Getting Ready for Christmas

It's the day after Thanksgiving and in true family tradition we put up our Christmas decorations....yeah, Christmas is coming!!! Every year I get out my decorations here I always wonder why I didn't bring more than two totes, but I found a place for everything and tried spreading them around the house as much as I could. One special gift we got from Danny and Min before they left was a Christmas tree that was given to them by an English colleague. It's quite a bit smaller than the one we have in a box sitting in storage back in Peoria, but if fit just right by our patio window.

I worked on putting all the decorations up while the kids were taking nap and they were so excited to come downstairs to see all the "pretties." But of course they went crazy and had to touch everything and pull things down to examine them. I wondered if it was really a good idea or not to go through a month of this constant putting back and babysitting my decorations. When Kevin got home we put the decorations on our tree as a family which was really nice and I think it will be a great tradition to carry on. We didn't bring any tree decorations with us from home but over the past two years we have been collecting an ornament from each country we visit and the kids have received a few from family over the years so we filled it up nicely. Problem was trying to keep all the decorations on since again my curious little cats thought they were new toys to play with. I did manage to keep all my really breakable ones up towards the top.

Addison really liked the Santa hat and found some of the little stockings I used in the past for mine and Kevin's Christmas stockings, but Addie found a new use for them - keeping her own feet warm!!!

This is the face of a crazy little boy who just got scolded for tearing down Christmas ornaments off the tree and throwing sheep off the nativity scene. Does he know that if he doesn't act like a good little boy that Santa won't bring him any goodies for Christmas? I don't think he cares much...he just has fun antagonizing mommy.