Gingerbread, our own version

I dislike working with gingerbread, it breaks easily and takes a long time to mix, roll, cut and bake. I tried it once and never again. The solution we had when were were growing up was use graham crackers and glue them together, it works great.

We made 3 of them for the kids this week, 2 little ones and one big one. This was the boys house that Buddy and his friend made.

This is Princess', she was very excited about purple frosting, and her M&M path to the front door.

This one was mine. I was very proud of my front porch and the porch railing made out of candy cigarettes.

I managed to keep the kids from eating them so far, but am planning to let them attack them this weekend. I am ready for the sugar high.

Cows

For a while in college and soon thereafter I was really into cows. I don't know why, but I had a bunch of them, and my mom helped me out and gave me some cool ornaments. I don't know how, but somehow she even found Santa riding a cow.

Stockings

All of our Christmas stockings were made by my sister, she started it by making mine soon after I moved out after college. Then she has made one for each member of the family. Unfortunately all except mine have their names on them and each of them looks better than mine which was the first, but they are really cool and look great on the mantle.

Hawaii

We lived in Hawaii for a few years and we have several ornaments from our time there, this is one of my favorites.

Nutcracker

We have made it a habit to pick an ornament each year, something that reminds us of something we did, or somewhere we went. The first year we were married my husband planned a special night and took me to see the Nutcracker ballet. I had never been and we had a great time. This is the ornament that reminds me of our first Christmas together.

Names

My mother-in-law has given us many ornaments over the years. She is great about giving us kid-friendly ornaments. Many of them also have the kids names on them, since I try not to put the kids real names online, I won't show them here, but there are lots of them and whenever we set up the tree, they search for "their" ornaments with names on them. The kids love the fact that they have personalized ornaments and they have to point out which ones are theirs to guests who come visit.

Kids

This I made when I was probably in 5th or 6th grade... For some reason I picked it out of my mom's stash when I had the chance. It is only cheap beads and silver pipe cleaners. Hopefully I can save some of my kids ornaments for when they are older.

Time with family

One of the best things about Thanksgiving is spending some time with the extended family. The kids loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, plus cousins and Aunts and Uncles. This is cousin "R" she is very cute and loved playing with the bigger kids. Story time with Grandma. They loved the rocking horse too.

Rollerblade

I used to do a lot of rollerblading, in fact I met my husband rollerblading. My mom is fantastic about finding ornaments that are unique and fit each person well. She gave me this one and I love it, not everyone has a rollerblade on their tree.

Late night

We took the kids to the illumination parade and they LOVED it, it was really crowded, but the kids loved the floats and the balloons. They even thought all the bands were cool too. I forgot to take pictures from during the parade, but we got home really late, this was the back seat.

Bridal Shower

This is one of my stranger ornaments, but it makes me smile every time I see it. My sister made this for me at my Bridal shower, it seems like a long time ago and it used to say Bridal shower... It isn't pretty but I love it.

Chalk

Munchkin likes to color, and she loves to color outside with chalk. It is fun to watch her as she learns.

Nativity set

We got a new Nativity set this year, I like my old one, but it is not really kid friendly. This one is perfect and the kids love it, and so do I. The kids love to play with it, and I have to limit how much time they play with it. I know they will probably lose pieces, but it is worth it to hear them telling each other parts of the Christmas story. Though I did find them pretending the Shepherd was a pirate.

Roses

One of the benefits of living in Virginia, Roses that bloom this beautifully in November.

Christmas

The Christmas season is here and I love taking the time to spend time with the kids and sharing experiences with them. We started by cutting our Christmas tree and setting it up. It is a little bigger than we planned, but after moving some furniture we were able to put it in the house. It is kind of Charlie Brown looking but everyone who has walked into the house has said it looks beautiful. I'll take it.

I am going to attempt something new this year and post something about some of my favorite Christmas decorations every day of December, kind of like my own Advent Calendar. So my first post for the 1st of December is about the tree itself.

Daddy loves live Christmas trees and has convinced the kids that they love to go hiking through a cold field to cut one down. They loved going this year again, it was slightly damp and really muddy. We got a great ten foot, slightly prickly, leaning blue spruce.