We had a wonderful Christmas and really the whole month leading up to Christmas was filled with little preparations and celebrations! There were lots that I didn't photograph...parties, the Christmas parade, gatherings with friends, and lots and lots of tasty treats, but here is a glimpse...
The kids loved decorating the tree...over and over and over again!:)
And my parents even got to help with the first tree decorating while they were here. And I love how the pom pom garland I made turned out!
Lily has been on vacation for much of the holiday season (her school follows the university schedule), but for her last day of school they had pajama day and here she is in her matching pajamas with Bitty Baby!
We did a giving basket for the kids again this year and once again Lily just LOVED creating some special little goodies that she could give out to anybody she wanted. She really gets so much joy out of giving- I think it's a gift of hers. This year we made carmel corm again, these adorable snowman ornaments (which she gave to everyone in her class among others)...
And these cute Christmas tree brownies!
Lily helped make each thing...baking, stirring and decorating the treats and cutting, paiting, and clueing the ornaments!
And we enjoyed a few fun little Christmas crafts like these nativity stick puppets (we printed some in color and the kids colored some themselves).
Our giving baskets and the little glitter trees that we made for the mudroom.
I don't even remember which yummy Christmas treat Eli had smeared all over his face here, but I couldn't resist these pictures!
Every Christmas we look forward to the cards and hearing from many of our friends and family. This year we hung our Christmas cards from lights around our front door and we put the picture cards under the glass on our kitchen table (so we got to see all of your lovely faces during every meal)!
Making beaded candy cane ornaments- Lily did such a great job at beading them and Eli even did pretty good at threading the pipe cleaners through the beads until he decided that it was more fun to dump out the beads from bowl to bowl (and ALL over the floor)!
And of course there were cookies! We made a more reasonable sized batch of cutout cookies this year and other than the last few that Joe helped Eli with the kids cut them all out themselves (I would roll the dough for Eli). They really enjoyed being able to do it on their own and they did such a great job!
And while the cookies were baking I let them clean up (and play) in the sink. This has quickly become one of their favorite activities!
Getting ready for Christmas sure was fun this year!!!
