December 25, 2017

merry christmas

I just wanted to take a quick minute to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas from the Peterson Family. As I sit here in bed with my sleeping family, at the end of my birthday, I can’t help but reflect on how blessed we are. We are all happy and healthy. We are blessed beyond measure. Not only do we have everything we need to keep our children happy and thriving, but we have more. We have each other. We are surrounded by amazing families and amazing friends. The life we are living is better than I ever imagined.

Reflecting back on this year, welcoming Ben into our family and going from 1 to 2 children hasn’t exactly been easy… But it’s still been Heaven. Are we tired? YES. So. Tired. Are we stressed? Many days, YES. Nothing about parenthood is easy, yet you know you wouldn’t change it for anything. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, the days are long but the years are short. And that’s exactly how I feel these days.

Returning to work after 12 weeks of maternity leave back in June was TOUGH. It was tough to leave my children. It was tough to spend all day in an environment that wasn’t great for me, mentally. It was so tough that we decided it was time for me to leave my full-time job this fall.

I am so lucky I can do what I love and support my family. I am also lucky to have a husband who believes in me and was supportive of me giving up that steady paycheck to let me do what I felt called to do… be home with my children. While I’m still trying to find my work-from-home groove, I know it will come. I will figure it out.

How beautiful are our Christmas cards from Tiny Prints? I LOVE picking out our family’s Christmas cards each year. Typically, I scroll through the 100s of designs and narrow it down to all of my favorites… then Jason goes through and narrows down my favorites even more. Then we decide on the one we love most!

I definitely procrastinated getting the photos done this year… and then designing the cards. December just flew by! And once I actually ordered them, I was looking through my account (who knows why) and realized somehow the photos on the back had shifted! I jumped on their customer service chat and since I had paid to rush my order (that I had literally placed only hours before) my order had already been printed. But they got it all straightened out. I was able to fix my cards, readd them to my cart and replace my order. And the cards were still here 3 days later.

You know I always love to get the addresses of our friends and family printed directly onto the cards to save us time. And I even order customized postage directly from Tiny Prints too! (I’m NOT hauling 2 kids into the Post Office.) With our little team, it took almost 40 mins to stuff, stamp and seal the 65 cards. Not. Bad. Then I just had to cruise through the drop-off mailbox and they were literally to our in-town friends the next day.

I know I wasn’t the only one to procrastinate! So if you’re one of those who just didn’t have the time to get cards created for Christmas… go for New Year’s cards!

Again, Merry Christmas. I hope your family has a great day of togetherness and is able to celebrate all of the Lord’s blessings. With so much chaos in this world we live in, it’s so great to finally have a day (or a few days!) to shut off the world and surround yourself with the ones you love most in this life, there truly is no greater gift.

I can’t wait to share more of our family photo session with you later this week. I love these photos so, so much.