Auditioning for his nativity role

I give you...the next great shepherd in a local production of the nativity. Also, that lasted WAY longer on his head than I thought it would.

So the "every day" thing didn't work out...

...you know, posting every day? optimism and all?...but we're back on track! I got thrown for a bit of a loop on Monday when I officially became a person not obligated to go to work at around 4:30 PM. Whaaaaaaaaat, you say? Well, after going back from maternity leave right into busy season and getting a true reality check in "nope, this is not for me anymore EVER," I worked on finding a new job where I might actually have a life and DID and put in my notice and then found out that notice = leave pretty much right now, so that's that!  And my new gig doesn't kick off until January 5th, soooo...I'm currently not working but still getting paid and it's basically amazeballs.

Totally productive things I've accomplished in the last five days:
 - Finishing up Christmas shopping...mostly
 - Wrapping a chunk of that Christmas shopping into pretty packages
 - Going to the grocery store and buying things that enabled me to cook a real dinner in the form of chicken pot pie
 - Baking banana muffins
 - Baking milk chocolate-dipped hazelnut sandies for the 2014 Cover-to-Cover Project: Holiday Cookies
 - Excessive loads of laundry
 - Successfully shoved approximately 25 pills down Cleo the kitty cat's throat and kept her alive while Momma Dale was out of town

Totally self-indulgent things I've blissfully enjoyed in the last five days:

 - Took myself to the movies at 10:15 in the morning - Mockingjay and a giant bag of popcorn for the win
 - The aforementioned baking is also because I just like to do it
 - Starbucks grande latte pretty much every day
 - Friday lunch with Carolyn with no care about how long we sat and chatted because there was no job to hustle back to

And the ultimate combination of productive/indulgent = EXTRA HOLDEN TIME.  He's still kicking it at daycare for a chunk of the day so he can maintain some kind of routine while I run around, but I've been picking him up early and enjoying every extra minute I can steal with this sweet baby. They allllll say it, but of course he's growing up too fast.

And the ULTIMATE indulgence that hasn't happened and just won't...sleeping in. I have a baby now, so that's just not in the cards, and for those of you who really know me, you know how I am about sleep.

Ummmm...I could get used to this. Which is dangerous. But I'm also excited about my new work path, and so I'm going to soak up every minute of the next three weeks and then jump into a fresh start. Happy holidays, y'all.

Dads are good for naps

It's hard work being a baby, y'all.

Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??

So Craig isn't traveling for work nearly the way he used to (thank goodness!!), but he's spent two of the last four weeks in Florida - which means single parenting on this end, yeeps! Fortunately Holden's a pretty cool kid and tries to keep things pretty easy breeze for his mom...except for this congestion/crud that I think is basically going to take over our lives FOREVER and keeps him (and in turn me) from having a good night's sleep...but we survive. We're both glad when Dad gets home, but I think he may have set a new precedent on this last trip that Holden will come to expect..."Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??"

Holden + new Mickey Mouse doll (thanks, Dad!) = grins and giggles

Do you know how excited I am about this?!?

Baby's first Christmas!! It's going to be the utmost of adorableness, even though Holden will probably just be really confused. And while I'm late to the game on getting personalized Etsy awesomeness I was planning on for Christmas gifts ("no longer accepting holiday orders"...oops, I should have started these projects before Thanksgiving), I was totally on the ball with ordering Holden a really cute first Christmas ornament. Now it just needs the perfect spot on the tree.