Oh what fun!

Some of these are still in the mail on their way to our friends and family, but in the meantime, I needed to share our Christmas cards this year... 

Usually we just send one, but this year we had such an amazing opportunity to send the silliest card in our history (but couldn't chance sending this to work colleagues and older family friends) that we had to go with an option 1 and option 2. :) Option one shows us as we REALLY wish our life was all the time... you know, perfect-looking.

We're smiling! Everything is perfect! We look fantastic! There's snow and a sled for goodness-sakes! 

That's not to say that we're not smiling an awful lot of the time and that we don't have an incredible, amazing, really blessed life together, because we do....

But let's be honest... no one's life LOOKS like that 100% of the time. Which is why card #2 makes me so happy.

I mean, in real life sometimes you have the most fun when you're zooming downhill at 30mph heading straight for some super scary-looking brambles and you have no idea how to steer the sled. Everyone knows it, but the ride is so fun that it's totally worth the crash at the end...
Or maybe in real life you have the most fun when things mostly just aren't going right, and you have no idea on God's green earth where you're heading but that's ok, because you're a team and you've got each others' backs and you figure things will turn out just fine..

Or maybe real life's fun because you've made a crazy choice that will change things forever for the two of you (like having a baby) and you're both hurtling toward that new phase in life without a CLUE of what it really means, will look like, or bring into your family, but you keep heading that way because it just feels right and the anticipation and uncertainty is BEAUTIFUL and what life is all about.

Regardless of which possibility resonates with you, Option #2 captures what I feel like our life really feels like these days.  The photo is terrible, we look ridiculous, but Oh, What FUN! :)

Happy New year and Happy Christmas, and ALL other holidays this season from me!

news!

I just realized that I never shared LAST year's holiday card with you! gosh. it was so belated that it was a new year's card... It was clearly a bigger sign of how the year was going to go for me...especially when it comes to blogging since my last post was this summer about my trip to San Francisco. gah.

The good news is that I've already placed our Christmas card order for this year! Once they come in i PROMISE I'll share them. I think we've really outdone our awkwardselves this year...get ready.

I also wanted to share some pretty big news... (which is also incredibly bloggy-belated) we've bought a house and are expecting our first BABY in March. It's pretty crazy to think about that I was actually already expecting when I wrote my last post. True story, I had some serious initial anxiety about becoming a mother and whether or not I was ready...but once we heard our little one's heart beat for the first time I was absolutely and totally overjoyed. I didn't expect to feel so strongly about the heartbeat, but it was so magical and surreal. Anyway, although I'm totally not ready (the nursery is a wreck, I have NO idea how to change a diaper, I can't even imagine how little sleep we're going to get) I'm also totally, one-million percent, knee-deep in excitement and joy for his arrival here in the real world.

in other news, at this point I'm ENORMOUS, y'all. I look like there's a beach ball under my top. In fact, the doctor said (and I quote) "my goodness! you definitely should have pushed back a bit sooner from the Thanksgiving table!" and I thought, "you should have kept your mouth shut if you don't want me to punch you in the face." if you don't believe me about my new look, check out the photo below taken only 2 weeks ago...

Truly, although it's so crazy that we'll be parents, Boone and I are over the moon about all of this and've been working nonstop to get everything ready in the new place for our little guy. I'd promise to be better about posting here, but with a new little one, I'm just not sure how that's going to go. Wish us luck and look for the Christmas card soon! (and maybe some other fun updates depending on what life throws at me)

Smooches.

merry and bright!

this is the christmas card i designed that I mentioned in yesterday's post ... i could hardly sleep last night because i wanted to share it with you! i know it's no award-winning minted design, but considering i used microsoft publisher (no adobe photoshop in this house!), free fonts, and got them printed on moo, i'm pretty pleased. We took the picuture last week when it snowed (in mississippi! in early december!) and the bayou looked really pretty. these light trees decorate the bayou and downtown, so we thought it'd be fun to take a picture around them. unfortunately, the snow and damp air got the best of my hair, but maybe no one will notice... ;)

anyway, merry merry!

hay, it's christmas card time...

hey friends...

having the weekend off has given me time to get some MUCH NEEDED holiday planning done, including starting to design the christmas postcard (see here for year 1 and year 2).

but, the thing is, i need your help. unfort. we haven't taken many good photos of the two of us this year, and can't really come up with anything great to use. the ONLY idea we've got is this, taken from an autumn trip to a corn maze and hayride.

so, to help me, i need to know if you think these are funny, or if you think they're lame. it's been a creativity-lite year so i really can't tell.
cast your votes below. (honestly, we may have other options after thanksgiving, but right now, this is all we've got. therefore, my dears, if it's only sort of lame, we may still send it, but if it's terrible and super lame, well, then, we'll do some serious re-thinking). THANK YOU, sweet friends.

getting carded....

hey darlings!
all my teachers have the holidays off, so things slowed down for me a bit friday which gave boone and me enough time to wrap presents, make peanut butter balls (his mom's special Christmas treat) and mail Christmas cards. i designed/ordered them ages ago and i've been dying to show them off, but felt like i couldn't before we mailed them out. now that they're in the hands of the U.S. Postal service i'm ready to share them (of course i accidentally deleted the final image, but this is pretty much* what they look like).... what do you think?

ridiculous? totally joyful? silly? a slice of the delta? i hope so! what do your holiday cards look like this year?

*the cards actually ended up saying "wishing you the joy of a mississippi snowball fight" :) 

procrastination via christmas cards...

i'm s'posed to be working on my final paper and writing cover letters, but i took a break to work on our christmas postcards. here are the two finalists:




but we picked the second one. uuughhhh...i'm feeling a little bit of buyer's remorse.
oh well, at least we'll have cards to send since there's no way we'll have time to make chocolate bark. how are you keeping in touch with your nearest and dearest this holiday season?

btw, i don't know what the quality will be like, but PrintsMadeEasy gave us a GREAT deal (100 postcards for $20 and free shipping with code FREESHIP09) and says they'll be here by December 13th.

too early? nope.

i know it's not really Christmas/holiday season yet, but it's coming... and since boone and i are now an official family, we're going to send an official family christmas card!!! cards take about a week to print plus addressing and mailing takes forever... so we've got to get started!

next year we'll design our own (think tacky Christmas sweaters), but this year since we're a little harried by school we're probably going to stick with a ready-made design. here are some cooler, not cookie-cutter options i've found out there in case you're in the market, too!


since a card is all about the message, today I'm focusing on wishes for Joy and Peace (my fav holiday wish.) If this isn't right for you, stay tuned for other options!

1 from the happy envelope, 2 from westwillowdesigns, 3,4 and 5 from minted, 6 from minkcards

thank you notes

who's got two thumbs and is finished with her thank you notes?

this girl. ;)

photo from flikr.

positively lovely...

did i tell y'all that i sent my friends these positively green cards asking them be my maids?





i wanted to make sure they knew what they each meant to me and why it was important that they stood with me on that day. i still actually have one to send (but i asked her already, don't worry!)

anyway, i liked these because they were eco-friendly, but i mostly liked their lovely quotes and their look. i couldn't find all of the ones i sent, but you get the idea from these, right?

when i want more, i can get them down the street at urbancottage, but you can get them here.

it's never too early for peace and joy...

i've been thinking about holiday cards lately, since it's about that time of year. I really hate how commercialized Christmas is...so i REFUSE to send anything with reindeer, or santa, or christmas trees on them. BUT I also feel incredibly uneasy about sending greeting cards to my non-christian friends that celebrate the birth of "Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior," or things that communicate that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" or say "Merry Christmas" or really ANYthing with wisemen, or mangers, or angels. ick. (these images via google images)


The thing is, I'd be happy to get a card from friends during their major religious holidays celebrating the central beliefs behind the holidays... in fact, I'd be thankful and honored that you valued me enough to include me in the celebration.

But I know that Christmas is different.

It just feels wrong to force your beliefs on someone who doesn't share them, which may not be what people MEAN to do, but does have that effect in a culture where other religions are often marginalized and their faithful are evangelized by well-meaning (or maybe not) Christians.

My problem is this: Christmas has a very particular meaning to me, and I don't want to have to sanitize what exactly it IS that I'm celebrating no matter who my holiday card is going to.
The good news for me is this: Although i am celebrating the birth of Jesus, I am celebrating even more the MESSAGE of Jesus.... Peace, Hope, and Joy.

So... here are some cards I found on Etsy that offer just this message to all of my friends (yes, ALL of them. i mean, what religion, or person, for that matter doesn't want peace, hope, and joy?)



cards by: oldtomfoolery, yeehaw, isabelle's umbrella, paper dragonfly, dappling, everydaygrace, swallowfield

greetings from atlanta...

i'm taking a reading break and wanted to share these wonderful postcards by katie kaiser, an atlanta graphic designer.





i wandered around one of my fav stores (urban cottage) in the VA highlands neighborhood the other sunday and in the back room were these fun and funky letterpress postcards from all of the coolest neighborhoods in ATL. each of them totally reflect the feel and personality of each hood.. which i always think is awesome.

anyway, i didn't have my camera, otherwise i would have taken my own photos of all the different cards, but the katie was kind enough to send some of her own pics my way.

next time you visit (or if you live in one of these neighborhoods) pick one up and send it to your nearest and dearest!