Our Christmas so far

We are enjoying celebrating Christmas this season. It has been fun to decorate our home and our tree. Grant is very excited about the presents under the tree. I am trying to remind him about the Christ side of Christmas but it doesn't seem to be sinking in quite yet. I love to decorate and bake and do the Christmasy things.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Brad and I took the boys to the Christmas light parade in downtown Prescott. It was fun. The boys liked it and it was only 30 minutes. I couldn't take pictures because it was dark. The first Saturday in December, I took the boys to the annual Christmas parade. Chad passed on the outing, claiming it was too cold. It was cold but not terrible. The downfall to the Christmas parade is that it is sooooo long every year. The boys got bored after about an hour and a half so we left and it wasn't even close to being over. It was fun while it lasted though. I didn't take any pictures of the floats because who cares about those but I did take a picture of the boys sitting on the curb watching.

Our stockings

Our tree

Our "mantle"

The advent calendar I made -- This has not proven to work as smoothly as anticipated. I realize I hung it too low. Two times I have found Grant in the early morning hours with numerous candy pieces in his hand. Normally, Grant heads straight to my bed each morning to either climb in or ask for cartoons. Now he heads for the candy bags, his "morning candy" he calls it. One morning I heard rustling and thought it was Barry causing trouble so I jumped up. I found Grant rummaging in each of the bags looking for whatever pieces he could find. Another morning Chad and I were up before the kids because Chad had to work early. I was in the kitchen telling Chad how it never failed that the kids always slept late on the mornings we were up early. Chad asked whether I knew that Grant was on the couch, which I didn't. I looked on the couch and saw Grant covered, except for his feet, with a blanket. I thought he was asleep so I lifted up the blanket quietly to check on him. Under the blanket, I found Grant with a bite size Snickers in his mouth and three or four wrappers around him on the couch. He kept his eyes closed and didn't say anything. It was hilarious. I have now removed all of the candy from the calendar and now put one in each night before bed.

This is Cole in the cute Christmas sweater Aunt Kitty bought for Grant. I forgot all about it until I was looking through some old pictures of Grant. Isn't he adorable?