What have we been up to in December?

Decorating the inside of our house...

WELCOME!

This is the wreath that hangs on our front door.

The manger that sitts in the entry way on our buffet table.

(Closer view of the below picture)

Can't see the little tree very well, but there is red shiny beads that wrap around the tree.

This area is missing something or maybe a few things. I'm brainstorming for next year.

Any suggestions?

These giant ornaments sit on top of our ice box.

Half wall that separates our breakfast area and living room.

This chalkboard and other decor sit on our back counter in our kitchen.

This sits on the opposite side of the chalkboard.

This is our count down to Christmas...

we add little ornaments to the Christmas tree each day and turn it on to see how many days left,

and

Grace has an advent calendar that she gets to open each day with a little piece of chocolate in it.

(Her Mommaw (great grandma) gave it to her)

This is one of our niches. It's hard to see, but those are angels playing trumpets (Jeff's Aunt Red gave of these) and the book sitting on the ledge is Emmie's. It goes with an ornament that my parents gave her. You push the pictures on the books and it makes the ornament make sound. It's really neat!

(Please excuse the blank wall behind...I use to have pictures on it, but took those down to paint and redecorate. Project for the new year.)

Garland on top of our entertainment center. I had plans to add Christmas balls and poinsettias to it, but didn't have time due to kids being sick. There were more important things to do than decorate. :o)

One of our end tables. These are Department 56 houses I collect. They are the New England Village Series. I just love them, but it makes me a little nervous to have these down low and in arms length of little children. But I will have to say Grace does a great job of just looking...most of the time. :o)

The other end table...with the girls on Santa's lap, a glittery Christmas tree candle, some ornamnets, an angel that a teacher friend of mine gave me a few years back and our adorable little niece, Lila, in her red and green Christmas tutu.

This Santa sits by our fireplace. I bought him this year at Hob Lob for half price.

Our mantle...with more of my Christmas village and our stockings.

A little closer view...Okay, I know our stockings don't have our names on them yet, but I have been looking since last year for stockings and couldn't find any that were in my budget...until I found these at Kohl's this year and they were really cheap and they had a tree skirt to match. I wasn't too sure about them at first, but went ahead and bought them. I have fallen in love with them and have big plans for them next year... :o)

These hang on all the entry lights down our foyer.

This is a really bad picture...It makes my lights look really dirty, but I promise they are not.

These bells hang on our doors inside the house.

Putting up lights on our house (Daddy did such a GREAT job conquering his fear of heights! We're so proud of him!)...

Looking for the "perfect" Christmas tree and putting our special touches on it (Daddy & Mommy strung the lights and Grace hung almost all of the ornaments by herself. I even let her use my step ladder. I think she did a FANTASTIC job! See what you think?)...

Grace is holding up one of her ornaments...It makes music if you press the buttons on it. We have quite a few that make some sort of noise or music.

Grace loves to push all of their buttons so they can all be on at the same time.

(Notice that there aren't many ornaments on the tree...One, I didn't plan on putting all the ornaments on the tree because we have so many...Two, Grace decided even though I had taken more out to put on the tree, "that would take for a long time" and she decided that it looked best this way.)

All the princesses and other dolls are together because "they need friends to talk to."

Attempting to make the girls matching Christmas shirts. I think I did a pretty good job considering I have never sewed anything in my life except for when I was little and lerning to sew, I did my name and some buttons here and there. I got the idea on Etsy and decided I had a better idea and could make them much cheaper. Now don't look too closely all you awesome seamstresses out there that might be reading...

First attempt on Grace's shirt...

too low, tried to take it off the shirt and redo it, but it was leaving holes...so I just bought another shirt at Target.

Final product...I think they turned out pretty cute!

I had bows made to match.

Grace's bow

Emmie's bow

Emmie ate cereal for the first time and did NOT like it and even today she's not too fond of it, but will eat it most of the time (if I feed her)...

Emmie, also, drank water for the first time (and it was even out of a "big girl" cup)...

Attending Grace's Christmas program at school...

The same lady that made the girls bows made these cute reindeer shirts and matching bows.

If anyone ever needs really cute bows made...let me know, she's great and will match anything and she is really reasonable too!

Posing

Chubby Checker :o)

Dancing and performing for everyone.

and her Christmas party at dance...

Taking (thanks to my parents and brother for coming over to take our pictures :o) and sending out our family Christmas cards...

(There were many attempts and effort on everyone's part to try and capture the "perfect" pictures)

Shopping for presents...

Wrapping presents...

Opening presents (Yes, that's right...I said opeing presents! Sometimes even I can't wait for the girls to open some of their presents. :o). Jeff and I decided last year to get Grace the Fisher Price Little People manger with all the characters. And this year we added to it by buying the Inn at Bethlehem. I , also, decided to carrying on the tradition that my family always did and that was to get a new ornament every year to put on the tree (that way when the girls have their own house, they have plenty of ornaments to take with them and lots of memories and stories to go along with them). They, also, each got a Christmas book. And my parents gave the girls The Night Before Christmas book (it's one of those neat recordable books from Hallmark...I just love these books!) and some cute ornaments too...

Receiving Elf on the Shelf and naming our elf "Quincy" (not sure where Grace came up with that name, but Jeff and I thought it was too cute)...

Visiting Santa at his workshop. We took the girls to see the Santa in The Domain because Jeff had read some great reviews and we hadn't always been too impressed with the one at Lakeline Mall and let me tell you...HE WAS THE BEST! There was absolutely no line and we spent about 10 or 15 minutes with him and got a wonderful picture with the girls on his lap (keep in mind off and on all year Grace would tell me from time to time that she was not going to sit on Santa's lap and as it got closer to Christmas she would tell me almost everyday "I'm not going to sit on Santa's lap...I'll just write him a letter." He made her feel right at ease by showing her his workshop and his Christmas tree.)...

We hope everyone is enjoying this time of year just as we are! :o)

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." ~Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year in 2011!