winter is upon us

here are things i love about winter: no mosquitos :D :D :D, scarves!, lots of layers, more reason to snuggle, not sweating off all my makeup during shoots, fireplaces - if i had one, you are ensured one amazing meal at thanskgiving, seeing friends and family come in town for the holidays, starbucks specialty coffees, shopping and finding that perfect gift for people, people will for some reason buy me things for christmas, not crying while waiting for my ac to get cold, hot chocolate, not getting crazy looks when i order a hot chai latte in houston tx :D, the possibility of snow, christmas decorating, wrapping presents, christmas/holiday songs and singing along to them, cute hats, tall boots!, doggie sweaters, dorky holiday sweaters, christmas family photo cards, and the leaves finally changing color. actually. probably what i love most about winter is just the happy feelings in the air with most people. besides the few grinches out there :)

of course there are probably more things that i absolutely love about winter-time, but well, that's all i can think of for now.

- what do you love about winter? or do you hate it? -

i am sure if i had to shovel several feet of snow every morning before leaving for work, i wouldn't be such a fan...

in other - somewhat related news, my little dog ruby absolutely LOVES to dress up. i'm not lying, the lady i bought her from told me that and she really does. if i pull out a shirt she gets super excited and tries to jump into it. i think because she always gets such good reactions from people when she wears them. anyway, check her out in her little santa outfit ;D hahaha she just cracks me up soo much! this shot below was taken in between barks. she was doing all these tricks because she wanted her snack!

and i am super nerdy and put my tree up already :) what? i like to enjoy it for as long as possible! every time i look at it, it makes me smile :)

i pretty much took a picture of our star almost identical to this photo last year - but this time it has a blue hue to it which reminds me of the song "silent night" so... yay! ;)

this is one of the ornaments my mom passed down to me. so it feels special-er than the others.

i love how tall my tree looks here! doesn't it look crazy like one of those department store ones? hehe

 several years ago, a good friend of mine jennifer got me a giant leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story and my whole family thought it was awesome (cuz it was!) so my mom got me this coordinating ornament hehhehe )

and here is an ornamnet i put together from jake and i's first christmas together! we need to update it because its not that cute anymore ;)

hope all of you have a WONDER-FILLED holiday season!