a very merry christmas, and a happy new year

{Our 2013 Christmas card, taken in 10 degree weather. We only got about 8 or 9 shots before giving up and sprinting  back to the warm car. So cold!}

We're still stuck in Christmas land over here, since the last of our Christmas celebrations is still coming up later this week. I'm okay with it, because it all came and went too fast for my liking anyway. One last hurrah at home with my family sounds just about perfect. I hope you and yours had a very merry celebration of Jesus' birth. And lots of cookies.

And now for just a handful of my favorite instagram photos taken over the year. As silly and unimportant as technology and smart phones and social media can be in the grand scheme of things, I sure am thankful for it all. Without any of it, I wouldn't have all these snippets of 2013 right at my fingertips. I have been given such a wonderful, happy life, and I'm glad that, thanks to blogs and instagram and my trusty iphone, I've remembered to stop and snap a picture of the best and most beautiful parts of the year. Memory making! I want more if it in 2014.

This upcoming year is the first in a while that is a completely open book, which is both unsettling and exciting for me. The past few years have been full of the big stuff-- graduating, getting married, buying a house, having a baby, and then raising that baby through the first year of his little life. I feel like this new year is waiting for Ryan and I to accomplish the little goals and dreams we've been keeping tucked away in our back pockets. We, thankfully, have everything we could ever want and need. 2014 is for all the cherries on  top. I'm so excited, and so grateful.

Now, let's start dreaming.