Holiday

Walking through the sturdy, gleaming white front doors adorned with larger-than-life Christmas wreaths, I was greeted by a warm smile and a "Hey, how are ya? Thank you for coming!" from Louisiana's First Lady Donna Edwards. I wanted to reach out to Mrs. Edwards, who is a former music teacher and mom of three-Samantha (24), Sarah Ellen (21), John Miller (14)- to find out more about her first year and first Christmas in the Louisiana Governor's Mansion. And also, her first year in being a mom in the Red Stick! Mrs. Edwards' husband, Governor John Bel Edwards, was inaugurated on January 11, 2016. This year Louisiana experienced two major floods (one of which flooded the ground floor of the Governor's mansion and...

  Lights are twinkling, jolly music is playing, and all is merry and bright! Right? If you're anything like me you absolutely love the holidays. I enjoy most things Christmas. BUT there are a few things I could certainly live without...  Holiday party overload... Holiday parties can be very nice and the sentiment behind them is wonderful. It becomes an issue when families overload their calendars with such events. People feel obligated simply because they receive an invite. This is not the purpose of these gatherings. Whether it be office parties, friends, or social organizations, be careful not to overload your holiday calendar with events that you sincerely don't want to attend. For my family, we adopted a rule - we give...

About four years ago a friend and I were discussing our childhood Christmas gifts, and I she challenged me to name 20 gifts I had received as a child. No problem! Or so I thought ... would you believe that I had a hard time getting past naming 10??!! As we discussed childhood and family memories, it became apparent to me that I could not remember many of the toys I had been given, but what I could remember were things we did together. I remember things like vacations, the family reunions, trips to the zoo, spending summers at the pool, or piling in a car to see all the Christmas lights in town ... MEMORIES became what I treasured. This change...

Disclosure :: This post is sponsored by Basic Invite.  Basic Invite :: Answered Prayer for this Paper-Loving Mom I am someone who, in a word, loves all things paper. Ok maybe not all things. I'm not talking about receipts or paper bills (ew) -- I'm talking about BEAUTIFUL paper. Wedding invitations, birthday cards, stationery, holiday cards -- you name it, I love it. And I don't care how electronic our world gets -- I will always send out Christmas cards and birthday invitations IN THE MAIL. It makes me happy to get fun stuff in my mailbox and is such a rarity these days.  Ok so I spend a lot of time "in production" of my paper -- whether it's our Christmas card or birthday...

Every year I have delusions of grandeur about the holidays (all of them). I'm going to cook fancy food, perfectly decorate my home, take fabulous pictures, and create lifetimes of traditions and memories for my family. And every year, I do basically none of those things. Y'all, I'm not great at holidays. I have a really hard time keeping up with "traditions." I did salt dough ornaments and gave them out as gifts for a couple of years. Then I skipped a couple of years. Oops. I thought the idea of wrapping up Christmas books for every day of December was such a great idea. But that seems like a huge waste of wrapping paper. Oops. I've had an Elf on the...