It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

For the first time in many years I have the Christmas spirit! There are a couple of things that contribute to my mood. The first one is that I got control of my business this year. I set a clear and early deadline for taking pictures and I set a holiday order deadline and I stuck to both of them. This meant that for the first time in years I had most of December open to prepare for the holidays- yeah! Last year was horrible, between the picture taking and the trying to get the house ready to go on the market we did NO decorating- not even a tree- and I didn't want that to happen again. The last reason is that for the time in 10 years we are going to be in our house for Christmas morning. It will be the first year the kids get to sleep in their own beds on Christmas Eve. For the first time EVER our stockings are actually hung my our chimney with care (in the past our living room was either a) empty or b) a playroom filled with toys). We finally get to start doing some of the traditions that we have talked about doing when we are in our house- so yes that means chocolate cake for breakfast on Christmas morning- woo hoo! I am so excited to be at home for Christmas that I may have gone a little overboard for the kids this year- I am sure I won't hear them complaining.

This year we have two advent calendars we are working on. The first is the one that Grandma gave us years ago. It is a big wooden calendar and every day you open a door and put another toy on Santa's workshop. I have to say this is the first year that the items have stayed in the doors until it was their time to be hung up. Every year in the past one or the other child would take them all out to look at them and sometimes to throw them around the room. The other calendar is a Lego Calendar. Again since we will be here for the entire time I thought it would be fun to truly count it down. The kids take turns opening the doors. It is very cool. There are over 10 Lego people in the set- that's awesome since people are tough to get without buying a set. Each person than has a few days where different items that pertain to them are opened. The kids love it.

Yes we do have a tree. We thought about cutting it down ourselves, but in the end we went to the same stand we go to every year. Here is Jessica with the chosen one.

Justin was far more interested in following the workers around and peppering them with questions.
Here is our finished product. Pretty funny- can you tell the kids did almost all of the hanging? This is before the tree did a face plant a few days later.
I think my tree looks better in the dark. It is a great shape and so pretty all lit up.