It was 60 degrees the day after Thanksgiving this year, which made getting our tree much more pleasant than last year when it was 15 degrees. They also opened up the lower field of trees this year, the ones that had been growing for a looooong time now, so a) it only took 5 minutes to find a great tree and b) we accidentally bought a really really huge one.

We also managed to get a family Christmas card picture I was willing to have printed on 50+ cards to send to everyone I know. You would think that would be an easy task for an actual photographer, but the shoemaker’s children etc etc. I needed one for the family room gallery wall too, since poor Linc is sadly underrepresented. But I’m not posting the card picture until my cards go out. Luckily that will be REALLY SOON, because I took Minted up on their free addressing service and all but a handful of my cards will come addressed (I paid with my own real money but that’s an affiliate link, fyi). I can just slap a stamp on them and be done. Of course, the reason they do that is because now my address book is all typed into Minted and I’ll prooooobably use them again next year, even if they aren’t offering 20% off (which they are, right now, but not for long).

Linc REALLY loved the Christmas tree farm. I might take him back to walk around and take some pictures. If I’m feeling REALLY ambitious, I’ll take his Cozy Coupe and take a photo with a tiny tree tied on top. That would be so adorable it might be worth the effort.

Linc ran FULL SPEED towards the gator truck that collected our tree to take it back to the sales building

Best I could do. It was really sunny.

You know what, I don’t even care if Caroline isn’t looking, this is perfect.

And this is MUCH more accurate.

Almost ordered this one for the wall instead of the one where you can see all the faces.

My photos this week are terrible because I used my actual camera so much I kept forgetting my phone. I promise to post a whole bunch (probably way too many) of those photos as soon as I finish my client editing.

Sunday:

Lincoln really loves Caroline

Pimp my Cozy Coupe

I caught craft herpes from glitter tulle

Monday:

Outlet shopping in style

Very important iPad work

I wore this baby so much this week

Tuesday:

My face is horrible, but Linc is waving goodbye to Target, because Target is our BFF

The pre-Christmas toy purge

Ballet waiting room selfie

Wednesday:

15 Month check-up

Poor Brutus misses his kids when they’re at school

Pie maker

Thursday:

Fascinated by the parade, AS THEY SHOULD BE

I escaped my family to photograph a brand new baby

My 8 lb turkey looks so sad on that huge plate

Friday:

Christmas Tree farm selfie

Dinner selfie

Walking home in the dark selfie

Saturday:

Early Christmas present

The dudes really like the new Star Wars game

You can’t see the mess in the dark

Despite both grown ups in our house being sick at least part of the holiday weekend, we managed to get our tree, decorate, and do a large number of Christmasy-things. I have a bunch of cleaning to catch up on, since that’s always the first thing that goes when you’re not feeling great, but I’m feeling super motivated knowing I have less than 2 weeks until Caroline’s party. Fingers crossed I can get the early prep done so I have time to actually make food. It would help if I started a menu…

Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links, because I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to earn a few dollars to put towards actually ordering more pajamas.

IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS. START THINKING ABOUT THEM. DO IT. START NOW. CHRISTMAS IS COMING AND YOU CANNOT STOP IT.

Last year for our Christmas cards I did the kids in front of the twinkle light background while wearing matching pajamas. I am a huge fan of matching pajamas, both for Christmas and for photos. I have done a lot of matching pajama research, so I’m going to share some of my findings with you in case you are also in the market for Two-piece Pajama Sets. Let’s say MATCHING PAJAMAS one more time. It can be tricky to find them in all the kid sizes when kids span different sections of the store (*shakes fist at Target for making my 6 year old buy ugly stuff from the BOYS department*) so I’ve included that info too.

Hanna Andersson (Price: $35-$46, not on sale. Last year they got down to under $30 on Black Friday) – Oh Hanna. What can I say, these are my favorite pajamas in the world. I ordered two different sets for all 3 kids last year and they still wear them at least once a week. They truly have all the sizes, from baby to adult, although their Swedish sizing can be confusing at first. Buy big, they last forever.

Our Christmas card photo

STILL wearing last year’s Christmas pajamas in August of this year

This year, they have Star Wars Christmas pajamas. They look like traditional Swedish prints but are in fact Darth Vader heads. Unfortunately, buying ALL THE JAMS for my whole family would cost as much as our entire Christmas budget, so I’ll probably settle on the (still wicked cute) Dear Deer red reindeer ones.

The Children’s Place (Price: $13ish to $20ish? They always always have sales) – One of the challenges of MATCHING jams is that Evan is in boy’s sizes, and boy’s clothes are way less cute than toddler clothes. So the good news is The Children’s Place has red stripes in sizes from 4-14. Evan and Caroline could both match in those. The bad news is they (currently) don’t have the same stripes for Linc. Their toddler sizes run up to 5T though, so last year holiday stripes like these would have been perfect. I ordered Linc a couple pairs of TCP jams a couple weeks ago and they’re pretty nice. I love the not-feet style (like Hannas!) because then they fit for a super long time.

The Children’s Place jams I ordered Linc – I love this pattern!

Land’s End – The first year we did matching jams I ordered plaid fleece from Land’s End for Evan and Caroline, as seen in this post where I announced I was pregnant with Linc OMG and also here, for our Polar Express train trip:

BABIES, LOOK AT THEM

The have nightgowns that match the old-man style pajamas, which are both adorable on children. I love this green and blue plaid nightgown that matches the green and blue plaid jams for boys which match the toddler-sized jams (no baby sizes, but they go down to 2T).

Burt’s Bees Baby ($19.95+, which is less than Hannas but still organic!) – Have you ever looked at Burt’s Bees Baby? All my fancy photographer friends buy gorgeous, neutral clothes from them for their gorgeous, neutral photo shoots. I’ve stalked a few times but it wasn’t until I was looking for matching jams that I checked them out seriously. They have a whole family pajamas section! Toddler goes from size 2 to size 7, baby one-pieces start at newborn and baby 2 pieces go from 12 months to 24 months. They also have adult sizes, which is really tempting. Epic family photo, anyone?? All cream/white henley-style jams would be catalog-style perfect on Christmas morning. I don’t have action shots yet, but I’ll update when I do (because I just ordered the matching Candy Cane jams for all the kids).

If you have a secret source of adorable matching kid pajamas, please leave me a comment so I can also order those. There’s no such thing as too many pairs, since you wear them 365 days a year (even the Christmas ones). Happy holiday shopping!!

We did a lot of nothing this week. I got rid of some of my wraps on the online wrap buy/sell/trade group, so my phone is full of wrap photos. And I definitely did not buy three more. Nope. I did not buy three. Only two.

Sunday:

This is the pile of wraps I measured so I could sell them. I did not sell them all.

I high recommend this rice cooker

This is a pile of wraps I am probably never going to sell

Monday:

I sold this one, but I’m a little sad. Look how cute Caroline looks.

Helping Daddy do computer stuff

Baby in a book

Tuesday:

LOLOLOLOLOL

She really likes wraps.

Who gave me a pen?! THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA!

Wednesday:

New Year’s Sparklers

New Year’s Toast

New Year’s Hand and Foot

Thursday:

I think I’m going to start collecting White House ornaments. I like them.

Anyone want some baby books?

Helping me de-Christmas the house

Friday:

Doing important spy business

She BEGGED me to do this and was mad when I wouldn’t let her keep him all day

When you stay up until midnight you are tired for days

Saturday:

That’s MY spot, baby

Snow! That I did not go out in!

Snuggles are why I love wraps.

I got both kids out the door fully dressed in time for school today. I was pretty proud. I’m secretly hoping for a snow day later this week because I’m not sure I can do that all week. Especially not if this baby keeps nursing allllll night. Stupid growth spurt and rolling over and separation anxiety. I feel like I’m paying the price for all the easy months up until now. I don’t like it.

These are not very good, from a technical standpoint. My children were not very cooperative, I didn’t edit them much, and definitely don’t think anyone would call them professional. But they are an accurate representation of our holiday and I’m happy I have them and can share them and one day I will love them just as much as I love the tiny 3×5 prints of my own childhood Christmases.

I actually hate to even type this because I KNOW I will fail and why even TRY to start something when I know it will fail but I’m going to do a 365 Photo Project in 2015. My goal is to take one photo every day that I don’t edit. One photo taken as a JPG on my big girl camera, no cropping, no lighting adjustments, no cloning things out of the background, no white balance correction. I have to accept it as it was taken, which (hopefully) will make me more conscious of things in-camera and not letting myself say “Oh I’ll just fix it later”. That’s why I never posted Halloween photos – I never finished editing them. That is LAZY photography and I need to be better than that.

Don’t worry, I won’t post all of those photos here. I haven’t decided how I’ll do it yet but I promise I won’t make you look at a crappy photo every day. As if blog readership wasn’t down ENOUGH this year.

Only the baby is still cooperative.

I WILL KISS HIM BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU THREATENED ME WITH SANTA

Literally the only thing Linc got in his stocking

Socks in your stocking are TRADITION. DEAL WITH IT.

Yeah, he ate that paper.

Maybe next year Santa will bring her a hairbrush

Obviously she got too many presents, since she’s this exhausted from opening.

At least we know E got what he wanted. (Thanks Carolyn!)

He did this for like 9 straight hours.

The t-rex attacking the ponies cracks me up EVERY TIME. I am HILARIOUS.

I got a super cool tripod for Christmas. This is me trying it out.

Happy First Christmas, Baby Lincoln!