Merry Christmas

Since our fun trip to Utah for Thanksgiving, everything has been a blur of ever-changing Christmas lists, on line shopping and trips to the mall.  I think that I remembered everything.  Oh wait, stocking stuffers!  Tomorrow.  Christmas seemed to sneak up on me this year.  Which is sad, because I love this time of year.  I'm trying to slow down and enjoy what's its all about before its over.  Here are a few highlights from our holidays so far.

Our elf Buddy came to us last year and has shown up in some interesting places this year.

This spot has to be my favorite.  The kids really got a kick out of it too.

I also decided to do two trees this year simply because I was in the mood for a live one.  So the kids got the live tree upstairs in the play room and I got to redo my own.  If you've been reading up on my life, you'll remember the great deals I got at an outlet sale at a catalog store.  I got a bunch of beaded bells for 3 for $1 and didn't quite know what I would do with them, because they didn't match my other decorations.  Well, I got to use them this year, but had to buy more things to go with them.  Thank you Hobby Lobby!  Here's MY tree.

Its a little hard to see, but I found mercury glass ornaments, sugary snowflakes and some cute 12 days of Christmas ones at Kirkland's.  I've also been working on making a garland out of thread and sticker dots, but I haven't quite finished yet.  Maybe before Christmas I'll post a picture.

Corey bought my present early this year.  A few months ago, I noticed that my wedding ring was missing.  After much searching, I came to the conclusion that it was long gone.  I think a pair of little hands threw it in the garbage.  So one Saturday, Corey just wakes up and decides to go the mall and pick out a new one.  He came home and proposed again, but I only said, "what if I don't like it".  What a response right?  Well I wasn't sure at first.  I was in shock that he would just up and do that.  After a couple of trips to the jewelry store trying on different settings and exchanging the band for the matching one, here's the ring he originally picked out and I LOVE it!

I can't stop staring at it.  I feel like I just got engaged except that we have all these kids already.  Hmmm... I'm glad it wasn't like this the first time we got engaged.  Isn't Corey great though?  I just wish he could have had the patience to wait until Christmas day.  I'm not complaining.  It will be hard to top this.

That's it for now.  I look forward to having the time these coming weeks to be all together as a family.  I've committed to just enjoy it and feel the spirit of Christmas as I think about how a baby changed the world.