It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I always start the Christmas season early with holiday songs (as my readers are aware) and then move onto decorating the house and the tree. This year we put up the tree and decorated it for family night. It was so fun to have Jack be a huge participant this year. He loved putting up ornaments he made the last few years and was able to tell us when and where he made them. He also loved putting up my old ornaments from my childhood. He thought it was pretty funny that I had painted one when I was five. He thought I was a bit messy. What a critic!

Once the tree was all decorated and we turned on the lights, I got a little teary eyed. Here I was sitting with my precious family in our beautiful house with a light Christmas tree and stockings hanging from our fireplace. I watched our two boys play around and felt so blessed.

A few days later, we had a great treat! Snow! Real snow...not just a dusting. We got about 3-4 inches or so. Jack was so excited. He spent the entire day outside (from 9am-2pm). He would have gone out earlier, but we had to tell him it wouldn't be polite to our neighbors. He did come in a few times to warm up. It was a wet snow so his gloves and jacket were soaked through and needed to be dried out. I went out at one point to shovel the driveway. Jack thought this was the perfect opportunity to have a snowball fight. It was all good fun. He helped me shovel and then we made a snowman with a piggy nose and a bike helmet. Later in the afternoon, our neighbor took him sledding. He tied a sled to the back of his lawn mower and took the kids on a wild ride. Jack loved it!

As attempted every holiday season, the perfect holiday card picture! This year the boys got their jammies early. It was all sorts of fun chasing them around yelling, "Henry, look up here! Jack keep smiling!". Always a funny event! We got some good shots this year so it all payed off.

Thanks to a dear friend, we have a really great gingerbread cottage recipe. Jack and I did our best to recreate her masterpiece. Jack loved getting all the candy ready and making the candy pond and windows. He helped to add some decorations and told me where to put things. We did it over a few days so we weren't so overwhelmed. Can't wait to do it again next year.

(a snapshot from the ward Christmas party!)

Finally, one of our family traditions is to take a trip to see the festival of lights at the Washington, D.C. Temple. We did a very quick trip this year, but worth it as always. The "living" nativity has changed over the years, but still worth seeing. The night we went was really foggy and made the lights and temple look really neat.