}

a place of peace.

i was asked if i might share some pictures of baby c's nursery.

but i want to preface the pictures with some thoughts...

as always.

when i found out i was pregnant, 

it was quite a shock.

after all, just a few weeks prior 

i was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome...

a syndrome that can leave you with many fertility issues.

in my case, i was lucky.

the diagnosis was wrong.

while i do struggle with extremely painful ovarian cysts,

i would not have to worry about the awful 'i' word so many struggle with.

(infertility)

the excitement kicked in and i was beyond overjoyed to plan.

ask anyone that knows me...

i am a list writer.

an organizer.

a planner.

one thing i couldn't wait to get started on was our baby's nursery.

i knew i wanted to go neutral with the bedding and many of the decorations.

i also knew i would add pops of either blue or pink depending on the gender of our child.

when we found out c was a girl, i was pretty shocked.

i had thought that our little one was a boy.

in fact i was pretty sure of it.

jokes on me i guess! 

thrilled to be having a baby girl, i wanted to jump into decorating asap.

the only problem:

chloe's nursery was currently a home office for the husband.

the next few months were as follows:

me: hey dear, lets clean out the middle room so i can start getting ready for the baby! 

the husband: we've got a lot of time, lets just hold off a bit.

you can just repeat the last few lines. 

overandoverandoverandover.

the husband was excited for her arrival, but not all that thrilled to be giving up his office.

of course, in time, we slowly packed things up.

moved his desk to our bedroom

 and cleared out what would soon become baby c's little place of peace.

i am beyond pleased with how it turned out.

you know how projects don't end up how you envisioned, 

probably like 99% of the time?!

well, this one i am happy to say turned out exactly how i wanted.

i guess all that extra time i had while the husband was dragging his feet 

gave me plenty of time to really plan

{and search pinterest}.

i didn't think her room would be super girly,

but the pops of pink i chose 

{the drapes, and scrapbook paper, along with some gifts from family members and friends}

made her room especially girly.

perfect for our little june bug.

{sorry in advance for the crumby pictures. they are from my phone}

 

pre-halloween.

every year, before halloween, our church has a party.

we call it 'trunk-or-treat' because after a traditional chili and cornbread dinner,

and the little ones parading across the stage in costume,

the kiddies take their pumpkin buckets outside to the parking lot and go car to car 

{or trunk to trunk}

trick-or-treating.

it's always a big hit,

and why shouldn't it be...

after all, it's like halloween on steroids for the kids.

they have to walk all of 2 feet to the next trunk...

and their bags are filled with gobs of candy in about 5 minutes flat.

i'd say that sure beats walking for a couple hours to fill up a bag.

or maybe it's not better...

i'll let you decide.

every once in a while, our family decides to dress in themes.

this year was no exception.

although...it took my sister-in-law and i some coercing to get the husband 

and father-in-law to wear this years choice in costume.

why you ask?

we decided to be rats.

the adult 'costumes' included a gray shirt, 

which i added the acronym: R.O.U.S. to...

funny right?!

well...only if you have seen 'the princess bride' it is.

and if you haven't seen the movie:

1) stop reading and go watch it now.

2) the acronym stands for "rodents of unusual size".

{see, a group of adults dressed as ROUS'...funny, i know.}

please note: clearly my sister-in-law and i wouldn't make good politicians because 

as you can see from the pictures below...

my father-in-law wouldn't be photographed in the costume 

and my nephew refused to wear it all together.

c'est la vie...

at least the baby girls look a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.

oh-- and you can bet there will be more baby-rat pictures to come after halloween.

...preferably ones that are not passed a specific little rat's bedtime.

...ones where she actually looks happy.

... and ones that aren't so grainy 

due to taking pictures of pictures 

because a certain larger rat forgot their camera.

4 months.

time is so weird.

tomorrow chloe will be 4 months old.

to all of you, that probably doesn't seem that long.

to me, 4 months seems like an eternity...

it seems like another lifetime ago that we were in the hospital with her for the first time.

at the same time--it seems like time has escaped me.

i cannot believe it has already been 4 months! 

how is that even possible?!

stay tuned for a halloweeny post on monday.

baby c makes the cutest...

well, you'll just have to wait and see.