^ The most amazing strawberry cheesecake ice cream cake EVER! ^

The past few years it has been challenging to buy gifts for others. We bought things we thought were good ideas, but ended up useless and ultimately kind of stupid. Those kind of gifts are pretty disappointing. This year, though, I've put in so much more thought for every single person on our list. I am more excited than ever to see it all unfold. I didn't shop any big stores this year, I actually thought ahead (!!!) and purchased a lot online from etsy and other online small businesses, as well as local businesses near me. I even made some gifts too! I'm pretty stoked about all that. We also wanted to keep our holiday season low key and to emphasize the meaning of the this season. So we purchased a lot less stuff this year.

Shout out for local photographers - they typically offer gift cards, so support their talent and give a professional photo shoot as a gift! Everyone needs to update their family photos ;).