Christmas Card 2016

Merriest of Christmas from the Hollands. 

It's been another fantastic year and as the years pass by I'm so thankful to have these cards to look back on of years past. The memories they hold, the significant events of the year, the changes our family has gone through and how much better my life gets with each stage. 

May your holidays be full of cheer and merriment! From our family to ours. 

2015

2014

Previous years

The Holidays 2015

The holiday season keeps getting better and better. I said it last year how much more magical Christmas is with a little one and goodness, I really didn't know what I was in for. Mark was so much more engaged this year at 15 months compared to last year at just 3 that I can't wait to see his reactions next year. Not to mention the sweet new baby boy who will be about 9 months this time next year! 

Just like last year we started off the festivities with a visit to see Santa. We went to a different mall and it actually turned out better than last year. Yes we paid a silly amount but at least this time we got lots of images and the digital files plus a reservation time to see the big man in red. Mark didn't absolutely lose it which is always a plus but lets just say the picture on the left was the first one taken and the rest he's very skeptical in. 

Mark got to help my mom, sister and I with our big cookie baking day this year and while he definitely didn't care in the slightest about being involved, I love that he got to "help" even the little bit that he did. Our house was decorated a little later this year than other years but I'm almost thinking that was okay since we have someone with pretty sticky fingers running around now. Mark always helped me turn on the Christmas tree lights each morning and would occasionally look up at the stockings making the season that much better. 

Christmas Eve was low-key this year as we only had my mom's to visit (J's dad had us over after Christmas) and after enjoying lots of yummy snacks and wonderful gifts we made it home, put the babe to bed and finished up the last minute tasks for hosting the next day. It's tradition now that J makes his pulled pork on the smoker with homemade BBQ sauce and goodness did we feast. My mom helped with all the sides and like I've mentioned before, I ate wayyyy to much homemade mac n cheese and party potatoes. We made easy desserts and everyone but this momma made a serious dent in the "bar" while enjoying each other's company. Mark was quite sick on Christmas day so I was worried about him and how he was feeling/sleeping/eating/etc but thankfully it seemed like even he had a good time. 

J and I continued the festivities of the season by celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary a few days after Christmas. We left our boy at home with Gram and Auntie so we could enjoy a night to ourselves which was definitely needed. We had dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory and then went to a NBA game with box seats. Is basketball necessarily my top choice of activities? No. But was it so nice getting out of the house and doing something with my husband we literally never get the chance to do? Heck yes! It was a wonderful night and great way to celebrate all we've done in the last three years. 3 years, 2 babies and 1 family is surely something to be proud of!

We ended the holiday break before the grind of school and work started back up by braving the cold and walking the paths of Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo. We bundled up Mark in lots of layers, blankets and his stroller sack, wore hats and gloves and drank hot chocolate and marveled in the amazing light displays throughout the whole zoo. It was a special night that both Grandmas and my sister came along for and while we didn't last long thanks to temps in the 20's I'm so glad we decided to finish off the holiday season like this. 

The month of December is pretty much my favorite of the whole year. My love Christmas and the celebrations it brings. The fact that we decided to start our family on Christmas Eve two years ago and are now blessed with one wild toddler and one bundle in my belly. That our anniversary falls just a few days later to continue the joyous season. Being able to spend over a week just being with my little family, loving on them, celebrating with them, making memories with them. 

Thanks for another fabulous season, 2015! Here's to next year!

Christmas Card 2015

Merry Christmas from the Hollands

2014

Previous years

Christmas 2014

The holidays this year we're magical. I never believed it when people said Christmas when you're a kid is topped by Christmas when you have a kid but it's so, so true. Even when your child is only 3 months old and prefers staring at the lamp than opening his 20 gifts! 

We started out the festivities by visiting Santa (and spending an absurd amount on an 8x10) where Mark told the big man in red that he wanted golf clubs and diamonds. Smart boy we have right there. He could care less who holds him which is such a blessing so we were able to capture his blank stare in all it's glory. 

We spent Christmas Eve visiting J's dad's house so they could spoil the babe and ended the evening at my mom's like we always do. Can you even stand that little sweater romper? Who says girls are the fun ones to dress up! My sister has been working on a quilt for Mark ever since we announced my pregnancy and it was such an amazing, thoughtful gift we'll have forever.  

J and I started the tradition of opening gifts from each other in the quiet of our own home on Christmas Eve so this year, after we put Mark to bed, we poured ourselves a drink and enjoyed a moment just the two of us. J gifted me a gorgeous sapphire ring to add to my wedding set to symbolize our little babe and I was again blown away by his thoughtfulness. I picked a good man, that's for sure. We spent a while reflecting on the year and boy has it been a good one! Especially since we decided on Christmas Eve last year that we wanted a family and our sweet little man turned 3 months old on Christmas Day. 

Like last year, we hosted Christmas for J's mom's side of the family (and my family too) and it went off without a hitch. We got to relax in our own home which is awesome with a new baby, had tons of yummy food including pork from the smoker and really enjoyed ourselves. Family is so important to both of us and it's such a blessing to have everyone together under one roof making new and continuing old traditions. It was yet again another fabulous holiday season in the books and I'm a bit in denial that it's over already! Until next year...

Christmas Card 2014

Sending and getting cards is one of my favorite parts about the holidays. Its so fun to get a glimpse into the year everyone had and to look back on years past to see how everyone's changed. This year was definitely a big one for us.

Merry Christmas, from The Hollands

Cards from Tiny Prints

To see past years cards, go here.

Tis The Season

The Christmas season has always been my favorite time of year. There's no questioning my love for the twinkling lights, the time spent with family, the joy the season brings. But this year it's been hard. It's been hard to get in the spirit when my spirits have been low. The stress of balancing the end of my third semester of med school with being a mommy and a wife, trying to have a perfectly decorated home and enjoy this time of year as much as possible has often been too much for me to handle. I'm in desperate need of a break and so thankful that I'm in a position to get 2+ weeks off from school to do just that.

Our days are going to be filled with time as a family, seeing those we love the most and soaking in this little boy of mine who I've missed dearly the last few weeks. As I type, he is finishing his nap on my chest and hearing his little breath in my ear makes all the stress from the last month just disappear.

I'm hitting the ground running today for this festive week and I can't wait for what's in store in the coming days. We're headed to meet Santa for the first time after J gets off his conference call followed by an afternoon of baking cookies and wrapping presents while our little boy naps. We're hosting Christmas again this year and I feel like I say this every year but this year is more special than any before. Celebrating Mark's first Christmas is something I've been looking forward to since finding out I was pregnant and to top it all off, he turns 3 months old on Christmas day!

Sometimes life can be hard. And then sometimes it can be so, so good that you forget about the bad. I'm in the good and soaking up every minute. Happy Holidays friends, may your days be merry and bright.

Christmas & NYE 2013

The holiday season is especially busy around these parts. Between Christmas with both families, our anniversary 4 days later and New Years Eve quickly following... not to mention only having 9 days off school... we've been having a fantastic last two weeks. So let's catch up shall we...
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Christmas is by far my favorite holiday of the entire year.
And this year was that much more special since we are now living in CO. 

Christmas Eve spent with my side of the family. 

Appetizers, drinks, festive music, a few card games and opening presents. 

My sister is in town from school and it was so nice to start off the festive holiday with some quality time with my little family. 

J was making 15+ lbs of pork shoulder on his smoker for the next day meaning it had to start cooking by midnight Christmas Eve. After finally getting the meat started we opened presents between the two of us and then it was off to bed for us!

This year, we decided to host Christmas Day for my family and J's mom's side of the family. 

We decorated the house around Thanksgiving and started prepping for the big day a few days before. 

We woke up in our own beds, sipped mimosas with our cinnamon rolls and waited for everyone to arrive. 

We kept with all the usual traditions, homemade gifts and garage sale gifts included. 

We played a silly game from Pinterest where the winner received a bottle of Bailey's, munched on lots of yummy snacks and finally settled into a full meal that was just delicious. This was the biggest group of people we have hosted for a meal and it all went off without a hitch. 

We ended the night by stopping by J's dad's house. I got to snuggled with J's cousin's sweet little girls, attempt to stuff myself with some more dessert and we called it an early night thanks to exhaustion from the day. It was yet again a fabulous holiday season and I cannot believe that it's already over. 

With school starting this fall Christmas seemed to really sneak up on me but it was also that much more special. 

Our presents: I got a fabulous new Keurig machine, spa and nails gift certificates, scrubs, a custom Northface jacket, my very first Broncos jersey, a gorgeous duvet cover and so many other gifts I'm so grateful for. J got new shoes, sports paraphernalia, snow gear, a new front door, booze and a slew of other manly things.

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New Year's Eve was quite around these parts and I wouldn't have had it any other way. We spent part of the evening having dinner with my mom and sister, stuffing our faces with mexican food and enjoying the last few bits of time off. 

Come 8 ish we figured we better figure out the rest of the night. Either join friends in numerous different places of merriment or spend a quiet night inside. It didn't take us long to settle in with two movies from RedBox, mugs of hot chocolate and just our little family celebrating the end to a fabulous year.

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From our family to yours I hope that the season was filled with memories 

 & sweet moments spent with family and those you love. 

Our first married Christmas was everything I could have wanted 

As was our first full year of marriage and everything that 2013 brought with it. 

We sure are blessed and are looking eagerly into all that 2014 has to offer. 

I bet it will be great!

Christmas Card 2013

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you and yours. 

Love The Hollands

And here's a peak back at the last two years

Five on Friday v2

Today I'm linking up with Christina from Carolina Charm for "Five on Friday" 

Check out the link up below.

[one] I've been obsessed with drinking tea at night for the last few weeks. I think it all started when the state of CO was absolutely frozen (as in -15 degrees) recently and I was thirsty but wasn't about to drink anything cold. I've always liked lemon and mint teas but my newest favorite is Bigelow Orange Spice. Wrap me up in a blanket, give me a toasty mug of tea and I'm much more content spending my evenings in the cold office studying.

[two] With my first semester of medical school so close to being done it just seems fitting that this morning's exam was the worst one yet, doesn't it? And even worse is that I studied my bum off for this one. I would be much less worried about it if I knew I didn't put in the work that I should have but that's not the case today. Fingers crossed that scores are released soon and it's not as bad as I'm thinking. 

[three] At the last minute Christmas cards seemed to be a good idea. After receiving our first few from friends I was feeling a bit bummed that we weren't sending them this year. So instead of just chalking it up to being busier this year, I quickly make a custom design with a year-in-review update on my computer. I had them printed through Walgreens since I didn't have time to wait for them to be shipped and I'm very happy with how they turned out given the last minute nature of them. Here's a sneak peak!

[four] We are hosing a White Elephant party tomorrow night for some of my favorite med school ladies and their significant others. Only the girls are participating in the gift exchange since we knew we wanted decent gifts and shopping for gender neutral items is hard. There will be spiked apple cider, possibly some holiday themed games and lots of tasty treats. 

[five] Speaking of tasty treats, my contribution for tomorrow's party are these Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies. They're perfect for a holiday party, covered with festive sprinkles and dipped in white chocolate. Can you get much better than that?! Hopefully everyone enjoys them!

 Happy Friday and happy weekend!

The Countdown Has Really Begun!

Jeff and I drove from San Diego to Littleton on Wednesday. 18 hours in the car is always an adventure and we were very thankful that the roads weren't as bad (snow/ice/poor visibility/etc) as they were predicted to be because driving through the Rocky Mountains at 10pm in a blizzard is never fun. Trust me, I've done it. 

And over the last few days we've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get everything finished for both Christmas and the wedding. I cannot believe that Christmas is in 3 days and our wedding is ONE WEEK from today!

Jeff is off in the woods having "mountain man time" with his groomsmen and some other awesome guys for his bachelor party this weekend and I'm here in town constantly working on something. Here's a bit of what the last few days have consisted of. 

+ Instagram hashtag for the wedding!

+ Middle of nowhere Utah and a gorgeous sunset

+ Our monogramed aisle runner I made last night

+ A Christmas tradition of chocolate dipped pretzels

We've also:

+ Ordered our cutting cake

+ Picked up tons of vases and glassware for our centerpieces

+ Got our marriage license

+ Had my final dress fitting with all the accessories

+ Made decorations for the aisle chairs at the ceremony

+ Finished all our Christmas shopping

+ Wrapped all wedding party gifts

+ Sent in our final wedding counts to the caterer

+ Made the final seating chart that Jeff just needs to approve

There are still tons of other smaller things to take care of at some point between now and either Christmas or the wedding but I'm very happy with all we've been able to get done so far. Plus the week after Christmas is going to be filled with festivities like my bachelorette party, trial hair appointment and rehearsal. I apologize if there's not much updating going on around here in the next week or so but I'm sure you understand! 

And you can always follow me on Instagram @jaymeeryn and search our hashtag too!

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Tying the Knot: The Proposal

Christmas day started out like any normal year. 

Opened presents at my mom's house with her and my sister, made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and got ourselves ready for the day. Starting last year my mom and sister came to J's house with me to celebrate with his extended family and this year was no different. We arrived at their house around 11, chatted with his Grammy/aunt/cousins/sisters and got settled in for the day of festivities. 

This picture was taken at probably 11:30.... 

way before I had any idea what was going to happen

Five years ago we started the tradition of Homemade gifts. Each person busts out their creative side, the hot glue gun, glitter, styrofoam, etc etc etc to make one homemade gift. We play it almost like white elephant (no trading allowed) where we draw numbers and each person gets their choice of present until they're all gone. It's always been very entertaining to see the amazing and sometimes last minute things that people bring and we always try and guess who made what. 

Here's J with his Rein-beer and 40oz-Santa courtesy of his cousin. 

Well little did I know but this year J rigged the homemade gift giving. 

He had two sets of numbers that we all picked from. He had made one set of all number 13's and asked me to pick my number first making me get the last number in the group. Then as he turned the corner to have everyone else draw he replaced all the 13's with the normal 1-12 for the rest of the family. At the same time his mom went around telling everyone except me not to choose a specific gift, the one with two bows on it. She said she had a surprise so no one knew what was coming. 

The moral of the story is that I ended up picking last and the only gift left was J's.

Inside of the gift bag that I received was an old tennis ball tube and inside that tube was the gift that J made. He had taken the base of a Ring Pop (of course he ate the candy first) and built a 6in styrofoam snowman on top of it. Everyone got a good laugh at it, I joked with J telling him he didn't do a very good job cleaning up the styrofoam from the craft room at home, and even tried to fit this snowman ring on my pinky finger. 

At this point I still had absolutely no idea that anything was going to be different. There had been gifts much worse, much more obnoxious and much less creative in years before so I thought nothing of this silly snowman on a ring pop. 

Then J says "I actually made another ring, do you want to see it?"

Still oblivious I responded with "you made two of these?"

But as he stands up, pulls a ring box out of his pocket and tears flood his eyes I knew!

He talked about how we met four and a half years ago and how I'm his best friend. 

He said he loves me with his whole heart 

and he can't wait to spend the rest of his life with me. 

And then he said those four little words... 

Will you marry me!?

I was so in shock and so beyond surprised. I didn't think this day was coming for a long time and I was literally left speechless. J was crying, I was crying, our families were crying and all I could do was hold onto the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. At one point someone actually said "Is that a yes?!" to which I yelled "Of course!"

J and I knew a long time ago that we were meant to be together forever and I am so excited that this day has come. It couldn't have been a better day! A Christmas proposal surrounded by our new big family followed by a champagne toast, more happy tears, and an absolutely perfect and beautiful ring.

And yes, incase you were wondering, he did go to Jared's. ;-)

This will be a day I remember forever. 

12/25/2011

2011 In Review

2011 has been one of those years that I will remember for the rest of my life. I am so happy I decided to do this post because it made me look back at all the pictures, stories and memories I've created in the past year and how special each and every moment was. 

So take a look back with me....

+ Our after-Christmas/New Years vacation to Waikiki on Oahu, HI. I feel so blessed to be able to go to such a beautiful place with someone I love so much. 

 + I celebrated my 22nd birthday (the 4th one celebrated with J) and was spoiled rotten! 

 + Our poor Ollie got horrible blisters on his feet but did so well as they healed and

+ We spent far too long without furniture waiting for the new stuff to arrive

 + J's birthday was spent with friends from out of town, lots of margaritas and days spent relaxing by the pool. 

 + We graduated! It was a long four years with lots of stress, studying, and wondering when it was going to end but I finished my bachelors degree and J finished his masters. 

 + We spent lots of time taking our pup swimming in the ocean. He loves it so much it's hard to get him out. 

+ J and I celebrated our 4 year dating anniversary! I cannot believe how quickly the time has past and how many amazing memories we've created together. I love that man!

 + We got to spend some time back in CO this summer to celebrate the wedding of two of our great friends. While the drive from SD to CO is never fun we wouldn't miss trips like this for anything.

 + After a lot of stressful paperwork, specific deadlines and lots of finger crossing we finally bought and moved into our first house! We have loved being able to do whatever we wanted in the new house and there's nothing quite like home. 

 + We've done lots of work since we moved but it is all so worth it. A yard for our pup to play in and a guest room to host family and friends.

+ Now that we have this amazing new house we decided to host Thanksgiving for my mom and sister. Our turkey was a big success, I made homemade gravy for the first time ever and we spent some time at the beach. Noting says Thanksgiving like the sun and the sand!

+ The holidays are definitely my favorite time of the year and I was so excited to finally be able to decorate outside as well as inside wherever and however I wanted. I can't wait to make holiday traditions in our new home. 

+ And last but definitely far from least.... J and I got engaged on Christmas Day 2011. I promise that I will do a post soon specific to the details about this but lets just say I have never been happier in my whole entire life. I cannot wait to start planning this wedding and continue to grow our lives together!

Thanks 2011.... 

for an amazing, spectacular, whirlwind year that I'll never forget.