Ready for Christmas

Christmas time is here.  Shout HOORAY!!  Here are a few pictures from some of our pre-Christmas activities.  Seeing Santa (at Walmart).  Free and no line.  He just happened to be there when we did a little shopping on Saturday.

John was too afraid to be in the picture.

And then there's gingerbread.  I'm not sure I was as successful this year as in years past.  It took me two days to make the gingerbread house pieces for four houses.  Here are some of the pieces.

Making more.

 Phew.  So much work!

And I don't know why I often end up doing the houses when there are no other adults around to help.  My parents were doing other things the night we put these together.  I had to make multiple batches of frosting 'cause I kept running out and the piping bag I was using sprung a leak.  It was making a huge mess and then John leaned on his house and it collapsed/imploded.  I ended up glueing his back together with a glue gun (don't eat that one).  And I put the sides of the houses on upside down so the windows are too high.  It's not that big a deal I guess - but our houses looked a little less classy than other years.  I think the kids still had fun decorating.

And while Scott was in town for the weekend we got our Christmas tree.  Instead of cutting our own we went to Home Depot and got a Noble Fir (from Estacada, Oregon).  (I think that's what it was - is that right, Scott?)  Here are the kids just before picking a tree.

 In the forest of pre-cut trees.  The kids had way to much fun running around and squealing in there.  Yikes!

 Emma was also there, being moderately well behaved.

 Anna and Matthew by our chosen tree!

Anna really wanted to get a tree her own size.

We didn't get this one.

Grant and John had to get a lot of their wiggles out running back and forth at Home Depot.

We made pretzel treats and Emma had her first Hershey's Kiss.

She liked it.

Emma helped decorate by holding this wise man.

Scott got the tree all situated and lit and the kids helped ornament it.  A few ornaments were broken this year (sorry mom and dad) but mostly it was a successful tree trimming.

 And the tree looked great!

Now we just need to keep Emma away from it.