The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We LOVE Christmas!! What could be more wonderful than beautiful smells, colorful lights, and giving to others?

We found a beautiful fresh tree to add to our decor, and we even found a REAL tree stand (see December 2008 post) this year too. We also purchased our first star to go on top of the tree. It is a beautiful tree full of homemade ornaments and a few store bought ones. It reminds me of the tree that I grew up with. The boys enjoyed decorating, and still enjoy re-arranging some of the ornaments.

One of our annual traditions is making REAL Gingerbread houses. We of course grouped into teams.

Team Daddy and Chance and Team Hunter and Momma

we had a great time.

This team doesn't even have their house stuck together yet, and one of the participants has chocolate and goo around his mouth already.

Hunter was excellent at hanging the "lights" on our roof. He was very patient with it.


......still eating!!!

Hunter was getting frusturated because the other team kept saying how girly our house was since there was a girl on Hunter's team. They kept telling him that Barbie lived inside our house!! I had drawn a frosting heart above the door to put some red hots around, but before I could even get the red hots on, Hunter smeared it!

We did end up putting candy cane "cannons" and "lasers" on top of our roof. We also put a US Flag on the side of the house. We decided it was the "married" military housing. There were also cinnamon bears out front to keep an eye out for intruders.

Team Daddy and Chance put the marine symbol and a gun on the side of their house. Their house did turn out very MESSY...oops, I mean MANLY!!

And guess what???? Chance is still eating the candy off the house every chance he gets.

Last but not least we went straight to Santa Claus' house in North Pole and told him what we wanted for Christmas. He told the boys that he had been waiting for them, and that they were definitely on the good list. They were very happy about that!

Chance told Santa that he wanted a Shark and a Motorcycle.

Hunter told Santa that he wanted the Batcave.

Both boys got a candy cane and were very pleased with their visit to Santa.

One of our traditions when we go see Santa is that each of the boys get to choose an ornament to represent that year for them. Hunter chose an eskimo riding a polar bear, and Chance chose an Olde World style Santa ornament.

The best part of Christmas is the element of surprise and anticipation of these little boys. Hunter said to me, "Mom, everytime I sleep I just dream of those presents, and the day I get to open them." He also keeps asking me if he can just open one present, and then he'll say, "Just trickin' since he already knows the answer.

We have also had FHE about Christ and why we celebrate Christmas. They love to look and touch my nativity scene, and talk about what happened on the night Christ was born.

This is "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!"