Waiting on...Christmas cards!!!

There are so many things I love about the holiday season but there's just something about going to the mailbox and pulling out envelopes filled with Christmas cheer!  I absolutely LOVE sending and receiving Christmas cards!!!  It truly brings me joy to see pictures of friends and family that I don't get to see often and even those people that I see all the time!

Christmas cards are part of my decorations and I display them on a linen board in our kitchen table area.  I overflow them to hooks that I hang from our windows and if I run out of room there, I start putting them around the door - I want to be able to see all of them!!! 

And, these gems don't go in the trash when the season is over (gasp! do some people really do that?!).  I save every.last.one!  Years ago (before I had three kiddos!) I even started scrapbooking them into their own scrapbooks.  The years that I have finished are some of my favorite books to look through!  I'll get around to finishing the other years - one day!  :)

As I type this, I'm WAITING on the FedEx man to drop off this year's family Christmas card - I can't WAIT to see it!  But, in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at our Christmas cards from a few Christmases past.  Enjoy!  :)

2005

This was before Christmas cards were "designed".  My friend, Shelly, came over and snapped this pic for us!

2006

We had just returned from Disneyland and I just knew that we would have a cute picture to use on our Christmas card - ummm...no!  For some unknown reason, every.single.picture I took that trip turned out dark. :(  Oh, well!  It wasn't the greatest but we still had a card!  :)

2007

Holy batman - I remember this year!  Shelly had to come over on more than one occasion to try to get a picture we could use!  And, yes, my son has shorts on in our Christmas picture - you pick your battles!  

2008

A pic snapped on the front steps of our house.

2009

One of my favorites!  I think we take better pics in our pj's!  :)

2010

 This was the first year that we hired a photographer (Charly Stagg) to take our picture.  Hope was only 3 months old so we knew this might be a challenge.  But, I love the way it turned out!

2011

 Even though this was a lot of fun, I must admit that it did not turn out like I thought it would!  Painting the Christmas tree took a LOT longer than I thought and we never did get a picture of everyone looking.  But, the important part is the kiddos had fun (and Hope didn't eat the paint)

2012

 Quite possibly my favorite Christmas card of all time!  We did The McBertys were nestled all snug in their bed when Colby and Holden were little so I HAD to do it while Hope was still little.  And, yes, that is our bed in our backyard!  :)  Shelly convinced my husband the lighting would be better outside!  I still can't believe he agreed to dismantle our bed for this!  This card was designed by Brooke Designs.

2013

Karen Winn took these pictures for us.  We were in a field a couple of streets over from our house.  I've got a funny story about the glitter pic below!  :)

2014

Well, you'll have to WAIT along with me before you see this year's card!  We were on our way to a wedding and I thought, hey, we're dressed, let's call a photographer and see if she can snap some pics.  Can you believe that no one could do that?!  So, I went out on a limb and called a dear, sweet friend that takes awesome pictures to see if she would snap some pics for us.  She agreed (bless her heart!) and captured some really good pictures for us!  Andrea at Slightly Askew Designs designed them for me and I am just thrilled with how they turned out.  I can't WAIT to get them!!!

And while I LOVE a good Christmas card, some of my favorite memories are the pictures that didn't make the final cut!  Here are some fun memories that I don't want to forget!

It takes many.many.MANY pictures to finally get one that we can use!

PLEASE - just look at me and smile!

 we LOVE taking family pictures!  :)

And then Pinterest came along!  I thought trying to recreate this would be a good idea:

and it almost was...

till one nano second after this picture was taken Hope had ingested half of the glitter and the other half was in Holden's eyes.  If my girls weren't screaming in agony, I might have peed on myself from laughing so hard.  Did I really think this was a good idea?! #momfail

and then there was this idea:

      merged with      

#nailedit #notreally :)

DISCLAIMER - pictures might or might not contain laps full of candy to get the kids to cooperate

well, it works most of the time

but then you have moments like this...

and it's absolutely worth the WAIT!

I hope you are having a blessed week!  Now, get busy and mail those Christmas cards!  I don't want to WAIT any longer to have a mailbox full of Christmas cheer!

Gig 'em and God bless!

Holly

White Lights on Wednesday | {i love} my disorganized life 
Real Housemoms | Self Proclaimed Foodie