Christmas, Christmas Card, Year in Review

The Only Christmas Card You’ll Get From Us This Year

Sometimes we have traditions we feel like we “should” do but that don’t really get us excited–for me, that includes sending out Christmas cards. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love getting Christmas card updates from family and friends, and I think it’s a great way to force yourself to remain in touch with people (especially those you don’t see often) and update them on your life.

But, for some reason, it causes me inordinate amounts of stress that are disproportionate to the actual difficulty of the task.

So, using the ever-present excuse that I’m still a semi-new mom of a very active almost-8-month old and am teaching full time, I’m letting myself off the hook for traditional family Christmas cards this year.

Hope no one will cry themselves to sleep tonight over it.

But, because we had my sister snap a couple pics of us (finally, some family pictures taken by a real person and not a self-timer!), I decided to pretend like this is our family Christmas card.

Update on Matt: 
*works at a small animal food company part-time (although his hours are steadily increasing,
so it looks like he might be full-time a few months down the road)
*stays home with Raven in the mornings before going to work
(and has become an expert in all things baby)
*is still in the bishopric of our church (and is finally getting more used to it, I think)
*is currently working on his first novel and has made significant progress on it this year
(I’m SO proud of how much work he’s put into working on his novel daily)
*recently has lost almost 15 lbs. (!), which helps me to stay motivated
to maintain my own weight even when it gets really tough
*is basically the best daddy in the whole world and has made me fall in love with him all over again this year as I’ve watched him become a parent for the first time
  
(This is apparently what happens when I tell Matt that I want a picture of him holding Raven in the air above his head—he immediately thinks Lion King while I laugh and try to explain that I wanted the baby FACING him like he was about to toss her in the air…)
Update on Raven:
*completely adorable all the time
*sprouted two new teeth in the past week, which we found out about 
when she bit Matt’s nose (well, that’s how we found out about the first one, anyway)  
 Update on Torrie (aka, me):
*tries daily to remain calm and professional while teaching 7th grade full-time
 (not always an easy task, she’ll assure you)
*loves when she can spend more time at home with Raven on weekends and holidays
*has finally gotten back into running again (can run a 5k distance without stopping, and almost two and a half minutes a mile faster than she could when she first started running postpartum)
*is trying not to get too frustrated by the autoimmune disease diagnosis received in July
(she’ll admit, this one’s still hard for her much of the time)
*has been more of a blog slacker than she’d like, but has sworn herself to repentance for the next year
*is still working on her photography skills and is slowly but surely growing her photography business
Wishing you and yours 
a very happy Christmas and 
a fruitful New Year!

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