It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I cannot believe it is already December 9th! Where did the first 9 days in December go?!?!? Thanksgiving was so late this year that I feel like we've lost a week. Anyway, there has been lots of Christmas going on around here (even though it hasn't quite all made it to the ole blog!). And I'm happy to report that I am 95% done with shopping. It's a good feeling!

 

I won the Christmas tree battle FINALLY (after 9.5 years of marriage) and we have gotten our first fake tree. And because of that, the tree went up the Wednesday before Thanksgiving! It was so nice to come back from being out of town and having Christmas already set up. The tree is perfectly round and has the right shape, and we didn't have to spend over an hour of our time trying to find that perfect tree in the lot (which I can tell you from experience does not exist!). I think the boys were a little disappointed that they didn't get to go to the tree lot, but Migi and Pops came to the rescue and took the boys to find THEIR tree! Perfect! :)

 

The boys really got into putting the ornaments on the tree this year. It was so fun sharing this experience with them! It was definitely one of my most favorite memories from growing up, so I hope they will keep enjoying it as much as I do. I only had to do a bit of rearranging after they went to bed! And we only broke 2 ornaments so that was a win too!

I let the boys pick their own PJ design this year...of course they picked a truck and a tractor. Boys will be boys! I thought they were cute though and it was definitely fun for them to do!

 See how pretty?!?! I really wish it could stay up year round! Makes our house feel so homey!

 Saturday night, we went with the Bridges to see Santa. Getting this done early is key because when the kids throw you off by their requests of Santa, there's still time for Santa to come through! :)

 I was a little sad because this was our first year of a Santa picture without someone crying. It's cute, but the crying pictures are my favorite! Ha!

We ate Chick Fil A afterwards, of course.

 Hudson is doing choir at church this fall and Sunday, they sang a song in the service. We have their big program tomorrow night and then they also sing on Christmas Eve. It's pretty serious! I love it...it's one of those things that before I had kids, I just couldn't wait for my child to be able to sing and now here we are. Still brings tears to my eyes every time I hear those little voices sing.

 I also had an ornament swap with the girls in our Sunday school class last week. It was so fun! I can't believe I didn't take a single picture. I'm very thankful for every one of those girls in our class though! We have such a fun time together.

 We've got more Christmas fun this coming up weekend! I just LOVE this time of year. So much to do and so much fun enjoying it through the kids' eyes.

 

Now if baby Jesus would just stay in the manger instead of continuing to disappear, we'd be doing good! Ha!