It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Finally caught up to the Christmas season!

We kicked it off this year helping my parents decorate their Christmas tree. Adele played the good big sister role and would take an ornament and say "this ornament is very breakable. I'll put it up high so Henry can't touch."

"I can do it! ....how does this go?"

Shawn and the ornament he feels most connected to...The Grinch :)

My favorite! 2 aunts helping my kids decorate

A little post-decorating fun...

"He's so heavy Mommy!"

We continued decorating when we came back to Oklahoma and got out our own Christmas box and got our own Christmas tree. And believe it or not, though David and I have been married for over 9 years, this was our FIRST Christmas tree. Because we spend so much of Christmas time with our families, and spent 4 years in Costa Rica, we never had a reason to get our own tree. Knowing how much fun it is for our kids, and they are at ages where they will remember not only the decorations in their extended families' homes but also in their own home, we decided to get a tree.

Our tree doesn't look like this anymore...most ornaments have been re-located to the top of the tree to avoid Henry's curious fingers.

What we didn't realize, is how much fun it would be for David and me!

We actually have a Christmas box that we thought was just David's ornaments when he was a boy. So when we pulled it out to decorate our tree, we were thrilled to find a plethora of other Christmas decor. And we have decided that it is so much fun to have our house feel all Christmasy that we will most definitely be decorating BEFORE Thanksgiving next year.

Adele is also at a fun age to be doing more holiday-themed activities. This year we made a Christmas chain, counting down to Christmas Day. Each day Adele gets to remove a chain and then we do whatever activity it specifies for that given day. *Disclaimer: because our schedule can change on any given day, before I go to bed each night I write on the chain the activity planned for the next day. Thus, I have a long list of ideas and can decide what I feel motivated to do with the kids the following day. :)

Activities have included:

1. Buy a Christmas tree

2. Decorate the Christmas tree

3. Make hot chocolate with marshmallows and watch your favorite Christmas movie

4. Make an ornament for the Christmas tree

5. Visit the museum and do Christmas crafts

6. Help Mommy wrap presents

7. Create a crafty snowman

8. Eat popcorn with a movie

9. Make sugar cookies and decorate them
10. Deliver cookies to your friends!

It has been a fun-filled Christmas season so far, and there is still more to come!

A couple of our creations - Adele's crafty snowman

And a Rudolph ornament for the tree