Feliz Navidad.

Due to travel dates, we celebrated Christmas {& my mother-in-law's birthday!} with our Arizona family today.

Maybe more to come later but for now it was a very fun day and Hanna Lucy Lu is an extremely loved girl {as is her birthday girl grandmother}.
xoxo, natty ♥

Taking care of business.

Today was so gross and rainy out but we ran around to get some provisions and then quickly retreated home to hibernate.

 

And we just finished addressing, licking, and stamping some seasonal correspondence. While watching college football and the movie Independence Day on TV? How I love seasonal confusion. 

Despite the load of work I have ahead of me in the next two weeks, I'm feeling quite merry and excited about the holiday which isn't the norm {thanks to the general nature of this time of the school year} so Happy Whatever to you tonight!!

xoxo, natty

¡Feliz Navidad!

xoxo, natty ♥

Lights.

Merry Christmas Eve!

xoxo, natty ♥

Yankee Swap.

Last night we had some friends over for a Yankee Swap {a.k.a. White Elephant, a.k.a. many other names I'm sure}. Our rule was that you had to bring a re-gifted gift or something worth $5 {or less} and I'll let you Goog-le the rest of the guidelines if you're so curious.

I, the pregnant woman, ended up with this.

My husband snagged this.

And this morning we woke up to this.

I decided that the tree lights had to go on and a picture had to be taken.

We didn't do anything for the holidays here last year so I'm very glad to have this little tree {he lives on a table} and it didn't get wintry like this outside until some time in January {late January I think?} so it's doubly nice to have a Christmas tree AND some snow.

But it never sticks - today it's supposed to turn into "freezing rain" {everyone's favorite thing}. I think if we were only about 25 miles further north we'd get a lot more snow than we do. As it is, it might snow but it doesn't stick. There can be big snowstorms here but I think this snow-then-melt business is what it's like, or at least what it was for us last year.

Anyway, we're warm inside, reading the paper {online, womp womp} and enjoying a great weekend. 

I hope you're warm too! 
xoxo, natty ♥

Christmas on Pennsylvania Avenue.

My brother-in-law oh-so-kindly wrangled some tickets for us to go to the Holiday Open House at The White House; thank you Brother0In-Law!!!
I'm a sucker for this kind of thing so I was pleased as punch to meander around and check out the holiday decor. The best part is that since it wasn't a normal White House Tour, pictures were allowed; yippee skippee!!
This is going to be a big photo dump since we're going out later tonight and whatnot but I will do a quick recap:

• Each main room had a theme.
• The overall theme this year is Joy To All.
• Bo Obama hid an ornament in each main room and there is an accompanying checklist bookmark that comes with the program and according to the list, I only found 2/3 of the Bo ornaments {they're actually BoFlakes because each one was snowflake-themed}.
  We had a wonderful time and I'm so grateful for these boys willing to take me to enjoy the sights!

Let the pictures commence!
And you MUST be kidding me. I'm out of space AGAIN; thanks a lot Google.
You'll have to wait {with bated breath, I know}.
Until then, Happy Saturday!
xoxo, natty ♥