2014 Christmas Card

From our family to yours... Merry Christmas!!! Wishing you a very happy and peaceful holiday!

I'll be taking a little blog hiatus until after the New Year, but be sure to check back then as I'll have the results of my 2014 Reader Survey (I'd so appreciate you taking 3 minutes to take it, if you haven't already), new posts and updates.

For now, here is our family Christmas card for the year (front/back). :)

If you're in a reading mood, here a few highlights from the year in random order:

Before and Afters of our house, our annual Family Photo shoot, our 5 year anniversary trip to Napa Valley (here and here), a trip to Vegas and two trips to Florida (including this one).

Mr. Evans launched Scotch & Ink and I created my own 2015 Monthly Planner.

Our second precious little girl Mae was born (photos here).

Totally random posts like these three - here, here and here. Enjoy!

I have been so happy to have you all following along for the past years!

Annual Photo Shoot

Every year we do a photo shoot with McManigal Photography. I love to have good quality snapshots to document how my girls are growing, and fall is our annual appointment. :) Our photographer is super busy this time of year, so we just got our edited photos in the mail last week. Here are my favorites! These were taken a month or so ago and honestly, Nina AND Mae look SOO different! Do you get family photos taken? Did you as a kid?

2014 Reader Survey

Dear Friends,

I was just thinking about you all today (as I do during little moments throughout each day)! How are you?? What's new? How are YOU, your kiddos, husband, job, life, etc?? Are you ready for the holidays?

Things here are great! Our jobs keep Mr. Evans and I super engaged and busy. I was recently asked to the President of the Board of Directors of a non-profit, which is a wonderful honor! Our kiddos are happy, healthy and so so so joyful. Oh jeez - without them I'd be a mess. Nina "gets" Christmas this year, which is so sweet. Mae is seriously the most content, peaceful and sweet little thing. My planner sales went pretty well - no complaints when I get to help other moms/women/entrepreneurs!

Christmas is just about here - yay! It's such a magical time of year, isn't it? Time with friends and family, fun events, new experiences, and truly remembering the reason for the season. That's what it's all about.

I also love thinking about and planning for 2015. Mr. Evans and I are being truly intentional about what kind of year we want to design for ourselves. We've put together all our ideas, mental notes, lists and goals to try and plan for a purposeful year.

Part of that planning (for me) includes the direction for Rhubarb & Linen in 2015. I've been writing this blog for 4 years now, so I would love some info from you now so I can start the year with a clear direction.

And while there are not a ton of comments daily (or ever), I know there are a lot of you out there. Thousands a month actually. You just must be observers and not commenters - I can relate. :) So, I'm hoping that today you’ll take a second to fill out this totally anonymous survey to help me out.

This blog is yes, a place for me to document a few things in our life, but it's also for you. I have a few new ideas for 2015 that I'm contemplating - stay tuned! I LOVE helping women and mommas be more and do more and I'm excited/nervous to share my ideas and thoughts!

** If you're reading this on your iPhone, you may need to hop on a computer for the survey to work. :)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

You can also click here to take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6V5XZ9L

Image via

Annual Christmas Cookie Baking

As usual, we gathered last weekend for our annual Christmas cookie baking party. Here are a few photos... it's always a cheery time! :)

Santa Workshop

Around this time of year, we LOVE traditions. One of our favorites is the Santa Workshop at our Country Club. So fun to do crafts, see Santa, have a yummy breakfast (and mimosa!) and visit with friends. Here are a few photos...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... :)

Gingerbread House Making

Earlier in the month, my mom, Nina and I (Mae was sleeping) made a Gingerbread House (from scratch)! It was tons of fun and Nina loved decorating and helping out. We made Part 1 - the gingerbread walls, roof, etc - in the morning at my parent's house. My mom has this handy mold from years ago. :) After Nina's nap and once the walls were set/cooled, we decorated the house back in our kitchen. Check out our finished product! Pretty cute, huh? Merry Christmas!

Mae - 7 Months

Our little Mae is now seven months old!! She's finally starting to fill out (I love those baby rolls) and enjoys doing "Circus Baby" with her daddy. Mae is also a delight at dinner parties (evidence here). :) She LOVES playing with Nina -- those two are going to be trouble I tell you. Happy 7 Months, Mae Mae. We love you so so so so much.

Annual Christmas Parade

It's tradition that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is always our town's Annual Christmas Parade. It's always freezing and frigid, but totally worth it. This year we were lucky enough to have my two sister in-law's, brother-in-law, mother/father-in-law's, my parents and our nephew Evan (and his baby brother coming Feb 2015)!

Fair warning... these pictures are totally poor quality, dark and blurry! But remember, this blog is in part for my memory!! :)

Mae was totallllly bundled up, sweet little thing!

Bonita Beach Family Vaca

My parents condo in Florida is right on the beach, so we knew that once it was finished and ready for guests we'd start bringing groups down for fun in the sun and sand!! The week before Thanksgiving we ventured down for a long weekend with my parents, in-laws and sister-in-law Kate, her husband Adam, son Evan and baby #2 (due in February)! We had a relaxing and fun time all together. The weather was on and off, but overall we made the best of it and truly made some fun memories. Besides the pictures below, the guys golfed one morning, the girls (and Evan!) visited an orange grove, we had TONS of beach/pool time, went out for dinner, hit up the Beached Whale bar where Kate and Adam met years earlier, hunted for seashells, corralled the craziness that is Nina and Evan (man alive they sure keep us on our toes) and more!!

Here they are all ready to go! See ya Milwaukee. Hello Bonita!

Nina and Mae did great on the plane. I think this photo of Nina and her "wings" is adorable! My in-laws were on our flight, but they sat up a few rows.

Yay! We're all together!! Fun fun!

What follows are tons of random photos from the beach/pool...

I painted Mae's toenails for the first time. Yippee!!

The sound of ocean waves sure is soothing to a little baby girl... :)

Nina buried herself in the sand... silly girl. She LOVED it!

Circus baby!!!!

We ate dinner in a few nights (nothing better than fresh fish). It was fun to have our friends Kaity and Shawn join us as well!!

Until next time Bonita Beach...

Thanksgiving Recap

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend with friends and family! Here are few quick iPhone photos from our actual Thanksgiving celebration with my side of the family. As for the Evans side, somehow I managed not to take ONE silly photo! Yikes! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we haven't all been together in over a year and had TONS to catch up on. It was so much fun to everyone together!!

Here is a cute little craft Nina made at Montessori. :) Gobble gobble!

Mae and Elly were matching in leopard. Gotta love a girl in leopard print!!

The bigger girls did a little craft that Aunt Missy brought along. So cute!

It's always hilarious trying to get a picture of all the kids together, but here's one of them. There were probably 5 cameras going all at once!

Sweet little Mae changed out of her leopard outfit and into her Turkey Day garb. Cute little thing!

Here is the ONLY photo I took at the Evans Thanksgiving. Bingo and TFP's (totally fabulous prizes)... :) I assure you, the day was great!!

I sure hope you had a great time with family as well. We all have SO much to be thankful for... :)

Random Photos...

I suppose it's been a while since I've posted a few random photos. I'm cleaning off my phone for some fun blog posts coming up and came across these. They go back a month or so! Haha!

Here we are at Halloween. Mr. Evans and I were hipster lumberjacks. :)

The week after Halloween I went to Las Vegas for a work convention. Luckily, I work with my parents so we always make the most of being in a city that we love visiting!!

Nina wrote her first Letter to Santa at our favorite, Broadway Paper. Yay!! She asked for a new dolly and a scarf. How practical! Hehe!!