Snippets: Holidays, Love, and Exhaustion

Life lately, according to iPhone pictures:

01 Pippin before and / 02 after falling through the ice on a pond (he was chasing ducks) / 03 yummy veggie sandwich / 04 me at my birthday lunch / 05 bluebird, my new favorite lunch place / 06 barrettes make me feel less lazy about my hair styling choices / 07 wrapping gifts and a confused Pippin / 08 christmas eve at Will's family's house, Pippin matched the gifts a bit / 09 Pippin with his christmas treats / 10 christmas morning with my family / 11 a new bookcase to match our new corner desk, the jewelry stand was a gift from my sister and that pretty antique horn box was a gift from a friend / 12 the blanket my mom gave us for christmas goes perfectly in our room / 13 an exhausted Pippin snuggling clean laundry / 14 some favorite gifts from some favorite people / 15 sick but a cute sweater

Hello there, lovelies. I hope you're still there. I'm back from a rather lengthy blogging break that wasn't planned/intended/expected but that happened regardless. I'm actually glad that it did. I have been going nonstop for the past few weeks. Between getting gifts done and crafted, christmas shopping, commitments to friends and family, spending time with friends and family, the holidays, traditions, new traditions, surprises, unplanned issues, trying to push out blog content, and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention, I got really exhausted. And Will got sick. And then I got sick (I'm still sick). The holidays tend to be a busy time for everyone, so I"m sure you understand that I got overwhelmed and instinctively cut out what I didn't have the time or energy for without much thought. I hope you'll forgive my absence here. More importantly, at the top of my ignore list has definitely been my blog email inbox (which, ironically has gotten more traffic lately than ever before). So, if you've emailed me in the past month-ish I promise I'll read your messages and get back to you this week.

Cutting out most of my responsibilities here for the past few weeks (I had set those hair tutorials to post in advance, so really, it's been awhile) really allowed me to slow down a bit, as much as one can around the holidays, and really enjoy time with those I love. Which is what this season is all about. I had a wonderful christmas with both of my families. And I had a lot of time to think about this blog and the direction I want to take it this next year. I've set a lot of goals for myself that I am really excited about that I can't wait to share with you.

I hope you've been well since last I've been around. I hope you had a wonderful time with family over the holidays, if that is what you do. I'm so excited to get caught up with all of you and start this new year feeling fresh. I hope you'll be around for it all! Thank you for reading.

xx Emorie