decorating

Probably the thing I love most about Thanksgiving weekend is decorating for Christmas.  Yes, even more than the food, surprisingly.  This year we set up the our tiny tree that Jomo and I bought for our first Christmas back in student housing.  It's perfect for our tiny house!  

The baby was SOOO excited when she first saw the Christmas tree upon waking up from her nap.  Now we just need to get her to leave it alone!

This is our little Christmas corner.  Jomo did a very nice job.  He even sewed us two new stockings this year, for him and me, since we were short one last year after the baby came. You can see him hanging them in the picture.  Later on that night we wrapped up a bunch of presents to put under the tree.  We don't really like the lonely tree look.  (This year we received a very generous, anonymous gift which we used to buy the kids some fun presents.  We enjoyed taking them to the toy store to see what sparked their interest, and then secretly buying some of it!)  On top of the shelves is our new (from after Xmas sales last year) advent calendar, and we actually started on time.  I printed out a verse or two per day of the Christmas story in the Bible, and placed them with two candies in each door.  It's super fun!

This week I finally got out our Egyptian Dig Kit which was so much fun.  I wish I had done it sooner.  Z especially enjoyed searching for treasures and declared she would be an archaeologist someday (maybe shortly after she pursues these other careers: lawyer, artist, ballerina, doctor, scientist... ok those are all the ones I can remember).