It's Beginning...

To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care,

in hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be here!

Jack Frost came to visit early one morning,

and covered the rooftops and lawns with glistening white! (Our snow before Thanksgiving lasted only 4 short days =(

There's the snow; within close sight,

but pretty far west of us in the Olympic Mountains.

There's Sheldon stringin' up the lights!

(From the song The 12 Days of Christmas/Such a Pain =)

We borrowed our neighbor's 24' ladder!

I couldn't do this job, as I'm a lot afraid of heights!

Nathan

Sheldon and I put on the lights and garland,

and then another evening,

we turned on the Christmas music,

and decorated our tree as a family!

To keep everything orderly, I hand out an ornament at a time =)

This was Natalie's year

to put the star atop the tree!

(Her last; sniff, since she has 4 younger siblings)

With all this 'big' help, we finished decorating the tree in no time!

With the kids in bed, as is tradition,

I finish trimming the tree with the candy canes, bows & candles!

(And with not too much ornament rearranging this year =)

Another one of our gift giving traditions: The kids pick a sibling's name out of a bowl, and then go shopping with grandma (my mom) at the Dollar Tree! Grandma also has them each choose one gift for mom and one for dad!

(Natalie in white/black) Here are 6 out of the 11 young women in our ward =) Their job at the Santa Breakfast was to be Santa's elves! They handed out a candy cane and a toothbrush (seriously =) to the kids after their pictures with Santa!