‘Tis the Season (Major Photo Share of “Us Lately”)

December 24, 2014 ~ JessicaJaeger ~ Leave a comment

I’ve always loved the Christmas season but it’s been especially awesome this year having a super overexcited toddler around. Z got Christmas last year but more as things were happening, there wasn’t the anticipation and excitement that there seems to be this year. Now, I’m writing this post when the excitement has hit such a crescendo that she is wearing her “Kissmas” dress at all times, she can hardly sleep with excitement, and has eaten so many cookies that she forgets what vegetables taste like (we are READY for Christmas, if you know what I mean…) but I had to share some of the fun things we did to make this month just fly by, I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already!

Buying and decorating the Christmas tree and then hanging Z’s first homemade ornament, it smells like cinnamon, too!

Christmas cookies, round I with Hershey’s kisses courtesy of Influenster (thank you!).

Christmas sangria at a mom’s night out party.

We made our favorite gingerbread house kit (actually it’s a ski chalet).

Christmas manicures (chubby toddler hands are my favorite).

Christmas crafting to make out marshmallow snowmen.

Meeting one of Santa’s reindeer at Zoolights.

Christmas cookies, round II.

The coat and muff that my sister wore, I wore, my niece wore, and now Z can wear – she has named it the Christmas coat!

And – the big highlight of the season – SANTA! Z loved him, M wasn’t so sure…yet!

Thank you for reading, supporting, and (hopefully) enjoying this little blog of mine this year. I’m working on a big “best of 2014” post to end the year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Pajamas

December 16, 2014 ~ JessicaJaeger ~ 5 Comments

One my favorite Christmas traditions is finding a pair of adorable pajamas for the kids to wear all month long. And what is cuter on Christmas morning than kids running downstairs to see what Santa has left them in their on-theme jammies – love it! I posted a picture on Instagram last week of my kids in their Christmas jammies this year and got some questions about where they are from. Also, for the first time ever I got myself a pair of Christmas jammies so with all of that I thought I’d put it all together and do a little post on our favorite Christmas pajamas for the entire family.

1. Santa jammies from Hanna Andersson. They make my favorite kids jammies of all time so we splurge for Christmas and get them from here almost every year.

2. Although Baby M is wearing the baby version of the Hanna Andersson Santa jammies this year, wouldn’t it be cute to have an Elf with your toddler Santa?

3. I had been toying with the idea of getting myself Christmas pajamas and then I saw that J. Crew makes their PJs in petite(!) and also they were 30% off so…decision made. I am partial to polka dots so the polka dot flannel pants in poppy were the winners.

4. Believe it or not my husband already has a few pairs of Christmas PJs (perhaps because I’ve gifted them to him over the years). I always like a dad in plaid (rhyme!) PJs for Christmas, don’t you think? I like this green and blue tartan PJ bottoms from GAP. (similar)

What Christmas jammies are you and your kids wearing this year?

Homemade Christmas Cards

December 15, 2014 ~ JessicaJaeger ~ 1 Comment

I love to make our Christmas cards every year but this year it just wasn’t feasible! Plus, I had so many beautiful photos from our shoot with Heater Maloney that I knew this year was a year for a traditional (EASY) photo card. Luckily, I got my homemade Christmas card fix in because we had a few people to give gifts to that required a little card to accompany the gift. I went with 2 different styles this year. One classic look and one a little more whimsical. I thought I’d share the finished products today in case you’re looking for a little homemade Christmas card inspiration.

I made the classic card extra simple by using just red and silver throughout the card, the message is even written in silver sharpie inside the card! These snowflake stamps are just fabulous.

For the more whimsical card I used a few different color ink pads to make a tree with ornaments. To fill the white space, I made a border from a red/white striped washi tape and I think it came out adorable.

Merry Merry!

PS. I inadvertently took last week off from blogging, – just too busy and too much going on. But I’m baaaack!