Sharing About Christmas in January, Why Not?!

Christmas has come and gone. It was a so nice to have our family in town to celebrate Christmas with us. My mom and step dad, my brother and his girlfriend, plus my Grandparents were all here for Christmas. 

We packed in as much as we could, but also had lots of fun shopping, hiking and lazy days at home with each other. 

We made Christmas cookies that were gone in just a few days. 

We celebrated Christmas eve with games + appetizers, just the way we like it.

Christmas Eve service with the family.

We had such a fun time with family. The world kinda shuts down for me when my family is in town. I take a break from the blog and social media and just try to enjoy as much time with them as I can. 

Christmas Day I sat around my dining table and not only was my table full, but my heart was too. So full to have all this family sitting around the table with each other. Clanking dishes, conversation and laughter filling my home. It was just the best. 

Zane's Second Birthday Party

Zane turned two just 9 days before Christmas, it's always a busy time when you throw a birthday party in before Christmas. Since my side of the family was here in AZ this year for Christmas we decide to throw him a small party just family. Our theme was football/sports. Zane is developing quite a love for football and it makes Daddy proud! Also his room is football themed so it just made sense. 

We kept things pretty simple for his party, I whipped up this cute invitation and sent it as an evite to our family. 

Simple beverage station for the party of sweet tea & water! I bought a sports themed paper pack from WeR Memory Keepers and used it to punch out cupcake toppers, place mats and signs around the party. You can see in the details below. 

He loved the signing of "Happy Birthday" and of coarse was fascinated by the candles!

We kept the food simple and just ordered pizza, and had other "game day" snacks like chips & salsa, veggies, football themed brownies and cupcakes. 

I found these football themed banners at JoAnn's last football season scooped them up for 75% off last year. I used them to decorate around the house. 

Zane had a lot of fun opening up gifts this year, it's always a little more interesting when they know what's going on. It's fun to see their reactions. 

Our little family with the birthday boy! I can hardly believe he's already two! Time just goes way to fast. He's turned into a little boy with lots of personality. We love you Zaney! 

Setting Our Christmas 2014 Table.

Setting the table is one of my favorite things to do, I love pretty dishes and linens. This year I pulled out my traditional red/green Christmas decor and incorporated it into our space. Our living room is golds & greens and as you move into the dining and kitchen areas the red and green decor comes in. 

I'm hoping to have a Christmas house tour for you this week, but for today here's our Christmas table 2014. 

I'm loving the plaid trend this year, my Grandma found this at the thrift store for me and I knew it'd be perfect for my table. I got this wooden box at Junk in the Trunk Market this past Summer and I knew exactly that I was going to fill it with ornaments this holiday season. Most everything for this table we already had from years past. The only things new were this box for $20 and the thrifted table cloth. 

Another trend that's really popular this season is all things deer! I see the dear heads everywhere, do you? I wanted to incorporate it somehow in my table and remembered that I had these cute dear head dies from Lifestyle Crafts. I used my Letterpress machine and cut them out, and also used this die to make the banners. I then just wrote all my guests names on them and glued them to the antlers. You can the dear die cut here, and the banner die here. Use code: WORLEYHOUSE for 20% off at the shopwer.com site! 

Simple way to add Christmas cheer is to fill vases or anything with ornaments and pinecones! I got those cinnamon pinecones and they make the house smell so great! 

There's our festive and cheery traditional Christmas table! What about you, what are you decorating your table with this holiday season? Tell me in the comments below and for sources see the list below.

table cloth: thrifted

chargers: Dollar Tree

plates: Longaberger

goblets: Target (old)

gold dot stemless wine glasses: Target (last year)

silverware & napkins: Target (old)

wooden box: vintage market

ornaments: Ikea & Walmart (old)

Happy Second Birthday Zane!

Two years ago today I went into labor with Zane around 5 am. Only I didn't know it was labor. Just intense back pain that progressed into the morning. Around 6 am I decided to start tracking these "back pains" and sure enough they were coming every 4-6 minutes. After sitting in bed for about an hour doing this I finally decided that I must be in labor. 

I was 40 weeks and 1 day over due. By 7 am I told my husband that we needed to start heading to the hospital. We got Ava, my mom and all got our things and headed to the car. While in route to the hospital which was about 20 minutes from home I started feeling intense pain, so much so that it was hard to continue sitting in the car. What I didn't know that I found out later at the hospital was that I had "transitioned" while riding in the car to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital they dropped my husband and I off at the door. We waited what seemed like forever before the nurses were ready to check me. It wasn't until I told them that I think I felt a need to push. They rushed a nurse in to check me and sure enough I was 8 cm along. 

Everything else after that was a blur. They rushed me to L&D, there wasn't any lab techs available to start my IV and by the time one was it was to late and I already progressed to far to have an epidural. 

My "I didn't plan on doing this naturally" was my new plan after all. I remember checking the clock once they told me I couldn't have one and seeing that it was 9 am. I told the nurses once again that I wanted to push and they told me I couldn't because the on call doctor was delivering another baby and couldn't come.

That part was torture and seemed to last much longer than I wanted. Finally a doctor came, broke my water and told me I could start pushing.

At 9:39 am Zane Everett was born. I remember thinking that he looked a lot like Ava did as a baby except he was much bigger than she was. I also remember sitting there with him in the hospital feeling like he so completed our family. And he has. He's completed us more than I ever thought he would.

From the minute he was born he's hit every milestone so fast, I sometimes wish that he would slow down. He's so different than Ava was and challenges me and keeps me on my toes.

He is smart, loves to play with Ava and jump on the trampoline with her. He has tons of energy and loves to eat! He loves his truck book, and has a sensitive spot for his little lovey puppy dog. 

Born just 9 days before Christmas this is always such a busy time for us now. But I don't ever want this miracle boy to to overshadowed by Christmas. So we'll always celebrate his day! 

Zane means God is gracious. Zane was a name I had heard years ago, when we found out we were having a boy it was the first name that came to mind. When I looked up the meaning I knew that we'd name him that. You see God has been so gracious to us, we conceived Ava after a year of trying and not being successful we did one round of fertility drugs and got pregnant with her. When it came to trying for baby #2 we didn't do anything and to our surprise had Zane. God has been good to us, and he answered our prayers of being able to have a baby and not do fertility treatments again. 

Tonight we party and on Sunday we're going to have a big celebration when all of our family gets into town. 

We love you Zaney, Happy Birthday! Love, Mama, Daddy and Ava! 

How We Tackle Christmas Gifts in Our Home.

This time of year isn't about gifts, it isn't about breaking our budget either. We try really hard as a family to keep things about celebrating the birth of Jesus during this time of year and being consistent with our children. 

While our focus is Jesus, giving each other Christmas gifts is fun, and a great way to show appreciation and love for others. Today I thought I'd share with you how we tackle this in our home and make things really simple during this time of year. 

Let me start with what we do for our children. For our kids we do 4 gifts, this is something I read about on a blog when Ava was just a baby and we've adopted it ever since. It has worked great for our family, let me share with you about it and then tell you why we love it and why it works for us.

Each of our kids get:

1. Something to wear.
2. Something to read.
3. Something they want.
4. Something they need.

I will say when Ava was an infant we still used the wear and read gifts, but the other two we bought her two toys. Now that she's older she's able to express a "want" a little bit better. Here's a few reasons why I love this model; first of all the obvious is that it keeps the focus not on how many or how much you get. It also helps us to think of a realistic budget and plan accordingly. As our children get older this will help them really decide what they "want." This gift system has worked really well for us, and we love the idea of picking meaningful gifts for our children based on these 4 things. 

This year we're starting a new tradition. Ava decided that she'd like to get her brother a gift. We thought it would be really neat to begin a tradition of each of them buying gifts for the other sibling. 

For our extended families we do a few things, depending on the year. However, my siblings and I with our spouses/significant others always do a gift exchange. This works great for us since there's so many of us, and it's fun to do this from year to year. For my parents again we usually all go in on a big gift for them. 

Also for our parents my husband and I get them photo books or calendars with pictures from our year. I love giving personal gifts like these to family. 

These are just some simple ideas that work for our family, I'd love to hear what you do during the holidays for gift giving. Tell me in the comments below.