some christmas joy.

this year ry and i had such a fun christmas season! one of the many perks of working part time is that ry and i have the mornings together. the weeks leading up to christmas, we would wake up, eat breakfast, get the christmas music on, and get to crafting. it was really soooo fun. can you tell i'm pretty sad that christmas is over? my sadness is short-lived though because we have so much to look forward to ;o).

one of the best and easiest things we made this year were sugared pecans. even better that the pecans came from the trees at ry's grandparent's house ;o).

the recipe is here if you're interested. i wish i took a pic of how delicious they looked when they came out of the oven, but you'll just have to use your imagination ;o).

each year we make an ornament for some special people in our lives :o). this year we stuck with the "nautical" theme from the nursery ;o). i love them, i think they came out funky and cute!

nothing makes me happier than when one of my ideas actually turns out the way i envisioned it! i gave embroidery a try for the first time, and it is my new favorite thing to do! some special cup towels for a few special ladies ;o).

i had to include this incredible silhouette that ry painted of our nephew. the man's got talent i tell ya. he's taking orders if anyone's interested ;o).

just a taste of some of the gifts we made this year!

since we took all of our gifts home when we went for the baby shower, we had nothing left to prepare once we were back home. what should you do if you don't have christmas crafts to work on?? go to disneyland!! we really wanted to see disneyland all decked out for christmas, so we treated ourselves to a day of fun :o).

the only ride we went on was 'it's a small world.' we headed over right away, and only waited about ten minutes to get on. it was really cute because the whole ride was in the christmas spirit ;o).

santa and his REAL reindeer were also there the day we went :o).
it's funny how differently we do disneyland these days. we weren't at all worried about riding rides or fighting lines- we'd walk around, eat a snack, then find a fun place to sit and watch people. it's still so magical, even at almost 29 years old ;o).

our actual christmas day celebration was relaxing and wonderful. we pulled our air mattress into the living room, snuggled up, and watched movies all day while we cooked christmas dinner. as usual, we were so spoiled by our families on christmas. we are so thankful for them, and even more thankful that next year we'll actually be able to see their faces on christmas!

and a christmas wish that was granted early... snow!! i have missed snow so much these last two 'winters' in LA, i was so happy to get to have a snow day when we were home.

even santa's face seems sad in this one. (can you tell i started this post like 4 days ago- haha).