Getting Ready for Christmas

Even though we were going to be in Utah from the 19th thru the 2nd of January I still wanted to decorate our house for Christmas. It wasn't really a cold day at all, but our storage units are in the parking garage on the side where the sun rarely hits. We knew it would be colder under there, so we bundled the girls up & brought the stroller hoping we could get everything in one trip.

We ended up having to make two trips, but Trinity wasn't complaining. She was having so much fun being a "big helper" and had to have something to carry on each trip. Brinley was getting really cold, so I put extra hats and mittens on her & even put a pair of Matt's thermal mittens on her little feet. She looked so cute all bundled up in the stroller & before we were finished she had fallen asleep in the stroller.

I am sure it looked pretty funny to anyone watching us bring in box after box all bundled up in the nice warm weather. Matt always surprises me & never seems to need more than a hoody or light jacket to keep warm. Now for me-I have to have a hat, a sweater, gloves, and I'm still cold!Trinity's favorite decoration was an advent calendar that took me (with some help from Matt) over two years to finally finish. I am very proud of the finished product & am glad Trinity enjoys it so much.
There are 24 different little items that represent winter or Christmas & each day Trinity would pick one to put in the calandar as we counted down for Christmas Day. Brinley even got interested & enjoyed picking out an item to put in. Anytime we would walk past it into the kitchen she would point to it and say (with her best effort) "ho, ho, ho". I hope the calandar lasts more than a few years considering it is made out of felt, sequins, DMC floss & beads. I may have to do some serious reinforcements on it.

Our tree turned out pretty interesting this year because before we used a little 4 1/2 ft tree & only had enough decorations to cover a small tree. When we realized that Brinley and Trinity weren't old enough for the more fragile decorations it worked out pretty well. I decided to decorate the top half of the tree in grown-up decor & then had the girls help me find every toy that could be hung up & the bottom half of the tree became child friendly. I actually really liked how it turned out & I didn't have to worry about Brinley ruining anything. She would take off toys all day long & then at the end of the day we all got to decorate the tree again. It was sort of fun.

It is always so fun to see the house covered in holiday decorations & it was a nice welcome to come home to the same Christmas spirit even though the holiday was over.