Dressed in Holiday Style

There's nothing like pretty Christmas packaging!

Kyle's sister Becca found these two bears that Kyle had growing up....in fact, since he was a baby.
You better believe I packed these guys immediately to head back home for when we have our littles.

Baby Sam. He is so wonderful and cute. I had to wait a whole 2 and a half almost 3 months to hold him.
When I did, it was magic. We gave him some red baby shoes that we got from Guatemala and they fit him perfectly!

So sad...

And then so happy...

The best new parents!

McOmber family tradition is a night at the Mandarin, the best Chinese

food around! Sadly, Kyle got sick on the plane ride to Utah and was out for the night.
We got these pomegranate slushies that did not disappoint.

Bailey and her beau Brady DEFINITELY should have won the

ugly sweater (or in his case, suit) contest at our family party.

The boys all played Risk until 2:00 in the morning one night.

I LOVE these sisters of mine.

Our nephew Luke is crazy and loves to dance. These are just a couple

of the awesome pictures I got of him tearing it up one night.

We held a baby shower for my cousin Kate and made these adorable bear cookies.
I'd like to say they weren't a pinterest fail.

Cute baby Wyatt asleep.

Like momma, like baby...matching!

Skeeball with Charlotte and Millie.

Kyle finally took me out shooting and I like to think I took to it pretty well.

Essence of beauty in McConnell's Ice Cream.

Baby Asher before he was blessed. 

A baby deer just wandering in our yard. I loved it. 

More of Baby Sam and my beautiful mom.

We love being home with family for the holidays.

A Christmas Tree Saga

Well we have quite the story for the beginning of our Christmas decorating adventures. We decided to get our first tree on Black Friday. Target was selling a beautiful 6 foot tree that was already covered with lights. We knew we wanted a tree with white lights so we decided to pick that one up until we realized only the colored lit trees were left. And so it began...Here are the steps if you want to create the best story of buying a Christmas tree: 

Step 1. Buy colored light tree because they are out of white light trees 

Step 2. Take tree home and take off all colored lights

Step 3. Go back to buy white lights and see that the white light tree is available

Step 4. Buy white light tree and bring home and set up while planing on returning colored light tree

Step 5. Pull out chord to unplug for the night and chord breaks

Step 6. Return both trees to get a different white light tree

Step 7. Go to 4 targets and find they are all out of white light trees

Step 8. Go back to target to buy back broken chord white light tree to fix it

Step 9. Find they've sent it back to the factory

Step 10. Buy back the colored light tree 

Step 11. Take off colored lights and put white lights on

Basically, we ended where we started. We are just happy to finally have a tree for the first time and to have decorated it with white lights that we will make sure won't come off. This little guy was quite the helper (nuisance) as we began decorating. 

 Once we set up the tree, we made sure we watched two versions of
A Christmas Carol as well as A Charlie Brown Christmas.

 I shot this photo when we volunteered to help in nursery and
this guy drew some fun Christmas pictures.

 I LOVE how our church sets up our building during Christmas!

 A fun row house in Alexandria dressed in holiday style. 

 The cutest gingerbread trees at a nice restaurant in downtown D.C. 

 Work had extra tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Kyle and
I had a lot of fun seeing what it is all about. 

My work also threw their Christmas party which is always incredible.

They had a theme of a train station and departures to different spots in the city.

This house blinkin a bright red and green and being voted #11

of the craziest decorated homes in the country!

 And here she is! The prettiest tree. After all the stress, it was worth it! We are so lucky to have a fireplace in our apartment and Kyle lit one to put the finishing touches on our decor.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas... :) and Happy Holidays!  

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

I'll be honest in saying we haven't held as many parties as we would like so we decided to change that up for Christmas and host an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party! We had people bring their favorite appetizers along with their best ugly sweater while I made my mom's sugar cookie recipe that never fails! We also had a fun drink mix bar where you could mix and match flavors! It was a great way to really welcome in the Christmas season!

My sister Hannah gave us this sweater for Boo last Christmas and we put it on him and he hated it! This time, he tolerated it a little better and even posed with us for some pictures.

I think he hated it so much because he couldn't walk very well. In fact, walking backwards worked better for him.

There were so many great sweaters to choose from. In the end, our friend Michelle, who had an actual sweater from the 1980's and one that was passed down, won. I find it's always the sweaters that AREN'T meant to be ugly that win. We had a photo booth set up to document the night.

One of Kyle's family traditions is making a trifle dessert and hiding an almond in it. The person who gets the piece with the almond in it gets a prize. It's always a bit competitive with Kyle's family. I'm glad we are continuing this tradition in other places too.

Fun night with friends and my one and only in a Sasquatch sweater.