Guest Blogger Week: Meet Jessica @ Straight Take Jess

Please welcome Jessica from Straightalkjess.
She has an awesome blog, and needs Mountain Mum readers support. Please go and check out her blog and leave her some love.
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I'm started blogging almost three years ago and since then my blog has evolved to be a little piece of me.  I use it as a sounding board, I complain, I talk about my kid, work, fashion victims, and anything else that strikes my fancy at the moment.  I've been married 8 years and we've got a 5 year old daughter and another baby due June 2011.

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December is a busy month in the "Straight Talk Jess" house.  To be fair, being a lawyer, with a {now} 5 year old Princess and a baby on the way {coming June 2011},  2 stinky dogs that always seem to be hungry, and a partridge in a pear tree, things are always busy in our house (you can check out the random craziness and my two cents on anything and everything at my blog).  We have the celebration of our sweet baby girl (who was born early and saved us from spending Christmas in the hospital 5 years ago).  We also fill our December with decorations, Christmas parties, cookie baking, and the trek home to spend the holidays with our family.
Here are a couple highlights of our busy month:

1)  Christmas decorations!  Now that my sweet girl can fully appreciate them (more than just staring at the lights in awe as a baby), I love having her help decorate the tree. It's so sweet and something I remember being such a special thing for me and my family when I was younger.  We put the Christmas music on and I let her go to town on the ornaments.  Of course she gets a little help from mom and daddy to make sure that there are some ornaments towards the top of the tree too.

2) Santa!  We have  to visit Santa.  It's tradition!  It's awesome to watch her grow from year to year and see her go from cautious, to crying, to bribed, to more-than-happy to see her with Santa.

3)  Birthday time!!! It's hard having a birthday in December.  So we don't let hers get lost in the shuffle.  This year we celebrated "Ava Day" with a couple celebrations that started with these delicious cupcakes at school and ended with a day spent doing what she wanted over the weekend. I think it's definitely a new December tradition in our house!

4) Home for the holidays.  Another big part of our December is family, of course.  We don't live close to family so we make the trek home to share our Christmas every year.  Luckily, both of our families are in the same city so we don't have to worry about visiting families in alternating years or spending one weekend here and the next there.  It's a lot of visiting {we have THREE big celebrations in one day.  And that doesn't even count what Santa brings on Christmas morning!}, a lot of family and a lot of food, but we couldn't imagine it any other way.

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into our whirlwind holiday month.  Thank you Mountain Mum for letting me join you!
From the "Straight Talk Jess" house to yours, I wish you a beautiful month and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS filled with joy, love and family.

Guest Blogger Week: Meet Rebekah @ Country Mouse Tales

Meet Rebekah from Country Mouse Tales. 
Check out her uber cute blog, and her cute family. All you Mountain Mum followers, please leave her some love!
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I am a 20-something Pennsylvania girl, wife to a handsome teacher, and stay-at-home mom to a one year old boy.  I am learning to cherish the little joys that life can bring as I see the world through the eyes of a child once again.  I have been chronicling my successes, failures, and kitchen disasters at www.countrymousetales.com since 2008.


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Reclaiming the Ordinary Day


-'Mama' he cries.  His little hands tangle in my hair as he clutches my neck, his eyes still heavy with sleep.  We slowly make our way down the stairs to being our morning routine.  


-Coffee percolates and I prepare his bowl of oatmeal as he sips apple juice from his favorite blue cup.


-Laundry to the left, last night's dishes to left, and a laughing boy chases the dog around the kitchen, leaving a trail of juice behind him.  


-We bundle in our coats and run to the car.  'Dog!' he yells excitedly as he sees the neighbors pet looking out the window.  'Woof, woof' he proudly barks, showing off his newest skill.  I strap him in and he gives me a smile before we head out.  


-Hours later, the turn of the key in the door.  A smiling face, handsome eyes, and a squeal of 'Dada!' as he toddles as fast as his legs can carry him to the entryway.


It's not perfect, but it's mine, and now that the hustle and bustle of the season is quickly dying down, I can finally take a look around and appreciate the gifts (not the presents, although those are nice too!) that I have been given over the last year.  The life, the love, the laughter, not so much the laundry but I'll take the good with the bad.  


It is so easy to feel down at the end of the holiday season.  The parties, the glitter, the lights, it's all gone - basically overnight.  January 1st rolls around, and the discarded Christmas trees at the curb mark the end of another year.  Three months of winter are staring us dead in the eye.  Three months of 'Ugh it's so cold' and 'I miss my flip-flops' as we trudge through another snowstorm.  I know I tend to wallow, to get stuck in the misery of the everyday instead of choosing to see it's beauty.  This winter, reclaim your day.  See the beauty in the ordinary.  It doesn't come naturally to me, but this is what I have learned in the last year - we don't get these days back.  We will only have their memory to cherish through the years to come.  I want to remember the beauty of now, the laugh of my toddler, the faint beginnings of smile lines on my husbands face.  There is beauty here.