'tis the season.

Mind over matter they say... well, my mind is on a sunny beach in Florida, feeling the warm sun and dipping my toes in the ocean. When I look outside, I see a dreery, cold, Wisconsin morning. Well, at least there isn't 10" of snow on the ground! 

Christmas is right around the corner. I love this holiday because it's an entire season of decorations, music, baking, twinkling lights & Christmas cheer. I think Christmas lights should be acceptable year-round decorations. The small humans had a mini Christmas session last weekend. How adorable are they?! 

Oh, Ezra... such a crazy kid. We had to bribe him with m&m's to sit still because, well, he's 2 and he just wanted to play with his trains.

Such a ham!

Love him.

I've also taken some of my own festive photos this month.

How cute are they in their matching Christmas pj's? (They're on clearance right now!)

I poured myself a cup of holiday cheer! (Side note - the reindeer pj's Selah is wearing were bought for Ezra for last Christmas (size 12 month) but I misplaced them in his closet until spring so he never got to wear them... they're a bit big on her but I knew I needed her to wear them this year!) 

Up & Up at Target sells these adorable elf diapers so I had to grab a pack for the kiddos. (Yes, one pack because they're both in size 4.) 

I literally took 107 photos of them next to each other and this is the only one where both of them are still. But we had some adorable outtakes.

I love my (not so) little elves.

The holidays are always a great time for baking, and even though it's not technically a "Christmas food", I brought out my inner Pioneer Woman yesterday and made some banana crumb coffee cake since we had some bananas to use up.

Both small humans took 3 hour naps at the exact same time so I had time to make this. It's 3 steps: coffee cake, crumble for the top and the glaze.

My husband loves it, so it's a win. I took some to my parents and my dad texted me this morning that he isn't a huge banana fan but that it's great. Marcus says if I ever open a bakery, this should be my signature item. 

I had a piece for snack last night... oh my goodness. Warm this up and eat with a glass of milk. Heaven. 

I'll be doing some Christmas cookie baking this weekend with my mom & my friend Amanda so I'll be posting those recipes later this week (if they turn out well)! I have to make several dozen for two different cookie exchanges next week. I'm pretty sure that I'll gain back all the weight I lost just this Christmas if I don't practice self control!

 Also, I have an ugly Christmas sweater from Goodwill that I get to wear 3 days in a row to 3 different ugly Christmas sweater occasions next week. I'm preeeeeeetty pumped. It's not Christmas for another two weeks, (that's so soon and I have lots of shopping left to do, oops) but I've been getting Christmas cards in the mail for a while now! We can't send one to everyone, so our family got hard copies and you can enjoy the virtual version. Merry Christmas!