'Tis the Season

Finally...it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house!

The tree is up and decorated,
the stockings have been hung,
presents have been bought AND wrapped,
(yay! BIG accomplishment for me)
I have a plan to get our Christmas cards in the mail BEFORE Christmas,
I have reserved a date on my calendar for Christmas baking,

And most importantly, we have our nativity set up...  

Which Maura calls the "activity"...since she can't quite get the "n" sound out.

Snow just keeps falling around here...three times this week!

It's beautiful...and we finally managed to convince Audra to give it a try:

She let us put the snow suit on her,

she went outside,

but she was not happy about it.

Maura and Aidan kept trying to tell (and show) her how much fun it was.

But she wasn't buying it.

She sat in the sled,

she even went down the little hill...

But once she was at the bottom she just sat there...

didn't move a bit.

She waited quietly and motionlessly for me to come get her

and (hopefully) take her back inside.

And I love this pic of Aidan crawling up the hill with Charlotte

since it was too hard for her walk up it by herself:

 

There were a few other special events this week that helped us get into the holiday spirit:

Aidan had his Winter Concert, he plays the viola. 

His elementary school orchestra played Christmas carols in the BIG high school auditorium. 

 

 

 

Maura danced in her dance studio's performance of the "Nutcracker". 

She was an elf.  Cutest little elf ever! 

More festive activities from the past week:

 

Santa rode through our neighborhood on a fire engine and handed out candy canes,

another terrifying event for Audra...

we have some work to do before we go visit Santa next weekend!

 

We (Maura and Charlotte) baked gingerbread man cookies:  

And waited patiently for their taste-test...

Maura was afraid to open to oven door too soon...

She didn't want her gingerbread man to run away! 

 

Only 10 days to go!  I have decided to enjoy these next 10 days leading up to the holiday and not stress about every little thing.  I won't possibly get it all get done, but it will still be perfect. 

 

And there is always next year.