Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus and thinking about how He came to earth. I love the music, the joy and peace, the lights, the tree, the smells and the food. I so am delighted by all the little things surrounding Christmas. As a child, one of my favorite memories was getting up early in the morning, before anyone else. I would sneak downstairs in the dark and turn on the lights on the tree. Then I would lay under the tree and look up through the branches, ornaments and lights. It would take me to a magical place and I loved it.
Now I love seeing Christmas through my children's eyes. I see their wonder and joy in all the little things.
Last night we got out most of our Christmas decorations and put them up around the house. The girls so enjoyed opening all the boxes and finding treasures. Hannah was trying to see into the little house to find the wheel that spun, changing the lights.
We set up the play nativity for the girls. They must have spent an hour last evening having everyone come and visit the baby Jesus. It was so cute.
Today is my favorite day of the whole year. The day we get our tree. For years we have joined the Carrillo's and the Riley's in their Christmas tradition of a potluck breakfast, the tree farm and Twin Apple Ranch. Due to sickness and busy lives, this year it was just their families and mine. We had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, french toast, berry deliciousness, bacon and apple cide. Then we all headed for the Frosty Mountain Tree Farm. The girls got stories read to them by Mrs. Santa, while I picked out some beautiful ornaments. We have a tradition to give the girls an ornament every year for their own tree someday. Lots of fun memories.
We found this great tree and took a family picture of it.
Then we found two other trees we liked. The girls each chose a different tree, so that was no help. I finally chose one. Then Chris saw that the trunk was only about an inch around and figured it wouldn't fit into our tree stand. So we ended up getting Hannah's tree.
Bekah ended up pulling it. She was so, so proud that she could do it all by herself.
After a fun time on the slide, we went on a hay ride.
My girls loved climbing up on the tractor and playing.
This is my favorite picture today. I so love the fact that they do love each other and are the best of friends. God has truly blessed us with them.
Then we headed to Twin Hills Apple Ranch for our free bag of apples and their awesome fire pit.
Since the Tonks couldn't join us earlier, we went out to lunch with them. It was a great time to chill, catch up and have some yummy food. I so appreciate the fact that I can eat a GF pizza here and not get sick. They are awesome just because of that.
I got a nap when we got home. The girls and Chris played with a marshmallow shooter and ping pong gun that some how made it home with us today. I could hear them laughing and having a great time.
Hannah decided that the tree skirt made a great cape this year. What a fun girl I have. Then she climbed up in the window and announced that she was doing something dangerous. Can you see the accomplished look on her face. She just makes me laugh so much.
We had a great time going through all of our ornaments and showing the girls their very own ones. This year I put out two blankets: one with glassable ones (Bekah coined that term for breakable glass things and it stuck) and one for kid safe ornaments. We still broke three of them, but Chris had the super glue all ready.
Our tree is up and lovely (no picture though-not sure how that happened). The girls had a bath while Chris made us salted caramel popcorn. We watched Dumbo and had popcorn, hot cocoa and grapes for dinner. It was a perfect day all around. Relaxing, special and best of all, I got to spend it with my family.
