Countdown to Christmas! 4 Days Out...

The Christmas-y things that I did today were:

(a) enjoyed a lovely Sunday morning where we turned our focus to the sweet, beautiful, sacred truth about Christmas. It all comes down to four words: God is with us. :)

(b) bought my own Christmas wrapping for the first time and wrapped all my Christmas gifts! So fun! I love wrapping paper...no cop-out gift bags for me! :) Usually I just use my parent's wrapping, but this time I wanted to leave my own personal style on my gifts! I'm a nerd, I know :)

Merry Christmas in 4 days!

The Countdown to Christmtas! 5 Days to Go!

Thursday and Friday I was engulfed in Wedding World shooting the amazing Lauren Yeater and Klint Bratcher's wedding (It was awesome!!). So when I woke up on Saturday morning, I was so shocked when I looked at my phone and it said December 20th! Christmas only 5 days away?! It totally snuck up on me, so I decided I was going to enjoy the pants off this week! Each day I'm going to do something to celebrate/focus on beautiful Christmas and what it means (and you'll get to read about it because I'm going to blog about it!).

So today, I enjoyed this wonderful season with my family. Scott and I met up with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Historic Paramount Theatre! We even dressed up! Even though I've seen that movie many times, I was so into it! What a great movie and message. :) Afterwards, we went to my parent's house to eat homemade apple dumplings and hang out. It was so great to spend time with them!

Merry Christmas!

It's about time for another update...December-style!

Wearing: New clothes! Exciting story (and huge blessing): I spontaneously drove to Ft. Worth a couple of days ago to shop for student teaching clothes!! I've never gone shopping like that before! My parents blessed my socks off by giving me some money to buy new "professional" clothes for student teaching. Thanks Mum & Dad!! :) :)

Listening to: The Best of Bardot by Brigitte Bardot. "If you are a happy person don't pass up this gem" said an iTunes review. Hm...I'm a happy person...and they were totally right. I love it! Warning: It's French Pop. Yikes, I feel lame for even writing that. But it is very happy music! I find this strange enjoyment from listening to music in other languages :)

Looking at: Our glowing Christmas tree.

Just finished eating: A candy cane off of said Christmas tree.

Watching: The Jon and Kate Plus 8 winter episodes! I have gotten shamelessly into that show! But don't judge...it has really spoken to me and refreshed my perspective on life. 

Happy about: Living in Texas (random?), feeling cozy in my apartment even when it's freezing outside, and a delightful Christmas break. 

Not Happy about: a Dentist appointment in the morning, and knowing that I have no cereal or milk for breakfast in the morning.

Surprising myself: by deciding to cut off my hair! Alright, you've all been warned. Some time within the next two weeks, I'm getting the fateful appointment, cutting my hair, donating it (I'm SO excited about that!! I've never had hair long enough to do that!), and will be short-hair Caroline. Weird.

Ever so excited about: getting my student teaching assignment the other day! Now that I've got the assignment, I'm terribly excited about it! Although it will be hard to ease up on photography for a little bit, I'm excited for the change in focus for a few months.

Okay, that's all for now! Love, love! :)

I've gotten so into this...

I can't get enough! Yay family! :)

Christmas Decorating Around Our Apartment!

So despite crazy schedules, Megan and I finally managed to decorate our humble abode. :) It's about time!! Matt and Scott were both able to be around, so we turned up the #1 Christmas jams and just had so much fun! Our decorating this year was not quite as involved as last year (we just managed to get our stockings hung and tree decorated), but we've just been so darn busy! With Meg in grad school and me finishing up my last semester of undergrad...well ya know. 

On that note, today I took my last final!! It's so not even real yet that I'm pretty much done at college. I mean, I've got student teaching, but I won't be on campus at all next semester, so it's pretty much the end. :( Five years went realllly fast! I'm so happy though. :) :) I'm looking forward to the rest of my life :)

So high fives for being done with school! Bring on the holidays! I've got a busy break with weddings and such but, of course, I'm excited about that.

Random Deep Moment: I've been realizing just how careful I need to be about not overloading myself next semester during student teaching. This is extremely hard for me, since all I really want to do is keep moving forward full speed ahead with photography. It is the most difficult, frustrating, humbling thing to have to let 

awesome opportunities pass me by. But, despite this, I'm feeling really "mature" ;) about making wise decisions. I'm kind of weirdly excited to be absorbed in something other than photography for a little while. Variety in life is good!

Okay, enough from me, let's check out the decorating pictures!

Here's me putting lights on the tree (dad would be so proud) while Scott puts lights on me. :)

Carefully putting the star on top.
All of us high fiving for our tree-putting-up success! 

 

Home sweet home

My head is a Christmas tree?
And as a final visual treat...Megan and Matt gave me an early Christmas present--a vintage camera from the 1940s!! How fabulous is this?! Perfect condition, with the flash and 3 unused flash bulbs!! I'm so excited! Did I mention that I've started collecting vintage cameras!? I have and I love learning all about them. The history of photography is fascinating! :) Cool huh?

Christmas Shopping

Hi friends! I've been looking for Christmas gifts for my dazzling friends and fam lately, and I just wanted to share a few fun and unique gifts I've found to hopefully help you out as you're shopping! It's almost like the old Top 5 posts (remember those? ha) but...not quite! :)

1. Urban Outfitters was a surprising place where I found tons of cool stuff! I always thought of Urban Outfitters as expensive clothes, but that's not all they are! It seriously may be my one stop shop this year. They have a huge variety of stuff. We are talking not clothing here, but sweeeeet stuff for guys and gals such as: vintage cameras, retro electronics, really fun home accents, jewelry stands, etc. Really great stuff and such affordable prices! I can hardly write enough about how impressed and surprised I was about them! You will be blown away at all the clever stuff :) Go on! Check them out!

2. Although you can't shop online, I was impressed with Pier One's collection of little doo-dads. Again, some fun little vintage toys and such "for the person who has everything." :) 

3. The article in the December issue of InStyle has a GREAT gift guide in it! Buy the mag if you want, or just steal a glance while you're waiting in line. I was inspired by their selection of fun gifts for everyone! 

4. Shop Anthropologie.com for the girls in your life. I'm sure you can't go wrong. I enjoyed their selection of note cards and jewelry, especially their array of "statement" necklaces! 

Well, it's just a little, but I hope it helps!

Happy Holidays

Happy December 1st! It's so exciting to finally be writing "December" down...it just sounds like cold weather and cozy fires! And the holiday season is officially here! Yay!

Thanksgiving was fabulous, as expected. I just LOVE being around my family, and we were all together! I actually stayed home at my parent's house too which was fun :) We had fun just relaxing, eating, watching football, playing with my brother's dog, and decorating the Christmas tree! Yay! 

So, I realize this is a super short post, but I have homework that needs to be done. But, I wanted to share something insignificant! I painted my fingernails today!! Probably the first time ever in my life (except for times I've gotten a french manicure for a wedding or something). Anyway, it's so fun! I cut them short and then painted them this awesome dark, dark, dark shimmery brown color. They are so rockstar-awesome I can hardly stand it! :) Anyway, I was excited. 

Just about a week left of school! :)

Happy December!