Politics, Stories
Sarah Holland
Campaign Update: March

"How's the campaign going?"

It's the question I get most often. It's also the question I'm never quite sure how to answer.

Good? ... Great! ... Your guess is as good as mine. ... We'll see May 17th!

The truth - I suppose - all depends on what you're measuring. 

Campaign Update: March
Celebrations
Sarah Holland
Felix's Winter ONE-derland

This weekend we hosted a Winter ONE-derland party in honor of Felix's first birthday. Considering this child was born during a snow, it seemed like an appropriate theme. Well, the weather had other plans and it was 70 and sunny! I could have hosted the dang party outside! 

Felix's Winter ONE-derland
Stories
Sarah Holland
Ruby

For my 30th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do. One was to write a historical fiction short story. This is the story and as Ruby keeps calling to me here lately. I thought I'd share it here. 

Ruby
Food
Sarah Holland
Nicholas's Freezer to Crockpot Meals

One of Nicholas's New Year's resolutions was to try freezer meals. He'd prepped meals for the week on and off through 2015 and wanted to see how it would work to prepare an entire month's worth. Then, we could just pull a meal from the deep freeze, throw it in the crockpot, and on a busy day dinner would be waiting for us.

Nicholas's Freezer to Crockpot Meals
What I Learned
Sarah Holland
5 things I learned in January

Dear 2016, Slow. Up. I just picked my word for the year and finished off my New Year's Eve champagne like five minutes ago and now it's two days until February!

Whew.

5 things I learned in January

Celebrations

Holiday Traditions: How many is too many?

I love traditions. In particular, I love complete traditions. I like starting something from the beginning and never missing a moment in the cycle. One of my favorite holiday moments every year is when I put our family holiday cards on display. I have one for all ten years of our marriage. Even the year Nicholas lost his job and we sent email cards, I printed one because I knew I could not stand to have a year missing. 

If I start something, I finish it. If I do it one year, I have to do it every year.

Well, considering there are approximately three million holiday tradition possibilities (BEFORE you search Pinterest) and all of them appeal to me on some level as a Christmas junkie, then what we find ourselves with is a bit of a situation. 

21 Days to a Peaceful Holiday

Two years ago, Nicholas lost his job right before Thanksgiving. Suddenly, I was facing a very different holiday season than I had always experienced. Gone were the fancy Christmas cards and giant trees. Gone were the piles of presents and big holiday parties. Instead, stripped away and laid bare, I had to decide what it was that I loved so much about this holiday. 

I found that while I love the sparkle and the celebrations, Christmas has so much to offer in the way of quiet magic and peace.

Fall mantle with chalkboard art

Halloween costumes for the whole family

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It’s October. Summer is officially over and it’s time to embrace all things fall from corn mazes to falling leaves to COSTUMES!

That’s right. October means Halloween and Halloween means costumes. I love dressing up and every year I look forward to planning out every little detail of what we will wear.

You see, we are family costumers. There is a theme. We all dress accordingly and have since Griffin was born. I love getting dressed up and I love being part of a group and I love these hooligans I call my family so it really is the perfect scenario for me.

It’s gotten harder as we have to work around actual children with actual preferences (aka we will be dressed as some types of superheros again this year) but I never tire of the challenge.

Since family costumes take a bit more preparation, I thought I’d give you a couple ideas early in the month in case you wanted to force – I mean lovingly guide – your family into a theme.

Baby Lobster and Chefs

Griffin’s first Halloween he was the lobster and we were the chefs. We literally carried him around in that pot for part of the night and it was a HIT. The lobster costume was adorable and it’s an easy theme to coordinate for new parents because all you need is white jackets and chef hats.

Pirates and Baby Parrot

My entire family got in on the act this year. We all dressed as pirates and Griffin was our parrot. Nicholas made Griffin’s costume out of felt. It was basically a blue felt poncho with felt feathers glued on. We rented our costumes, which was more expensive, but dang we looked good. The best part was the theme for my favorite house on Jefferson Street was Peter Pan!

The Wizard of Oz

When we added baby Amos to the mix, we suddenly needed four costumes instead of three – opening up a new world of possiblities! The Wizard of Oz is the perfect fit for those with boys and I’ve got to admit – wearing the ruby slippers was more fun than I expected it to be! Also, my mom got in on the act and it was awesome.

Spiders!

2012 was the first year Griffin had a costume request. It was all Spiderman all the time at our house so we knew that would be our theme. Griffin was Spiderman. Nicholas was J. Jonah Jameson. Amos and I were the radioactive spider and his web. Thanks, Martha! It worked out perfect since Amos still needed to be toted around and people flipped for my skirt!

The Avengers

Superheroes are on heavy rotation ALL the time at the Holland house so the Avengers were a natural choice. This was before I was pregnant for a million years so I could rock Black Widow. Also, Amos was the most amazing Thor ever and kept that costume on for the next 3 months.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter offers lots of great choices no matter the mix of boys and girls. We went with Hermoine, Harry, a dragon and Professor Quirrell because Griffin had only read the first book. My parents were Hagrid (worked well since he was carrying our little dragon most of the night) and Professor McGonagall.

Mario Brothers

This was a HIT and let's be honest Felix was the most amazing toad in the history of the world. We cobbled together bought, borrowed and homemade costumes for this one. 

Pumpkin Picking

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The theme this week is FALL. I'm on fall break and I've taken the boys to the lake to enjoy the nature and the trees and all the fall things. I'm writing about one of my favorite fall traditions - picking pumpkins - today on HerKentucky.  

It is one of the highlights of my year. I love the hayrides and the hot cider and the excitement on the boys' faces as they run among rows and rows of bright orange pumpkins

From the post: 

Every year through cold weather and warm we pick the perfect pumpkin (or pumpkins) for our family.  

Click on over to see photos from our fall tradition.  

 What fall traditions do you celebrate with your family?

 

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