We love Christmas around here, so we decorate everything we can. It also helps that we have a whole house to decorate this year. It's so much fun! Here is our tree that Shannon keeps rearranging the ornaments on (and adding her own special touches to--like her socks!).
We decorated "gingerbread" houses (made with graham crackers) during Thanksgiving when some of my family was in town, and since they didn't want to drive home with them in their laps, they left them all here. Yay for me! They all turned out very nicely. I don't have pictures of the day we made the houses because my camera was malfunctioning, but you can see them on my sister's blog
here.
Matt decided to make the pyramids of Egypt (ok, so he only made one) complete with palm trees and the Nile River. I thought that was a very cute idea.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am addicted to snowglobes and my mom is addicted to giving them to me. I was sooooo excited to put out all of my Christmas ones this year. Oh, and the crushed house is Shannon's. She has made an afternoon snack out of it more than once.
We made a paper fireplace to hang our stockings on (can you tell which one has been around for over 30 years?). Shannon calls them sockings or sockets and she loves to look at them and tell me who they each belong to. Also, when the heat turns on, the air from the vent on the bottom of the picture makes the fire flicker! I know, I'm a nerd.
A friend gave me these placemats this year. They are very funny! The santa hats are napkins! It's kind of hard to see, but on the wall is a cross-stitch of santa that my sister did for me a few years ago. I have another amazing cross-stitch/hardanger in the living room that I neglected to take a picture of, but I promise it's amazing.
And, of course, the chocolate. I have only made Hershey balls and fudge meltaways so far, but I am also going to make snowflake-shaped marshmallows and maybe some toffee or something. Shannon thinks Christmas is the best thing ever!
We did absolutely nothing special for Leah's birthday today, aside from the cake. Call me a bad mother, but I don't understand the need to make a fuss over a one year old, since they don't even care. She did get her cake, though, and loved it.
