Friday, December 12, 2014

Happy Birthday Charlotte!


As cliché as it sounds, December 12, 2012 feels like yesterday and forever ago all at the same time. Two years ago: we were sitting in the hospital room full of family + friends, waiting to meet our brown-eyed beauty, full of butterflies & nerves, and completely unaware of what the future would hold.  It probably doesn't have to be said, but this day --- the day we met our Charlotte Rene´ --- will always hold a very special & present spot in my heart.

Happy 2nd birthday, baby girl!

love,
daddy, mama, + your new baby brother, Calvin

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Traditions


Traditions have been on my mind a lot lately --- What traditions will we carry on from my childhood? From my husband's childhood? What new traditions will we start as a family?

Over the years, Sam & I have celebrated the holidays with our immediate families, which has been wonderful & easy when it comes to traditions. But as we continue to grow our little family, the desire to make our own traditions & memories has become stronger and more important.

With this being the first holiday season we'd have a child at home with us, I found myself searching for our the memorable moments that could be carried on through the years, while reminding myself that we didn't have to go overboard by doing all.the.things.  So I did a little research...

I searched through some of my favorite blogger's past holiday posts.
I asked close friends for their ideas.
I even attended an online class titled "Holidays & Families Without Losing Your Mind", taught by Rachael Kincaid ((great class!))

And after exhausting my resources & talking them through with Sam, these are the Christmas traditions that I hope will become a part of our holidays each year:

  • Participating in an Advent plan // This may look different each year, but as long as we participate in one as a family, I'll be happy.
  • Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve // Growing up, my mom always allowed us to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it was always a pair of new pajamas, so this is a special one from my childhood.
  • Three gifts (like Jesus received) // I recently heard this one from the above-mentioned class and I loved it. Simply put: each person receives three gifts from their list and the special part is that you can incorporate the story of the gifts Jesus received as well.

Every year is not going to look the same, I know that. But finding a a few of holiday traditions that my family can look back on with appreciation & nostalgia is important to me and something I hope we can continue to carry on.


Any traditions that have become a part of your holidays?

Monday, December 1, 2014

December Goals


I've said this before, but these monthly posts where I outline some goals I'd like to accomplish are really good for the planner in me.  However, I have found that I tend to make goals that are not specific enough because I still want to say I did them, even though I'm not sure how to measure them.  Now that I am aware of this, let's see if I can put some definitive perimeters around each goal for December.

November Goals:

1. Set SMART goals for Sam Grable Photography with Sam. // This was harder than I thought it'd be, but we set some goals for the rest of this year and some tentative ones for next year. Now to get to work on them...
 
2. Continue to work on Internet/phone boundaries. // I felt like I made some improvements this month, but could definitely work on this more. My goals are feeling a little too vague/big, so I think I need to set some measurements to them...

3. Budget, budget, budget! // Again, this goal is too broad...

4. Get back into blogging (for me). // From only two posts in October to seven in November, this feels like a success to me.  I still have some more posts in draft form that I'd like to post, so I'm going to continue this one into this month.


December Goals: 

1. Research advertising avenues for Sam Grable Photo and decide on what we're going to do starting in January 2015.

2. Hide my phone from 4-7pm.

3. Post on Grable Tales at least 2x/week.

4. Find a (free/inexpensive) holiday outing/tradition to do as a family each week - go look at Christmas lights, visit a live nativity, find snow!, etc.




Linking up with The Tiny Twig // Goals with Grace