Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

For all those who I couldn't send a Christmas Card to... I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year! We had a pretty crazy year and I can't wait to see what 2016 has in store! 

For those of you who asked, I made these cards on Heritage Makers! They have a bunch of different templates or you can customize your own. It is pretty awesome! My mom is a consultant and really know how to use the program if you want to create your own!

Walmart Holiday Photo Gifts!

When it comes to gift giving, we all want to give someone something that is thoughtful, and personal. One of my go to personal gifts, are photo gifts. What are photo gifts? They are gifts that utilize photographs in one way or another. I am someone who love pictures and the memories they evoke when I look at them. When I can utilize those feelings in a gift, that is the best kind of gift to give.

With the holidays just around the corner, I teamed up with Walmart to showcase a great personalized photo gift. Walmart offers a great variety of photo gifts, but I was specifically drawn to their ornaments. Ornaments hold a special meaning in my family. As long as I can remember my family has collected Christmas ornaments from special places we have visited, for milestones, or special occasions. It is so fun to pull them out every year and remember the stories and memories behind them. This year my husband and I welcomed a new addition, and I knew I had to make some Christmas ornaments to commemorate her first Christmas! I know her Grandparents will love them!

They have a great selection of ornament photo gifts that come in various shapes and materials. Gorgeous metal, aluminum, glass, porcelain, and ceramic ornaments where you can showcase a special photograph! I chose to have a newborn picture of our daughter Ella put in these beautiful glass oval shaped ornaments. I know when our family members put these on their trees, with the soft twinkle of Christmas tree lights on behind it, they won't be able to help but smile when they look at it. With 3,5000 Walmart Photo locations nationwide or with the ability to order online you can easily put together a meaningful gift. They even have a mobile image transfer in the store for you to easily transfer photos. You can use their Fujifilm Kiosk Photo Transfer App or connect with a cable at the kiosk. If you are shopping last minute, many of these gifts are available for same day pick-up in the store! Walmart Photo is offering free shipping on all cards and gifts through 12/30/15 so make sure you utilize that to get some Holiday shopping done.

Be sure to visit Walmart Photo's brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers' posts.

Christmas Break Catch Up!

This year for Christmas we headed on down to St. George to spend it with Trevor's family. The Crowley's have a tradition to go out for Christmas Eve breakfast, and this year we hit up Black Bear Diner. I have only been here one time before but I loved it, and it did not disappoint again! I got the cinnamon roll french toast, and it was scrumpppptious! They have so much on their menu I want to go back and keep trying new things. I love a good breakfast spot! Later that evening we had a big dinner and went to see the Christmas nativity and lights at the St. George Temple. I have such a soft spot for that temple for a few reasons, and I had another great experience there that nigh that I will always remember. I will have to share all of those stories sometime. It was a beautiful night. We went home and read some of the story of Christ’s birth from the Bible, had some hot chocolate and called it a night. Christmas morning was full of presents and a yummy breakfast. Every year Trevor’s mom makes these amazing orange cranberry rolls that none of the kids like so I just enjoy as many of them as I like! Haha 

Merry Christmas!

Photo by: Lori Romney Photography

Since I can't send you all a Christmas card, I thought a blog post might suffice! I hope everyone has a MERRY Christmas and fun plans in store with family & friends this week. I am signing off for the rest of the week so I can fully focus on enjoying my family, I hope you do too! 

Merry Christmas & a happy New Year!

friends & family

Whenever I am going home to visit I make sure I see my girlfriends! We all went to breakfast at this amazing breakfast place called Snooze. I would highly recommend their french toast, um, yum. Also make sure you ask for their pancake special of the day. It is different every time and apparently they can get pretty creative. My friend talks about the Oreo Peanut Butter Pancake like it was a gift from the heavens, and oh how I wish it hadn't been a specialty pancake so I could have tried it when I had gone!

Speaking of other yummy places to try next time you in SoCal, me and my friend Katy on another night during my stay went out to dinner at a place called Stacked. It is a really unique set up where you create the dish from an iPad that is at your table. They have such a variety, and it was scrumptious. Some of the best macaroni and cheese I have ever had, and you all know what a statement that is coming from me.

Another must see when I am in town, especially at Christmas, is to see the San Diego Temple and the Christmas lights! As a family we were able to attend the Temple all together, as well as see all the festive decorations. Both my parents work in the temple, and spend a lot of time there weekly. It was nice to spend time there and see more into what they do on a weekly basis! I wish I could just show you what the lights look like. In the night it is hard to capture with the camera. But it really is gorgeous. There is a free way to the right side of the temple, and they say that every December the accidents go up on that stretch of the freeway because people stare too long at the temple and all the gorgeous lights!

Christmas Day!

After the presents were done, and skype/phone calls with family had commenced, we decided to head on out to another park in our neighborhood to shoot of rockets. Yet another, you guessed it, family tradition. Christmas day is for rockets at our house. It was so much fun to take turns getting to launch the rocket, and then watching the boys run around trying to find where it would land.

Evan wanted to make sure someone walked with Grandma :) Sweetest boy ever.

Later that night we had a big feast for Christmas. It is basically a repeat of Thanksgiving at our house for our Christmas dinner. My Dad's homemade Apple pie was again, my favorite part! Although with that said my mom really knocked it out of the park with some of her sides this year. I never knew I could LOVE beans so much.

We ended the night walking Christmas Card Lane. If you guys are ever in the San Diego area during Christmas, you have to check out apart of my neighborhood. People will actually take buses from downtown to come see Christmas Card Lane.

As wikipedia describes, "Christmas Card Lane is a holiday light display in San Diego, California in the community of Rancho Penasquitos. It is one of the most famous holiday displays in San Diego. Residents erect giant plywood greetings in their front yards depicting cartoon characters,
religious images, or Christmas themes."

I grew up in Rancho Penasquitos, and so every December has been filled with going to Christmas Card Lane. It is pretty spectacular. People go above and beyond and you will often find crowds of people wondering the neighborhood, caroling, watching movies on their lawns, handing out hot cocoa and the whole works. Everyone has their "favorite" cards, and the whole thing is pretty special. Story is it was all started by a woman who was an artist for Disney. She created a big version of a greeting card with her gorgeous art and encouraged her neighbors to join in the fun. And they did, over 200 homes participate in Christmas Card Lane! Don't plan on driving through their quickly during any given day at the end of the month. Christmas Card Lane is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas, and it was so fun to be home this year to do it.

Really it was such a great, great day! And then we played games and watched movies into the wee wee hours of the morning!

Christmas Morning

 

Every Christmas my mom bakes a bunch of her amazing baked goods. Its tradition to have tins full of amazing cookies and my favorite, Canadian Butter Tarts, to stuff our faces with the whole week. Which we of course did. The whole week was spent grazing on cookies, which is definitely why I gained so much over the break!

Christmas morning started off with a head butt to the face. My nephew Landon jumped on me to wake me, fun. On the flip side of that it actually was fun to watch the boys open their presents! They were in heaven. With a family our size it took us all morning and into the afternoon to open everything, and we just took our time lounging in pajamas, eating my mom's traditional Christmas breakfast.

It was such a fun morning with family! And I couldn't get enough of my nephews, as evidenced by all the pictures of them! :)

Check out the year in review from Kylie :)

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