The End of Break

It snowed last week and I decided I should take a few more pictures before break ended, so I pulled out my camera and snapped a few lot more pictures. :)

Those are the last of my Christmas photos...the next post will actually be relevant to my current life here at college, I promise. :) 

-Mary Kate

Christmas Break

My twinkle lights are on, I'm snuggled under my cozy blankets, and after a long day of classes and a good workout, I'm ready for bed. But I promised myself I would blog on a more regular basis and  I somehow let a week slip by without any new posts and I really have no more excuses. And so here I am, typing at 11:30 at night, trying to make sense of my jumbled thoughts (I apologize in advance if I ramble too much or don't make much sense). :P

It's funny how quickly I've slipped right back into college life, I only just got back on campus yesterday evening and today was the first full day back and yet everything felt completely normal again. Last August when I moved into college for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. And it surprised me then how fast I eased in to college life. My life here is so vastly different from my life back at home, and I had gotten so used to it that part of me was worried that it would feel weird being home for a month for Christmas Break. But the funny thing is, life at home felt completely normal right away too. I suppose that's a good thing, it just was rather strange if I sat and thought about it, it sort of gave me the feeling that I was living a double life. :) 

Being home for a month was wonderful, it was really, really nice to just be home. Although it was kind of a crazy busy month I still managed to relax and have fun. When my family wasn't sick, we played games, watched old family videos, watched all three Hobbit movies, ate way too much chocolate, and laughed over ridiculous things. 

Our internet wasn't really working until about a week ago, and so I read a lot...I actually wasn't aware of how many books until I counted yesterday and then I decided I had to take a picture, because yes, I somehow managed to read 16 books over the month I was home. I've always enjoyed reading, but I seriously haven't read that many "fun" books at once in a long, long time. :) 

I also decided I had to paint at least once because I made the effort of bringing all my art supplies home and I actually had more time on my hands and so after spending multiple hours trying to figure out what to paint, I started working on this painting. I spent several days last week working on little bits at a time and it's definitely not perfect but I'm happy with how it turned out and it was nice to get the arty side out of my system for awhile until tomorrow when I have my first art class. :) 

I am so grateful for the time I got to spend at home! As much as I love my college, and as easy as it is to slip right back into the routine here, there really is no place quite like home. 

-Mary Kate

Project Christmas Delay

Per usual, nothing is calm and normal when it comes to life in the Anthony household. We've had our fair share of sick holidays, (in fact you may or may not remember our crazy sick Christmas two years ago which I blogged about here), but we've always pushed through, had made the most of it and ended up with a pretty awesome time anyway.

However, I think this year tops the cake. A week before Christmas my dear poor mama got the flu, so bad in fact that my dad had to take her to the ER. Of course it's impossible for just one person to get sick in a big family, and over the next few days the domino effect took place and our house because the sick house of the neighborhood. It was a pretty nasty flu that at the very least drained you of all energy for a number of days and for most family members drained you of energy while throwing you a mix of rough cold and stomach bug symptoms.

Normally in the days leading up to Christmas we are busy cleaning our house and preparing for Christmas Eve (the day we finally blast Christmas music in our house and decorate our entire house in one day), but with everyone in bed sick, nothing got done. On Dec. 23rd, my mom and I looked around our tissue-strewn floors, soup-bowls-on-the-counters-and-table kitchen, surfaces-still-quite-messy living room, and many-presents-still-unwrapped bedroom and realized that there was no way we were going to get everything ready in one day. Especially since half the family members were still on couches not able to help with anything.

And so we introduced Project Christmas Delay. We pushed the calendar back a day in our house and decided that today was really the 22nd of December (not the 23rd), giving us one more day before Christmas Eve and two more days before Christmas morning. And you no what? We really managed to deceive ourselves!

We woke up on December 25th and it felt like Christmas Eve, we blasted Amy Grant and Veggie Tales Christmas music, we decorated our now (mostly) clean house and ended the evening with our traditional Chinese Christmas Eve feast. It was so funny to go on Facebook that night and see everyone's posts about Christmas morning, because although we knew it really was Christmas Day for the rest of the world, it completely and utterly felt like the night before Christmas in our house.

Our Christmas morning was delightful and fun and kinda crazy (just like it always is) and Project Christmas Delay was a success! :)

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!! :)

-Mary Kate

Top 14 of 2014

Hello long forsaken blog! Despite what it looks like, I have not forgotten this little corner of the internet, but I have neglected it for far to long. One of my biggest resolutions for 2015 is to get back into blogging on a regular basis. :)

Like I've done for the past couple years, I decided to post my favorite client images from the past year! Here was last year's post: "Top 13 of 2013".  And so in no particular order, here are my top 14 favorite client images from the last year.

I am very grateful for all my amazing and wonderful 2014 clients and can't want to see what 2015 brings!!

-Mary Kate