Looks like Christmas!!

Oh how I love Christmas time!!  It truly is my favorite time of the year!  I love the cold (or at least cooler) weather, the lights and decorations, the delicious food, and the fun times with family and friends. It is so magical to me, and this year has been one of my favorites so far!  We went all out decorating this year (thanks to my amazing parents--donating some of their old decorations and helping us get everything up in our house) since we were planning on having Justin's work party at our house and hosting Christmas day.  Being back here in this house made our Christmas decorations even better, since this is the house we bought most of them for!  Our big 9 foot Christmas tree looks perfect in this living room with high ceilings, since at the old house, the only room it would fit in was Justin's office!  I'm so thankful that we were back here for the first Christmas where the boys were a little bit aware at what is going on! =)

The boys in awe of the tree, and some pretty big presents for them!

See what I mean about the tree and the high ceiling?

The wrought iron stairwell is one thing we like most about this house, and I love it all lit up with garlands!

Notice on top of the entertainment center...
My mom gave us her whole entire Christmas village,
and set it up for us too!  I love it!!

We have no fireplace in this house, which will lead to some creative stories about Santa coming down the chimney, but we found a channel on AT&T Uverse that has a yule log.  So our TV was our fireplace most of the month!

Stairway landing... a few decorations, as well as Betsy's stocking!

We hired someone to put on the big house lights, since this house is super tall, and we don't own that big of a ladder!  We were hoping that they would do the dormers and the other side of the house also, but they didn't have a big enough ladder either! My Dad lined the retaining wall with more lights, and Justin painstakingly wrapped the bushes and the garland on the upstairs balcony.  So it was definitely a labor of love by so many!

Funny story... About a week after my dad installed the lights around the retaining wall, Justin noticed that the lights on the sides of the front yard were missing from the strand.  About 8-10 on each side.  We couldn't believe that someone would actually take the time to unscrew each of those bulbs instead of just stealing the whole strand, but figured that it was probably teenagers in the middle of the night having some fun.  So it caught us completely off-guard when about a week and a half later, we came out about 7:35pm and almost all of the lights on both sides were gone!  Justin had gotten home from work at 6:30 and they were all on, so in that hour, while we were home, someone snuck up and unscrewed about 40 lights!! We were so upset that someone would do this twice that we called the local sheriff.  A nice young sheriff that lives in the neighborhood came over, and we told him what was going on.  We didn't want to press charges, do an investigation, or anything like that, but we wanted the 6 patrolling neighborhood sheriffs to know so they could watch out, and hopefully keep anyone else from losing their bulbs and decorations!  We felt kind of silly calling, but it worked, because no more were stolen the rest of the month!  Definitely weird, but a funny story to remember from Christmas 2011!

A neat view from below

Our first year with our Christmas train!

A few other Christmas happenings...

My mom and I hosted a table for our Woman's Christmas Banquet at church and we had such a wonderful time!  I was originally hosting with a friend from my lifegroup, but sadly, she had to go the day of the banquet to Louisiana to be with her grandfather who was passing away.  So my mom stepped in, and we have decided that this is definitely going to be a tradition!!

Our table... set with my Mom's beautiful Christmas dishes!

There was a wonderful speaker, Shauna Niequist, who had an amazing message on how to Be Present, the theme of the night.  Check it out here, since it is something that really should be applied to every day, not just the busy holiday season!

The boys and I also went to a Christmas party at the school where I used to work.  My mom is doing a long-term subbing job for a teacher that just had a baby, so the boys and I came up to help her with the class party.  I have to say, I was NOT much of a help, since the boys only wanted to stay in the stroller for so long.  The dirty carpet was definitely not the place I wanted them on crawling, so I was a little bit busy.  Thankfully, a lot of class parents showed up so there were others to help!

Gigi with the boys... can you see the lights on the stroller?
Yes, I decorated it. =)

What a great Christmas season!  I'm sad that it is already over, and that it is all coming down soon.  I wish lights could be kept up all year round!  Everything just looks prettier with lights! =)