Tis the season!

We decked the halls this past weekend. Technically it was still November but I wanted the house decorated for the most part so we could sit back and enjoy the decorations until after the Epiphany. The girls had so much fun and Mario was crawling through bins, bulbs and going through old Christmas cards. It was a lot of chaos but a lot of fun.

I had worked on our activity advent calendar and was able to finish that and put that up as well. The girls were very excited about it and that made me so happy. Go here for a quick tutorial on how I made our advent calendar.

Some of my favorite activities for the coming weeks are:
Visit New York City!
French Toast & Hot Chocolate for dinner
Take a drive to see the lights
Make pretzel & M&M treats for a friend
and of course we get to celebrate a special little man's 1st birthday this month so that's another favorite on our calendar.

Check out his two little bottom teeth coming in! It's adorable listening to him actually bite into food now. He loved crawling after his sisters and watching them decorate the tree. Which they did all on their own this year. They have a little 3 foot tall tree in the basement which is theirs to decorate as well and I'll have to take a picture of it at some point too. 3 foot tall tree with about 75 ornaments on it. We're definitely not lacking ornaments in our house.

I love this picture. Daddy in from putting the lights up outside, which look amazing, and reading to the girls. Mario off on his own and "playing the piano." I love my pom-pom garland. So simple to make and I just love the whimsy it adds to our mantel. All you need is some bakers twine and pom-pom balls and a needle. String away. I think we're going to make a garland for the girls' room and let them thread up the needle and string away.

Our stockings! I know traditionally you put the stockings at the fireplace and while I love that look, they are the perfect length for little fingers to pull on and bring down with it the heavy stocking holders too. One less thing I need to worry about if I'm not right behind the kids. So, I've been hanging them from a curtain rod in the dining room that ironically hasn't had a curtain hanging from it for 9 years now.