It's beginning to look a lot like....CHRISTMAS

I know, I know it's so early to be decorating for Christmas, but we're doing it anyway. Just for the record, we've never decorated this early before but since we do a "fake" tree we can do it earlier and this year I'm just needing to get it done. I'll blame it on the fact that I'm pregnant and feel like I have so much to get done before this baby comes and Christmas is one thing I can get started on now. I can't really get the baby's room ready until right before the baby comes because Nathan has claimed her crib and I don't want to kick him out until it's necessary (which might be after she arrives...she can be in a bassinett for awhile). Another reason we're getting ready a little bit early is because we have something to do every weekend from now until Christmas. I love a busy Christmas season, but this is stressing me out slightly. So this weekend, Ryan, Christian and I started to work on the tree. Christian loved the lights and the star on top. He was convinced that we were going to cover it with balls and trains. Unfortunately, we only have one train ornament and it's breakable, so it's not that fun for him. We might need to remedy that.

When Abby and Nate arrived this morning we had a tree with lights, but no ornaments. The three kids quickly helped me fill up one little spot on the tree.
The boys were really taking this project seriously!
Abby was trying to get the boys to organize their ornaments a little bit and not hang them all on the same branch. I assured her that the "girls" could fix it later.

One of my absolute favorite parts of Christmas is reading beautiful Christmas picture books. I have great memories of reading wonderful Christmas books from when I was little. When I used to teach I would choose a different picture book to read each day in December to my class. Needless to say, I have a lot of great Christmas books. Abby was thrilled to find this "princess" book in with all the Christmas books. She thought Mary was a princess. So we read the story and talked about how Mary was even more important than a princess! She got to take care of Baby Jesus.

I think this Christmas is going to be one of the best ones I've ever had. I love having a housefull of children to share in the joy with me. I love talking about Jesus' birthday. I love seeing the reflection of the tree lights in their little eyes. I love making crafts and baking cookies. I love looking through toy catalogs and hearing them "ooo" and "ahh" over all the great stuff. Emma is so sweet... Last week she went through a toy catalog and circled all the gifts she wanted to get for different kids in her class. It had never dawned on her that she wouldn't buy gifts for all her school friends. It probably would have cost about $5000.00 if I had bought everything she circled.

Get ready, I'm going to be posting a lot over the next month and a half!! We've got a lot of great activities planned!!