Weekend Links

Yeah, it's the weekend! So excited for the next couple of days- we have a ton of great stuff happening. Today is my grandma "Nanny's" 92nd birthday, tomorrow morning my Mom and I are throwing my little sister Lauren a baby shower, and then Hank and I have a night full of playing Santa ahead of us...aka finishing up our shopping list. Sunday is a family day, and Henry will be making his first gingerbread house with his Gigi. Happy, happy weekend!

Here are some links. xoxo

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Have you stopped by Elizabeth Street lately? I'm working on their Instamom project with them again, and this month's winner will win an awesome prize- a Molten Olive Oil Gift Set- part of Michael Aram’s new Artisanal Italy Food & Gift Pairings. The four gift sets match a signature Michael Aram piece with an edible treat from select Italian artisans.  Yay! It's super easy to play along and enter- this month's theme is "December Delights," so simply tag any of your special "December Delights" photos with #ESDelights and mention @elizabethstmom to be added to the live feed. The photo with the most likes at the end of the month will become Elizabeth Street's Instamom of the Month and win! Perfect. Also be sure to check out Michael Aram on FB, Pinterest, IG and Twitter.

The wonderful folks over at Craft Coffee (a subscription artisan coffee club!) got word that Hank was a huge coffee fan, and sent us one of their tasting boxes. I'm not a coffee drinker myself, but when Hank opened up the box I could even admit that the smell was heavenly. Hank sampled all three of the beans and loved ALL of them. He received a nice mix of different roasts, but his favorite of the bunch was the Sightglass, out of San Francisco. This is SUCH a neat idea, and the perfect gift for any coffee lover in your life. And until the end of this month, you can receive 10% off any holiday gift with code "sometimesholiday" at checkout. It expires 12/23 at 11:59pm, so be sure to get your orders in. We've already got a few on the way to some special, coffee-loving friends around the country. Two thumbs up!

Beautiful holiday inspiration!

I'm always super into Jenny's hair tutorials, and I particularly loved this one. So pretty.

Obsessed with this pretty garland.

12 things I already know about my baby girl- another great post from Ilana.

Why the falling birth rate is bad for my 2-year old son. Interesting.

On our "to make" gift list this year: this and this! Can't wait to see how they turn out.

So many cute gifts for the "trendsetting toddler boy."

Loved Cathy's Currently post!

10 images of a white Christmas.

25 articles that should be required reading for woman.

PBS remixes Reading Rainbow. So cool! Thanks Layne!

Hello, Jigsaw Holiday Idea Book.

Little bits of my everyday.

Sponsor love: check out Zaia and Lulus to see what new items they got in this week!

Homemade moisturizing pumpkin body whip? I've gotta try this.

Always, always love Sara's photos and posts. One of my faves.

One of my long-time readers Delane was recently diagnosed with cancer. Visit her site to learn how you can help.

Crockpot sweet potato-soyrizo enchiladas. Hank would love this! And how about this chocolate cake with peppermint/vanilla icing? Sounds so good.

My motto for 2013.

Encouraging those that serve us- so inspiring!

I need this tote bag! It's perfect.

Some blogs to explore: Yelle's pretty online space and Jade's fabulous blog.

3 ways to ruin a family roadtrip (and how to avoid them!).

I love Chin's Dad...and I know you will too. Such a great post.

I always enjoy Kelly Ann's Music Mondays.

White chocolate peppermint popcorn! Oh yes.

This town and these friends.

Sometimes I take a step back and look at my blog and realize that I talk about the same thing all of the time. Seriously...ALL of the time- but then I don't mind too much because that's just my life. And as I began this post I was going to write "I love this little town of mine," and then thought about how I must have said that before, so I decided to do a google search to see how many times I've said it...and yes, it's definitely been more than handful. But oh well, because you know what? I do love this little town of mine. I enjoy living in a place that completely embraces the holidays, a place where any place we go we are guaranteed to see no less than four people we know. It's that kind of small town. And I adore it.

If you would have spent the day with Henry and me, you would probably be just as tired as I am right now. It was one of those days where at the end of it, I feel like I've run a marathon. It also didn't help that I pushed Henry's nap almost two hours later, which isn't something that works well for a boy who naps like clockwork, and something I never, ever do. It was such a fun day though, filled with out of town friends, good pizza, and great ice cream. Henry and his buddies ran around all over downtown as us Moms tried to get some adult conversation somewhere in between the "NO! Don't climb on that!" and the "Get down from there, right now!" that was constantly going on. Kids are crazy.

And now I'm sitting here, looking at these photos from our day and thinking about how much I love this town. And thinking about how much I say that, and how much I really never expected to either one, love this town so much, or two, say it as much as I do. Time went on though, and I somehow fell in love with a place that I never expected to end up in, and here I am now, inviting our friends to come up and visit as much as possible. I'm also thinking about friends, and how lucky I feel to have all sorts of people in my life- those I talk to on the regular, those I talk to much less frequently, and those I really just keep in touch with online. All important, all wonderful.

So I'm thankful tonight, for a handful of different things. For this town and these friends, and for a day so full of LIFE that I'm crawling into bed feeling like I couldn't go another minute.

xoxo