Happy Holidays!

I can't believe it is December 19th already! I swear we just had everyone over for Thanksgiving last week. As always things have been nuts around our house (or at least it feels that way for me.) I had a blast having everyone over here for Thanksgiving. It was my first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner and thanks to everyone's help, it turned out awesome and it wasn't stressful. We had just over 30 people and we partied from lunch till late at night. We couldn't stop there though so we had everyone back over again for leftover pie and a spaghetti dinner the next night. It is just too much fun getting together to leave it to just one day! :)

Our December started off with a bang as we had something every day that first week in December. We have done things just a little differently around our house this year. We were a little slow on getting all of our decorations out and didn't put up our Christmas tree until tonight. I didn't want to stress the whole month about having to keep Mason out of everything. We have had other decorations up for a few weeks but not the tree. We decorated it tonight with every ornament except the bulbs. (They resemble a ball too closely and I didn't want them thrown and shattered.) It was a fun time. I TOTALLY let go of control and the kids decorated the whole thing while I handed them ornaments. Nobody fought, argued or cried. It is definitely no "Festival of Trees" but it is to our kids. I guess the backwards ornaments and branches with 5 ornaments to a limb just give it it's own style and pizazz. I am trying hard to make sure that we have HAPPY holidays and not "perfect" holidays so I have had to back off a bit. I do miss having that creative feeling and satisfaction when I step back to see how beautiful things are transformed for the holidays but I figure in a few years from now I will get that chance to do some more of it again.

I am surprised at how much I have liked not having our tree up during the whole month. It has given us something to continue to look forward to doing and I think our kids haven't had the "gimmies" as much during this holiday. They are SOOOO excited for Christmas but rarely talk about what they want to receive. It has been more about what are we doing for others or fun activities we get to participate in. Landen has been the cutest this year. He can hardly stand it till Christmas gets here. He has been putting a sticker on his little calendar chart each day and at least 10 times a day he checks to see if another day has come and he missed putting a sticker on. He mixes up his numbers too so he will ask, "Is it the nine one day today?" instead of asking if it is the 19th today. He does know that Christmas Day is on the two-five and he is constantly telling us how many more days till it is two-five.

I am excited that we get to make treats tomorrow! Bryce will be done with his "Biggest Loser" competition that he is doing with the boys on his side of the family. They do their final weigh-in tomorrow morning and I can make caramel, English toffee, fudge, chex mix, etc... I hope the kids and I have fun doing it together. We will definitely enjoy eating it! Bryce's "diet" has been good for us and actually helped me lose the weight that has been bothering me for a while at my stomach. I didn't exercise at all but we have cut out a lot of sugar, snacking after dinner and a few other things. Hopefully we can continue to keep a few healthy lifestyle changes that will just keep us in good health.

I wish that I had pictures to post but I am still without a good camera. I have taken a few photos with Abbey's camera that I will have to add sometime-- maybe. Until then... I will just have to keep these good times in my memory bank and let them keep getting better and better as time goes by! :)