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remember my Instagram post on how I Decided Once on alllllll our gifts?
(ps: it’s the best.)
by popular demand, here’s the three traditions (and gifts) we do for each of our birthdays.
you’ll notice the formula works for any age (whether it be my birthday or my toddler’s), and works for any season of life (as in, I can definitely manage to do this full list while in the throes of having a newborn, no problem). it’s beautifully, wonderfully flexible!
Read Morea question I get often is: what do you ask from grandparents for gifts?
i’m very lucky: both my parents and brett’s parents love receiving gift suggestions.
so I usually send over direct links, or a general wish list.
and when it comes to birthdays and holidays, I usually ask for the same five gifts from our parents, whether that be gifts for KK’s birthday or gifts for my own. gifts I know we’d really love and gifts I know that won’t add to the clutter of our home.
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in the past year, we’ve been asking ourselves about each and every holiday and celebration: “what would truly excite us about this day? what do we want do together? what would be fun to do now and as our family grows? how can we make this day a special celebration? what traditions do we want to have as a family?” and while, yeah, it was because we now had a child and I wanted our lives peppered with joyful traditions and intentional celebrations, there’s also another added bonus: simplification.
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remember how we turned the dining room into a play area for kk? and then turned our home office into a space for games, puzzles, and projects?
the best!
but first!
here’s a video tour of this space, if you’d prefer to see it than read about it.
here’s my amazon store where I link what I can
see my highlight on my Instagram for individual close-up photos of this space
and if you’d prefer to read about this space, here ya go!
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But first, here’s the full post on how we celebrate Valentine’s Day, if you’re curious of our other traditions, like our Waffle Bar.
Mr. Valentine visits!!!! When my sisters and I were growing up, Mr. Valentine would deliver a small gift basket for each of us by our front door while we were at school…or while my mom took the trash out. ;) We LOVED it and I want to continue this with KK and her siblings.
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I love holidays. An extra excuse to plan family traditions and create special rituals? Sign me up.
And, shockingly, I actually used to not like Valentine’s Day. But when I realized it was another day I could show my favorite people how much I love them? I then loved Valentine’s Day.
So I did what I do with any holiday: I asked myself, “What could we do that would make me so excited for this day? What would be such an enjoyable for us to celebrate this holiday? What do I want our children to remember as traditions?”
Weeee! I love dreaming about traditions.
And I decided this: I wanted to eat heart-shaped food and I wanted to make gift baskets. That combo would really excite me for Valentine’s Day. So I took this epiphany and this line in our budget (aka how we prioritize traditions + celebrations) - and from there, I made a tangible plan on how we’d love to celebrate Valentine’s Day:
We’d display our favorite books about love, Valentine’s Day, and kindness in KK’s bookshelf in our den. I’ll take a picture when we do this - all I have right now is a photo of our January bookshelf. (We have this bookshelf and I painted it with this white paint. Here’s our “winter” Amazon board with all of our December - February books.)
I’d make Brett’s favorite
a million years ago, i was a teacher. and i bought a caddy from the Dollar Spot section of Target - similar to this caddy - to hold my supplies for my small group table.
then I became a wedding florist, and I used that caddy to corral my most-used supplies.
and now? that blessed caddy is used for kk’s play dough supplies.
she loves carrying it around, and I love that it keeps all those play dough tools contained, but in a way that’s still easy for a toddler to access without getting frustrated.
and i love the darling journey the caddy has been on through the years.
in our caddy we have:
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yes, it’s october.
but I have to plan wayyyy in advance what we’re doing gift-wise for christmas.
OTHERWISE I FALL PREY TO THE SIREN SONG THAT IS SEASONAL GIFT GUIDES.
y’all, i’m serious. unless I have a strict game plan in place wayyy in advance, I will be like, “oh, you’re right, cutesy blogger! i DO need that pretty trinket!”
repeat a thousand times over for each of those thousand million gift guides.
baby haley made so many mistakes. woo buddy.
so now, at the wise old age of 32, I’ve learned that our holidays go smoothest when I:
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let me preface this by saying you do whatever works best for you.
this is just my list of things I’m personally doing before baby #2.
this round, baby prep more looks like: what would help life with a toddler and newborn? where can I reduce decision fatigue and mental load so that our household is a little more automated for that transitional time? what favorite baby things (and systems) do we want to try again?
and this list was born.
and arguably, none of this stuff is necessary. but Future Haley will be so grateful.
but also - pregnancy after loss is a beast. (see our pregnancy loss story here.) this list provided a lot of comfort (and distraction) in a time filled with a lot of skepticism, cynicism, and anxiety. so again, none of this stuff is necessary, but my word did I personally find it helpful.
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the big caveat here is do whatever works best for you.
freezing food isn’t your jam? that’s more than okay.
it just really works for me for three reasons:
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