Dedra Long: we said goodbye....

to 2012 and hello to 2013.

Mid-December in our house most of the time turns into complete chaos, this year was no exception. Ellie officially made it to double digits. The big 10.

This year was the best, typically we head out to California the day after Christmas to spend time with Jon's family. Last year we headed to Pacific Grove and the year before that we went to the cabin in Lake Tahoe. This past year Jon's parents bought and built a new house and they were all moved in by summer. So, this year they came here and stayed for 2 full weeks. With both sets of our parents here, we celebrated Christmas Eve at our house as we do every year, dinner with movies, hot chocolates, reindeer food, cookies, milk and a written letter to Santa.
Then we also hosted Christmas dinner for 16 people, which included three sets of our parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, a friend of the family and our girls. It was a packed house.
I'm not sure why but the table settings and centerpieces where really important to me this year. I wanted to make it feel extra special.
The table settings started out like this:

This was our last Christmas in this house. We had it built and we were moved in by July 2006. Ellie was four and this is really the only house she remembers. With everyone in the house we really became aware of how thankful we will be next year with a new and more spacious floor plan.

My mother in law asked what my vision was for the table as I was gathering all of the essentials from one room and bringing them into the other. She helped me put everything in place, and is was PERFECT!
I kept thanking her for all of her help days after. Jon Sr. said that everything was beautiful and wanted to officially pass the torch over to us. Oh no, don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but Jon and I are already looking forward to next Christmas in the new house. We have already been talking about our vision for the occasion and we really want a "winter forest feel". We will see how it turns out next year!

I also put a close on Project Life 2012 (it took two 12x12 binders)...and started 2013, sort of....