Saturday, December 11, 2010

traditions in the making

Not sure if it's the time of year, the fact that Ellie is growing faster than the weeds in our grass, or just that we're spending more time at home, but I've been enjoying finding little fun things to make our home-life more exciting!

We started writing some of our favorite daily memories on brightly colored strips of paper and hanging them up in the bathroom. This idea came from a book I read (and loved) when I was pregnant with Ellie: The Happiness Project. The mother in the book realizes how many little amazing things happen everyday, and how quickly we can forget them as we move on with our too busy lives, so she starts writing down the most memorable things at the end of the day. David and I haven't been doing so well with the daily thing, but we write down the super special or fun things, usually involving our beautiful baby girl. A few highlights: "Ellie pooped on the bathroom floor," "Day-O, Shake, Shake, Shake Senora," "10 minute cleaning challenge," and "Impromptu family dinner @ Polaris." Maybe those aren't things we'd forget, but I think it's nice to be reminded of them when we're otherwise not thinking about how fun our life can be.

The other fun thing we're trying to do is a fun countdown to Christmas. While it wasn't executed perfectly this year, it will hopefully become bigger and better and eventually be an anticipated holiday tradition. We made a board with 25 hidden tags on it detailing something we have to do that night. We included a few of our special favorite treats: "coffee night," and "do what you want," as well as some things that we thought would be cool, but wouldn't happen of our own free will: "turn off the TV," and... I guess this will actually be more surprising than it seemed when we made it last week, because I really can't remember what the other tags say!

My favorite one so far? I've had to work a lot this week, including last Sunday afternoon. When I came home, I was greeted with my loves all dressed up for "fancy night."
My heart always skips a beat when David gets dressed up, and seeing him holding E in her tights and ballet slippers was pretty much the most awesome greeting ever.