Thank you buybuy BABY for sponsoring this post! This post title includes one thing I love and one thing I hate ;) It is no secret that I love traditions! I gush over them on the blog all the time! That second half is not always easy for me but it is a MUST if I want to enjoy the holidays. 2020 isn't the only holiday season that has messed up my plans. There was the december I was SO sick because I was in my first trimester with Hilde and the Thanksgiving Day we watched my nieces and ... continue reading...
Search Results for: traditions
How to Make New Traditions (& keep the old)
ASK ELIZABETH Question: Do you have any new holiday traditions or do you just do your family ones? Now that I'm older & married I feel like I want some of our own. Traditions you say? I can talk about traditions forever! I am a tradition queen. Make new traditions but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold (sung to the tune of a girl scouts favorite ;) ) Traditions around the holidays are very dear to me and make this season so much more richer. I know exactly what too look ... continue reading...
Hello 2024: Our Eyes on Chirst
January 1st is defined by new beginnings, resolutions, and goals for most of the modern world but in Church history, and for many of us who follow the church calendar, it is the 8th day of Christmas. Rather than planning for and preparing for a new year (while purging the house of all Christmas), the church is still in the middle of celebrating Christmastide and, on this date specifically, celebrating the circumcision and naming of Jesus. This is in keeping with the Jewish law which holds that ... continue reading...
December Booklist
I wanted to only read Christmas themed books for the month of December and it was so fun! I've never done an exclusive theme before in my personal reading and I enjoyed it a lot. I had to put other books on pause (talking about you Dune) but it helped create an atmospheric season in my home and heart! I think it will be a tradition I continue years to come! Let me know if you have any Christmas suggestions, I'll add it to my Goodreads and make sure to put them on hold at the library EARLY! ... continue reading...
We wish You a Merry Christmas
One of my most cherished Christmas Traditions is creating and mailing out our family's Christmas card. We've done it every year of our marriage and kept them all to see how our family (and our design preferences) have changed over the years. But keeping a historic record of our family each Christmas isn't the only reason we create Christmas cards, we also desire to fill the mailboxes of our family & friends with hope and love this season (and tidings of great joy!) Four years ago, ... continue reading...
July Booklist
Six books for the month of July (seven if you include The All American which I reviewed and shared in my Independence Day Booklist post) so we're moving right along! I am currently at 91/23 books read in my challenge this year but quite a few of them are picture books I've read and chosen to review so I'll take that into account when I make my goal next year. Maybe I'll do 100 books - 50 picture books and 50 chapter books. I don't review every picture book I read (for obvious reasons) but maybe ... continue reading...
Thorin’s Easter Sunday Baptism
April 9th, 2023 Easter is a special day for the church body as a whole as we celebrate how Jesus overcame death on the cross, bearing the weight of all our sins, and rose again bringing us with Him into new life but it is also a significant day in our little family. All three of our children were baptized on Easter Sunday - counting them as God's people. Hilde in 2019, Millie in 2021, and Thorin in 2023. Something Bruce and I didn't initially plan or dream for our children, but now something ... continue reading...
Our Christmas
I wake when the kids wake. The sun pours through the window and Thorin greets me through the monitor with his coos. Most mornings I try to steal a couple more minutes of sleep but not today. No today is a special day. I can already hear the girls digging into their stockings and discovering the thrift store Barbies and costume jewelry I shoved inside them the night before. I knew they would be just as excited with thrifted finds as new and it felt good not only financially, but sustainably as ... continue reading...
It’s Christmas Card Season!
It is no secret that I love Christmas Cards! They are one of my favorite traditions to do year after year. We save a card each year since 2012 (our first married Christmas) and marvel at how our family has grown from two young wippersnappers to a family of five! Two years ago we started adding a verse card with our photo cards and it is a tradition we are planning on keeping as we've spotted many of them on our friends & family's fridges year round! This year we went with Parabo Press ... continue reading...
Boo at the Zoo: A Classic Halloween
This year the Mayberry Five (I guess that is what we call ourselves these days) dressed up like classic Halloween! Hilde really wanted to be a ghost this year, and as much as I tried to convince her otherwise, she stood her ground. Now that I think about it, this happened last year too - Hilde wanted to be Tinkerbell so the rest of us fell in line ;) HAHA! I guess she just has that leadership gene! So with Hilde as a ghost, the rest of us started brainstorming other classic Halloween costume ... continue reading...
The Harvest Festival
It must be October! The first Saturday of October Rock Ledge Ranch hosts their annual Harvest Festival and we go every year (except the ones we haven't ;) ) I've learned to put it in my mental calendar so I don't miss it like we did in 2019 (I'm still a bit salty about it!) Looking back on each year, it is fun to see how the kids have grown both in height and in number! 2021 - 2020 - 2018 - 2017 - 2015 We are members so events like this are free for us to attend. We pay $50 a year for ... continue reading...
The Road to Easter: A Holy Week Coutdown
Christmas comes with an abundance of traditions, activities, and advent calendars to count down to the birth of Christ & celebrate the season but this year in an attempt to bring my children into the season, I struggled to find anything more than bunny coloring sheets & egg coloring ideas on Pinterest. Easter is overrun by (adorable) bunnies and the message of the season can get lost so quickly. My girls are at the age where they love holidays. They want to soak it up and do all the ... continue reading...
How to Pick the Perfect Photo & Card for your Holiday Cards with Minted
Have you mailed your Christmas cards yet? It is not too late to order them and send them in the mail! In fact, Minted's addressing service can really help you get those cards out in a jiffy! That sure ame in handy for us this year! HAHA! Today I wanted to share with you how we got about making our Christmas Card each year! It is one of my favorite traditions and I cherish all my cards! I even save one for myself each year to display the holiday history of my family each year! This year ... continue reading...
Christmas at Gaylord of the Rockies
We did a new fun thing this Christmas and spent an overnight at Gaylord of the Rockies! They go all out for Christmas and I'll tell you that "all out" is so much! We couldn't even do it all if we tried, but we did do a lot and blew right through naptime ;) (for better or worse!) HAHA! I took pictures (as always) but never managed to get one of our room - probably because we just crashed once we got there! I also made this reel of our time there! We loved tubing, ice skating, story time with ... continue reading...
Faith, Trust, & Pixie Dust
.... and the family costume is, PETER PAN! We threw out several ideas leading up to October and we were having a hard time picking which idea to move forward with & start creating. We always love a good family costume and have done Winnie the Pooh, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, & Wayne's World in the past. And I always love time to thrift, make, find, and create some homemade-ish Halloween Costumes for us so we typically start the Halloween Costume ideas early! The year we did Mickey's ... continue reading...
October Harvest Festival
Is it even October if we don't go to the Harvest Festival?!? 2020, 2018, & 2017 all say so! 2019 doesn't and that's because I planned a trip over the first weekend of October WHICH I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN because this pumpkin patch is the one my tradition loving heart as attached too! HAH! The good news is that I learned my lesson and I am very good about getting it in my calendar in enough time to not double book myself. This year the girls are a little older (a year to be exact) and ... continue reading...
Labor Day Lift Off 2021
I have countless memories of getting up while it was still dark out to load up into the car and head ALLLL the way across town to the Labor Day Lift Off with my family. Now that I am grown I realize the drive was only 15 minutes, but as a child it felt like such a magical & far away place. We would dress in layers because the sun would warm us as it rose and we would drink hot coco out of a Tupperware thermos as all six of us tried to fit onto one blanket. The field all around us would ... continue reading...
Cinnamon Roll Bunnies for Easter
I have always been a fan of holidays and traditions. Just the other day my parents were telling the story (again) of how at age 6 we had a spontaneous Valentine's Day picnic dinner of take-out Chinese food on our living room floor - with the large, round, red tablecloth. The next year on Valentine's Day, I told my mom how excited I was for our Chinese food tradition. While it was not tradition at that point, my mom quickly jumped on it and ordered Chinese. We ate it in the same spot on the same ... continue reading...