Getting ready for Christmas!

Christmas is my favorite holiday by far.  I love the Christmas trees, yummy home baked pies, fun traditions, but most of all my family and my Savior.  There is just so much to be grateful for.  I love watching the magic in my children's eyes when they see a lit tree in the park, or the excitement that rushes through them when they see Santa Claus.  I love how children are so innocent and don't care about getting a lot of presents, but get excited about all the decorations, cookies and the fun traditions. It is so fun to be a kid again and watch my children get excited like I did when I was little.  I just hope I can teach them to really enjoy Christmas for all the right reasons. 

We decorated the Christmas tree and Erik played in the box that the tree is stored in!  He had a blast in there.

Bria is my little decorator.  She LOVES decorating anything, so to decorate the Christmas tree was so exciting for her.  She was so particular and placed each ornament so carefully.

After we set up all our Christmas decorations, we had our tradition of drinking hot chocolate out of our china tea set.  Bria was so ecstatic that she got to drink out of a REAL tea set!

Of course we weren't going to let Erik try that!  He doesn't even like hot chocolate.  He enjoyed his chocolate milk all the same!

Erik wouldn't stay in to get a picture, but we watched the train before bed.

Bria begged to make Christmas cookies.  I don't have anything to make them with since one of the beaters  broke (probably because we made cookies with them).  So, we mixed them by hand and with one beater which did not work the best.  Oh well, we knew that we were just going to make them for us, so all that mattered was the fun of being together and making a big mess!

The kids love cutting out their cookies and did such a good job!

Our finished product!

We have been keeping track of how many days are left with a fun advent calendar I found.  It is a puzzle of the nativity scene and each day we have been taking out a puzzle piece to glue on and a scripture and activity to do for the day.  It is a nice way to keep reminding the kids why we really celebrate Christmas.  They have loved it.  We also glue a cotton ball on Santa's beard every day.  Erik loves glue and tries to color with it like a marker!  He is so funny.

The kids have also written their letters to Santa.  We talked about asking for only a few things because Christmas is really about giving, so Bria was very careful and is always asking me if she is being too greedy.  I just smile at her and tell her never because Bria is never greedy.  I think her gift in this life is that she appreciates EVERYTHING.  When she receives a gift from someone, she really truly treasures it.  Erik is the same.  We were at Robert's Crafts and the checker gave him a balloon and you would have thought he just got the biggest, coolest toy ever!  He kept yelling, "Wow, a balloon!"  Everyone in the store was laughing at him.  I thought it was pretty cute.  I am so grateful my kids are so appreciative and love the simple things in life.  They are such good little examples to me!