Christmas Vacay - Preschool Christmas Program

Today, Miley had her Christmas program at school.  It is just a small little program, but we missed it last year since we were traveling to Wyoming for Christmas, so it was fun to be able to see it this year.

Her class came in and sang a few Christmas songs for us, some including props or instruments.  You could tell they had been practicing, and it was so cute!

After the program, we were able to have some cookies and juice, and enjoy the company of the other preschool families and teachers before Christmas break.  By the way, Landon's camera face is getting more and more epic by the day.  Love it.

I feel so lucky to have Miley in such a great preschool.  It is small, and so warm and inviting, and her teachers are wonderful.  She loves preschool so much.  It is going to be sad to leave it behind next year to send her off to kindergarten!

Kicking Off Christmas

Well we are officially on Christmas break in these here parts, and it feels gooooooood.  Cameron had his last day of work on Friday, and doesn't go back until January 2nd.  This is also the first year that we are staying home, and not traveling back to Wyoming for Christmas, so we have been filling our time with lots of Christmas fun.

The kids were looking their finest on Sunday for church, so we decided to grab a few pictures in front of the Christmas tree (one of our kids was feeling particularly "cheese-y..."  I'll give you one guess who.).

Today we were able to head to downtown Minneapolis for the annual holiday display at Macy's.  It was fun, and was much faster than we had anticipated.  We cruised right on through the elf display, and didn't even have to wait to have a visit with ol' Mr. C. himself (by the way, we were only allowed to take 2 pictures with our personal camera.  I took about 10  Do you think that automatically puts me on the naughty list??  :)).

This afternoon we spent a fair amount of time baking and decorating cookies to bring to some of our neighbors.

And this is just the beginning of all the festivities!  With all the time Cameron has off of work, we are hoping to get a few projects done around the house as well, but we will see if we can squeeze those in between all the fun we have planned!

Snowy Day

This weekend we got quite the snowstorm!  It lasted most of Saturday and Sunday, and now we are left with about 9 inches of snow, but much higher drifts from the plowing.  It is that wet, pretty snow, but the roads are icy and it is freezing outside!  We even got sent home early from church yesterday, so we decided to take full advantage of the weather and enjoy it (and by we, I mean Cameron and the kids, of course).

We have the perfect hill for little kids to sled on in our backyard, and lots of the neighbor kids ended up in our yard for some sledding fun!  Cameron spent a lot of the time shoveling, and just trying to keep up with that, but he took Landon and Miley out for a while.  Landon had fun for about 20 minutes, then came inside to keep me company in the warmth of the house (the best way to enjoy it in my opinion).  But Miley ended up staying out for a couple hours.

I am so glad this happened on a weekend, when we didn't really HAVE to be anywhere, and when Cameron was around to take the kids out!  Now, if it can only stay decently pretty for a couple weeks then we should have a white Christmas!

Real Life

Real Life:  When you try to take a picture of your kids, and for some reason, they just refuse to take a normal one and have to have their toys in it.  Seriously?

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Now that it is December, I feel like it is definitely OK to put up the holiday decoration post.  While my parents were here for Thanksgiving, we MAY or MAY not have started decorating for Christmas.  I couldn't wait to get up all of our decorations so that we could enjoy them for as long as possible!

My parents were great and helped with the oh-so-fun task of un-tangling Christmas lights for the tree.  Landon and Miley tried to help, too, although they probably added more to the tangling than anything.  Oh well, at least they had fun, right?

I really need to build up my decoration collection, but here is what we have for now...

The table by the front door with my snowmen and candles on it:

The front coat closet (Oh, haaaaaay there Freddie, our Elf....):

Cut-out snowflakes for the front door (that I am tempted to leave on all year, because I HATE those side windows where I feel like everyone can see in!):

Our advent calendar that was mine and my sisters when we were growing up (I staked my claim on it last year...bwahahaha....):

And the finished result of the mantel and the tree.

I love, Love, LOVE Christmas decorations.  They just always feel so warm and cozy.  It is seriously too bad we can't have them up for more of the year.  :)