Our Ornament Tradition

One of the things I enjoy most about being a parent is being able to begin new traditions with my little family. Last year, not only was Harper born into our family, but so were a few new Christmas traditions. One of the traditions we began last year was the tradition of Kevin and I choosing a Christmas ornament for Harper each year. The purpose of this is so that when she gets older, she'll have a collection of ornaments all chosen with love and meaning for her own Christmas tree. I'd like to say I came up with this one myself but in reality, I read a blog post Jessica wrote over at The Newly about how her family does this and I thought it was such a great idea so we kind of adopted it as well. 

Last year, with it being Harper's first Christmas Kevin and I chose the following ornament from ETSY to reflect the occasion. I'm not one for traditional ornaments so I thought this served the purpose without being too cliche'. 

This year, Kevin and I knew pretty early in the year that Harper's Christmas ornament would be a monkey. We chose the idea of a monkey ornament for several reasons. The first reason being that the first real thing Harper seemed to show interest in this year were monkeys. She loved her monkey security blanket as well as her Curious George. Both of which you never find too far from her even now. The second reason being that throughout this year, Harper's little personality has really came out and to sum it up, she's become quite the little monkey. Our child has so much energy and she loves to laugh and play, climb all over the place, and have I ever mentioned her obsession with bananas? Yes, clearly her ornament for the year had to be a monkey. It summed up her personality and interests to a T. So over the weekend while at Target, I caught sight of this cute and colorful monkey and decided this was just the one I wanted to hang on Harper's tree. It looked just like her :P 

I also couldn't pass up on the elephant one as well. Only because that happens to be her mama's favorite animal :P (We'll just chalk that one up as a gift :P)

While at Target browsing the ornaments, Harper seemed very interested in them so I decided I'd let her pick out her own this year. As you all know, Target has hundreds of ornaments to choose from so I was curious as to what all Harper would pick up. The first thing she grabbed out of one of the boxes was a doll. Considering my daughter doesn't own a baby doll (I know I can't believe it either!) I was surprised. But next thing I knew she was tossing it back in the bin and grabbing up a turtle. Which again, I was surprised considering we don't have any books with turtles or any toys. I guess she was curious. She tossed it back in the bin though a short moment later and then took off to the other side of the display. And then she saw a reindeer that sort of looked like a dog. That's all she wanted. She kept saying "roo roo, roo roo". I tried telling her over and over again that it wasn't in fact a roo roo, but was in fact a deer. She had none of it. She kept saying roo roo matter of factly and took off to browse the rest of the store. I thought that was the ornament she was going to end up with but then my sister spotted an actual dog ornament. Once Harper saw it, she quickly handed up the other and took off running with the dog. After that, I knew she was sold. She happily hopped back in the buggy with her little dog ornament and kept hugging it to her little chest over and over. I'd say I have an animal lover on my hands ladies. 

What other traditions do you and your family do around the holidays?

Casville Christmas Lights

As mentioned in our weekend recap yesterday, Sunday night Kevin, Harper, and myself made our ways to Casville, NC with Kevin's brother, Bryan, and his girlfriend, Brooke, for our annual tradition of seeing their Christmas lights. Casville is a small community that's known for one thing and one thing only... the Paschals' Christmas Lights. Each year, the Paschal Family opens their land for a Christmas village which contains over 1,000,000 lights. It's cheesy but pretty spectacular just the same. The village contains small cabins with little knick knacks inside, a train display, a water wheel, lots of inflatables, and of course a chance to meet Santa. The best part... it's all free! I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking (: 

Check back tomorrow for another Holt Family Christmas tradition (: 

A Weekend of Traditions

Wow ladies, that weekend flew by fast! It seems as you get closer to the holidays time just seems to fly right by. Am I right or am I right?! Regardless of how fast this weekend went by, it was most definitely a good one. Despite the fact that Kevin had to spend his whole weekend working, we still had quite a bit of fun and got quite a bit accomplished. That's my kind of weekend friends. Over the weekend we got to participate in several of our Christmas traditions which truly made me smile. I'll share a bit about them today but I'll share the full review and rundown of each tradition tomorrow and Wednesday so be sure to check back then. But since you're here now, let's get this weekend recap started.

Friday

Friday after work, I met my dad at Lowes Hardware to pick up a few needed items for Harper's teepee. Instead of forking out $200+ for a teepee for Harper's playroom, I decided to get crafty and make my own. After leaving Lowes, I headed home to drop off the supplies then headed back out to get Harper from daycare. When Kevin arrived home from work, we changed into some more comfortable clothes and headed back out to meet my parents and siblings for dinner at a local cafe. By the time we left it was nearly 9pm and we were all ready to go home and call it a night.

Saturday

Saturday Kevin had to spend the day working so Harper and I joined my sister for some last minute Christmas shopping. While out I grabbed some more gift bags and picked up a few last minute gifts for friends and family. Misty and I also took Harper to Target and let her pick out her Christmas ornament this year. Each year, Kevin and I pick out Harp an ornament for the Christmas tree she'll have "one day". Since she's a bit bigger this year, we decided we'd attempt to let her pick out an ornament herself. To say it was a tough decision is an understatement. She had so many options to choose from and it was quite funny watching her pick up one ornament after another. I'll be sharing more of that adventure on Wednesday!

After our Target run, we took a break from shopping and grabbed some lunch at Rio Grande, a local Mexican restaurant, and stuffed ourselves silly on chips and salsa. We finished out our shopping adventures with a trip to Bath and Body Works where I stocked up on foaming soap in winter scents for just $2.50 a piece! I probably got a year's worth but with a deal that good I couldn't say no.

Harper and I got back home sometime after 4pm and spent the rest of the afternoon playing and wrapping presents. When Kevin got home from work, he took over occupying Harp while I prepared dinner. Around 6:30 my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and his girlfriend, and my brother all showed up to the house to chow down on some chicken alfredo and holiday cupcakes. Following dinner, everyone hung around the house and we watched the movie When the Game Stands Tall. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! It was definitely one of the best movies I've seen all year.

After the movie ended, my mother in law headed on home while the guys decided they'd watch a little football on the tv. Since the guys were occupied, Brooke (my brother-in-law's girlfriend) and I decided to finish up a few projects for Harper's room. We put together Harper's Ikea Latt table that I hacked with a little hot pink paint then got to work on framing Harper's teepee. All I can say is thank goodness Brooke was there because there's no way I'd have been able to hold and tie Harper's teepee poles by myself.  After tackling those two large projects, Brooke and I plopped down on the couch talking until sometime after 11 when the guys decided it was time to hit the road, head home, and go to bed.

Sunday

Sunday morning Harper and I joined Kevin at work for a picnic breakfast in the car. Whenever he works Sundays, we always try to do breakfast with him. It's become sort of a tradition. After breakfast, we ran back home, changed clothes, then headed to church with my family. Of course, after church, we headed over to my parents' house for our usual Sunday lunch. We stuck around till sometime around 2:30 then made our way back home so Harper could take a nap.

While Harper napped I continued to work on Harper's playroom. I got the frames set up, her IKEA Latt table styled, and finished up her teepee (which I must say is cute as can be!). By the time I finished she was back up and at it and we spent the remainder of our time together playing.

Around 6, Harper and I loaded up the car and headed back to my parents' house where we met Kevin, Brooke, and Bryan. Since the temperatures were so nice and it wasn't too cold, we decided to head to Casville to see the Christmas lights and visit Santa. It's a tradition we started several years back and something we look forward to every year! But yet again, I'll share more about this tomorrow (;

After picking up a pizza and swinging back by Mom and Dad's we made it back home last night sometime after 9. And after going from one place to another all day, this girl was exhausted. By 9:30, I was curled up in bed in my jammies and passed out soundly asleep!

Hope your weekend was just as sweet friends! 

25 Books of Christmas

Since yesterday was the first day of December and I was sharing our Thanksgiving recap, I thought today would be a great day to kick off the Christmas season with a little holiday cheer. In our family traditions are very important to us... especially where the holidays are concerned. One of the traditions we started last year, upon Harper's arrival, was participating in the "25 books of Christmas" advent calendar. Most of you are familiar with the concept but for those of you who are not, the basic gist is that you choose 25 Christmas books, wrap them up individually, and your child chooses one each night to be read before going to bed.

Of course the teacher and book lover in me is all for this idea. So last year we decided to try it. The key word being try. It didn't go quite as good as I had hoped but considering I had a seven month old who was learning to be on the move, getting through about half the books would be called a success by most. Since Harper's favorite thing these days are books, I'm hoping this year is going to be much better! So without further ado, here are the 25 Christmas books we've chosen as this years perfect picks.

I tried to get a good mix of Christmas stories. A few classics, some new tales, and of course a few with the true meaning of Christmas. I used a few from last year, purchased a few new ones, and the rest were checked out from a local library. Keep in mind, you don't have to break the bank to do this my friends. Last year I checked out nearly every book I used from my school and public library. So seriously consider that option if you want to try this! 

Did I leave any of your favorite Christmas books out?! If so be sure to let me know so I can add it to next year's list!