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better late than never!

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I only managed to get a few Christmas cards in the mail this year, and just barely pulled that off. But I'm choosing to believe that the old adage still rings true,

better late than never!

Merry Christmas, blog friends!

a pettus christmas

After watching the Apple Christmas commercial and feeling nostalgic for family Christmases past, I was inspired to make a little holiday video of my own so I could remember the craze and joy of the day this year. I'd say this captures a little bit of both—but who says there's a difference?

Enjoy and Merry Christmas, a day late!

just a glimpse of Christmas at the Pettus house

visions of sugar plums

This weekend I took a special little friend of mine to see the Nutcracker. We sat front & center on the first row and could see every detail, every smile, every wave of the dancers.

At the end of the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance, the woman next to Grace leaned over to her.

She said, "The Sugar Plum Fairy just blew you a kiss!"

Grace leaned over and quietly said–without taking her eyes off Jenny, "Yea. That's my mommy."

christmas recital

This is a bit overdue, but I was so thankful to be able to be home for the holidays this year for more than 2 days. It was wonderful. And because of that, I was able to attend my nieces' Christmas dance recital. They did a pretty terrific job if I do say so myself (being that I am their incredibly biased aunt and all). I got a seat right beside Tate, a good view, and an hour and a half of Christmas music, Christmas costumes, dancing and festivity. What could be better?

Please try to enjoy these pictures as much as I have. They're helping to keep me in a bit of the Christmas spirit on these cold, gloomy, dreary, freezing, miserable January days we've been having in New York City.

cute kids at christmas

All of my Christmas pictures in Alabama wouldn't fit nicely into one post, so naturally I decided to split them up to make viewing easier. As I mentioned in my last post, we woke up at 5:30 am on Christmas morning so that we would have time to see what Santa brought, open presents, and eat breakfast before going to church. These pictures are from the post-Christmas-morning-madness! You can tell...as everyone is in their Sunday best.




 
  
Tate became quite the photog since I've last seen him! I'm not sure if it has more to do with the fact that he is 4 years old and wants to play with expensive, valuable things or if he really has a knack. I must admit, his pictures weren't half bad. I especially love the one below where I captured him focusing on taking the picture of his Gammaw and GG. It came out well (see below).


 
 
Since I was only home for the weekend, I only got to see my brother (and his family) who lives in Alabama. The rest of my siblings  - and nieces and nephews - weren't there yet, hence the reason for photos of only one set of families. Hopefully next Christmas we'll all be together again!

home for the holidays

I did a whirlwind trip home for the holidays. It was short and (very) sweet, but I would have liked for it to have been longer. Either way, I had such a good time spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family! And as a special treat this year, my brother Brent and his family spent Christmas Eve at our house and Santa came and visited his kids there. It was fun waking up on Christmas morning (albeit, 5:30 am) with the kiddos because they could barely wait for Christmas to arrive.














Christmas morning:


 









And, I'll leave you with this face above. If that's not one excited kid on Christmas, I don't know what is!

christmas baking party

I know, I know Christmas is over! But I never got around to blogging about this brilliant party idea. The week before Christmas my friend Kasey hosted a "Christmas Baking Party" in Brooklyn. She had all of the guests (it was a group of 7) submit their favorite Christmas dessert recipe to her in advance. She looked over the recipes, combined ingredients,  and then distributed ingredients among everyone who was attending. In total, everyone only ended up bringing a 2-3 ingredients each (since there was a lot of overlap), and we baked seven wonderful and different delights! We baked all together at Kasey's apartment, and at the end of the night we each took home a container with a variety of everyone's treats. Not only do I love to bake, but getting to take home everyone's favorite holiday dessert...well, it took the cake! This party was a terrific idea and would be fun at other times of year, too.









twas the night before


























"Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there."

I know three little kids that are hoping for St. Nicholas soon to be here! At least they're nestled snug in their beds...