Preparing For Christmas

Everyone talks about how wonderful Christmas becomes once you have children. They must be talking about children that understand the magic of Christmas. We tried to start some traditions this year but I'll be honest in saying many of them are just for the photo op or the "we've been doing this since you were 6 months old" because they are never going to remember this! We did have a lot of fun dressing them up and taking them out.

Gigi did a mini photo shoot of the elves! I am especially thankful because I don't have any pictures of the kids in front of our tree... want to know why? We'll because the gorgeous tree we treked up to Asheville to select and chop down never made it inside our house! We have an artificial "pretty" tree upstairs that houses all of our "pretty" and coordinating ornaments. The basement tree has always been a live tree decorated with all of our meaningful ornaments. I took Jay forever to unbundle the tree from the trip home and then a while longer to cut the bottom to fit in the stand and then it just sat in the garage. Poor tree. I kind of feel like his life was cut short in vain. Anyway I pretty much felt like a bad mom everytime we walked outside and saw the naked tree standing there. I have no pictures of my children decorating their first Christmas tree... better luck next year.

I love this picture and feel like Holden will be doing this while Emma Cate babbles for years to come!

Elf feet are pretty darn cute!

My mom also did a mini photo shoot with some Christmas outfits!

love these bibs!

I'm going to eat you brother!

Who does love a fancy-pants covered tush!

My handsome guy

These toys with the holes cut out are the best. I get a kick out of watching the babies try to stick their tongues through the holes.

My little naked guy getting ready for the bath

We decided one evening to meet Daddy downtown to listen to the bears sing. They set these bears up in Founder's Hall every December and they sing and "dance" to Christmas tunes. Many families come down to see the bears and there were lots of kids dancing around in front. My sister works in this building and said that whenever she comes down for lunch in December the place is packed with little kids meeting their Daddies downtown and dancing to the bears. What a sweet tradition! Thanks to my whole family for meeting us!