Holidays 2011 - Take One

Ahhh, how I love this time of year! So many traditions, so much joy and so many reasons to celebrate!

We had a wonderful, simple Thanksgiving spent just being thankful for one another and all that we have. We enjoyed a small, dinner with Chris' family, though I forgot to take my camera. Although it was lovely, we missed being with lots of family from both sides as many were travelling and away this year. Leah actually got to enjoy the feast this year and was particularly fond of the mashed potatoes, the fresh cranberry salad and the real maple whipped cream! yum.
Truly, the best part of the weekend was just having Daddy around so much! We love long weekends when he gets to stay home with us!! We finished most of our "tree trimming and hall decking" last weekend, so we've been enjoying it all week long. It makes for the perfect spot to read bedtime stories and scriptures each night. I'm anxiously looking forward to a whole month of that and we have some fantastic new Christmas books in the line-up!

Along with several new books for Christmas Tree Storytime, I have feverishly been working on our C*K*J Holiday To-Do List, (a Christmas Bucketlist of sorts) with all of the things that I want to do with our little family this year. Last year Leah was a little too tiny and new to really get out and enjoy the Holidays much.... so we have a lot of making up to do!

Last night seemed the perfect night to get to work crossing things off our list! Any Family Date Night that starts out with dinner and tasty treats at Gourmandise is a bound to be a great night in my book. Once we were sufficiently stuffed full of cozy, warm yummy food... we were off to the enjoy possibly the most basic and sweetest of holiday traditions on our list... the lights at Temple Square.

We bundled Leah up like crazy and I'm not sure that I've ever seen her more content or still. I'm really not sure if it was because a) she couldn't move if she wanted to in her puffy coat b) she couldn't get her hands to work with those silly thumbless mittens on.... or c) she really is the best baby in the whole universe. No matter the reason... she was angelic and delightful and I loved every single minute of sharing this holiday tradition with her. She was so good and so mesmerized by the lights, the people and quite frankly the whole atmosphere, and so was I.

{beautiful backdrop}

{fantastic company}

We convinced some of our besties to join us for the frigid fun! We definitely love us some duncanfamily.

{breathtaking sites}

{humbling reminders}

{and my most precious loves}

All things needed for a great, successful holiday fun-night!? Check!

witches, pumpkins, flappers and things...

Man.... how did I get so behind? We've had such a fun (and busy) month... turns out we've been so busy going from one celebration to the next that there has been hardly a minute to document any of it.

So here's nothing more than a quick re-cap and a few pictures to prove ourselves:

Leah and I met my cute niece and her girlies to take in all of the witch-y goodness at Gardner Village. It couldn't have been a more beautiful day, (which was evidenced by the rest of the world having the same idea) and we loved every minute of it!



Our first family pumpkin carve! There was something ridiculously satisfying about growing our very own pumpkins this year and our "big" ones were almost too perfect, I didn't want to carve them.... however, I sort of feel like it's part of my job as a mom to make the most of every holiday, event, season, etc., creating memories and traditions and it's a job that I take pretty seriously. :)

Leah loved playing in the guts.... but after I got the pumpkin all cleaned out, she wanted to put it all back in (she's into that right now, in and out, back and forth, over and over and over). She also served as the model for our pumpkin and her little doppelganger ended up with a matching 5 tooth grin.




And it all led up to this.... Halloween itself. LJ pretty much rocked her flapper costume and looked so ridiculously adorable. She sort of thought the process of getting it on was a cruel torture tactic (turns out that once you sew layers of fringe onto a onesie, it kinda loses it's ability to stretch, oops... I almost thought we were gonna have to break her arm to get her into the costume that I had schemed about for months), but once we got it over her shoulders, it fit perfectly and she LOVED it.... loved the fringe, loved the beads and feathers and loved the attention!

We had a little costume party for kindermusik that day and then we met up with some friends to do a little trick-or-treating at Foothill Village. She was totally overwhelmed by the throngs of sugar-crazed kids and we didn't last very long, which was okay seeing how it was really just a ploy to get some treats for me anyway. She did get a balloon out of it, which seemed to satisfy her completely.

We let the rest of the trick-or-treaters come to us while we stayed at home and feasted on pumpkin soup and hot, fresh doughnuts with some of our besties. I don't think there will be many more years where that will fly, so we took full advantage.

And in between all that we have been busy hosting book club(s), dinner parties, daddy daughter dates and baby showers! Such a fun month of gatherings, celebrations and get-togethers with all of my favorite people.

And to think that the holidays and party-season are only just beginning!!