decorating for Christmas & advent activities

I woke up the other day, realized it was December 1st and promptly freaked out.

I typically start getting ready for the Christmas season in the last part of November.

That did not happen this year!

I have been busy, busy, busy trying to get caught up!

The first order of business after Thanksgiving was to decorate the house for Christmas!

C Girl really did so much of the work this year.

I love all of the special ornaments on our tree. It's also fun to see the kids developing memories of it all as well.

Sometimes, I think that I take too many pictures. But then, other times, I realize how happy they make me and I stop worrying about it. Pictures are a balm to my soul.

Sissy Girl loves laying under the tree!

She hung all of the Santa pictures with a little help from daddy.

B Boy did help decorate some too!

This is such a special ornament honoring Tim's mom that was given to us by my sister in law.

Such a sweet picture :-)

(however, they were practically at each other's throats during trying to get that oh so sweet photo!)

Our Santa collection.

(Tim's mom collected Santas and we have carried on the tradition. We even have a few of hers.)

For advent, we are following a scripture guide that we read everyday. 

It has been a good learning experience for the kids so far! 

We also do a book advent where I wrap 24 of our Christmas books and we read one every night. 

We end with, 'Twas the night before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

The kids were thrilled to open the first book!

The kids have been helping read everything this year!

I love hearing them read from the Bible!

'Tis the season

Well, it is definitely December! The amount of things to do hit me full force on Monday.

B Boy fell on his arm last week and he kept complaining of pain, so we took him to the doctor Monday. She ordered an Xray and thankfully, it was not broken!

I spent 4 hours on Monday driving to/from and waiting/being at either the doctor or the dentist with the kids.

I also had an injury misfortune.

While Tim was outside putting lights out front, I was inside putting our Santa collection on top of our kitchen cabinets. I was putting a Merry Christmas sign up as well.  It fell over and a domino effect of Santas falling happened. One rather large Santa fell four feet from the top of the cabinet down to my foot on the counter. It was so much pain. It is still swollen and extremely tender.

This week has been busy making cookies for a teacher lunch at school, helping a friend out by watching her son for a couple of hours, finishing putting Christmas decor out, cleaning the house really good, and beginning my Christmas shopping finally.

I was completely exhausted last night after going full force for 13 hours.

Today, I'm going to work on getting my Christmas cards ready to go out. 

I have book club, Sunday school Christmas party, mailing letters to Santa, and visiting Santa with the kids still to do this week!

 The lights on the Bentonville square as we were heading back into town Thursday night.

We always get our Christmas stuff down and begin putting the tree up and decorating on the day after Thanksgiving.

The Hogs also played Missouri that afternoon, so we had an extended break during that time.

The Hogs lost and that was sad, but they have played so well this year!

C Girl was SO into the decorating this year. Waaay more than ever. She even wanted to string the lights on the tree. She loves being in charge, lol.

Tim loves this setup.

Let me tell you, decorating with older kids is way different than with littles. 

My two had such big opinions and they wanted to decorate the entire tree themselves. 

We let them. What are ya gonna do?

p.s. I did go back and rearrange stuff on the tree yesterday!

 We sure were missing our Koonta girl.

Icing and elevating my foot injury.

 She found the Bible at the dentist's office and kept reading me passages of scripture :-)

 We started our advent book and our book advent on Monday.

B Boy has been reading the scripture passages every night. I love it!

p.s. I have been wrapping book advent books every day because I am so behind on everything. Usually, I have all 25 wrapped and ready to go!

Tim's handiwork in our front area. We are still going to get a few more things to add and line the driveway and sidewalk with lights eventually.

We went to the Rogers Christmas parade on Monday evening since we will be out of town on the day our town has its parade.

This was the only time we had to do our advent readings, so Tim and B Boy read to us in the van before the parade!

 It has been years since the kids have been to a night Christmas parade. 

The one in Bentonville is always during the day. 

They were super excited!!! They loved every bit of it. 

They were waving and dancing the entire time!

It was absolutely freezing though! It was 25 degrees and we couldn't feel our toes by the time the parade was over.

Holiday Decorating

We had a really great end to our Thanksgiving break! It was 9 days and almost felt like Christmas break! On Friday, I played around with my blog design, we watched our Hogs play, we watched How the Grinch stole Christmas with the kiddos, and then an awesome Garth Brooks special!  I had every one of his tapes when I was a kid!  I still know every word to every song.

 We really did lead for a bit!

On Saturday, we cleaned the house, got our Christmas decorations down out of the attic, I did some grocery shopping and then I came home to watch the 2nd half of the BEST GAME I HAVE EVER WATCHED IN MY LIFE!!!  If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, it was the Iron Bowl.  Google it.  AMAZING!!!  We also decorated the tree :-)

We went to church this morning, had some fabulous gumbo afterwards, I ran to a local "junk" store, and then we proceeded to decorate our home for Christmas!

Here we are decorating in 2010, the tree in 2010, the tree in 2011, a deco mesh wreath tutorial of mine that is the only post I've ever had go viral, and decorating in 2012.
And now, 2013-

C Girl was SO into helping with putting the lights on the tree!

We went with colored lights for the first time this year and I'm loving it! The kids are over the moon about it!

We added a second Christmas tree for the first time this year.

This is in our office/sitting room.

I found this 3 ft. pre-lit tree at the "junk" store for $8.95! I love thrifting! 

All of the decorations were stuff that we already had!

The nativity that Tim and I bought together shortly after we got married.  I LOVE it! I've never found one that I love more than this one.  It is carved wood.

Our scripture advent from last year that we are using again!

Our Christmas book advent is so fun!  I wrap 24 Christmas books and we unwrap and read one every night!  I have collected books over the years and we use the same ones each year, but they are put away until Christmas time!

24 days until Christmas!

We bought Tim a ton of fresh pecans the other day. He is loving them!

Tim did an awesome job with entryway lights!