T minus One Week

Before I dive into our Christmas post, I have to say a huge THANK YOU.  Dan and I were seriously just so incredibly overwhelmed and thankful by all the support we received the past couple days from all of you regarding our adoption announcement.  We are so so excited and it was so fun for us to finally share with all our friends and family our heart to adopt a child.  We can't wait to share more with you in the next couple months and will be sure to keep you updated about all the details!  So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.  Thank you for your kind words, your encouragement, and simply sharing in our excitement as we embark on this journey :)

Now, onto Christmas!

You guys, Christmas is one week away!  I don't even know how we got to this point.  Christmas just seems to creep up on me quicker and quicker and I can't believe by next week at this time there will be wrapping paper everywhere, Michael Bolton's Christmas CD will be on its 3rd round (what, your family doesn't listen to Michael Bolton on Christmas morning?), and we will most likely be exhausted from Jake playing with all his toys.  And it will be wonderful :)

This season we have been going through our advent calendar that I bought last year from Naptime Diaries, have been hiding our Elf on the Shelf (almost) every morning, and watching lots of Christmas movies with Jake :)  Jake actually likes the Grinch, which completely surprised me because he's scared of the singing peas in Veggie Tales.  I can't wait to see how excited he gets next week!  Here are some pictures and some of my favorite Christmas links.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

{The carousel is open for a couple hours during December with lights and a visit from Santa :)  Jake LOVED being on the horses again!}

Some of my favorite Christmas links from around the web

This is adorable.  And I have no idea who has time to put things like these together around the holidays.

It's pins like these that make me feel like I am failing as a mother.

If I had all the money in the world around Christmas time I would buy loads of Christmas prints like these.

My favorite Christmas devo this year.

If only all of my Christmas cards looked like this one.

This time of the year makes me want to wear bright lipstick and red nails every single day.  Yet somehow I never manage to throw on more than some chapstick in the morning lol And if my nails are painted you know it's been a good couple days!

I seriously can't get over some of these Christmas mini sessions that photographers do these days. 

Love this Christmas song- maybe it's because she was one of the worship leaders at our church in Chicago :)

The Christian dilemma: how do you talk about Santa with your kids?  I thought she had an interesting perspective. 

Can we take a walk down memory lane to Jake's first Christmas and our first Christmas in our first home?! I can't even get over how little he was!  

And as I was looking back at Christmas pictures I read this post from 2012 about Christmas and how this is the time of the year we should reflect on our need for a Savior.  I'm impressed I actually had time to sit down and write this post with a little 6 month old.