The girls were super excited about decorating the Christmas tree and all the other decorations going up in the house. Some of the fun kids sayings that came out while we did our decorating were Emily asking if we were going to hang the “garlic” this year. She was referring to the garland. Robby and I had to think about it for a while before we decided to correct her term. Although we have continued to refer to the “hanging of the garlic”. The other cute saying was from Julia. She kept asking when we were going to hang the “jewels” and “diamonds” on the tree. It was her words for ornaments, but we loved the idea that to her the ornaments were like diamonds. Now though if you ask her what we hung on the tree she will tell you that it was marshmallows. She must have loved the S’more ornament collection we have on the tree.

Emily mentioned to me the difference in how we decorated something over the last couple of years. I know she loves Christmas and having the decorations, but it was cool that she could remember such detail about what she sees from year to year.

The girls are counting down the days to get to countdown to Christmas. We have an advent wreath we decorate with ornaments and a book a day to read and it all starts on December 1st. They are ready for the excitement to begin!!

Where is the best place to take a nap? How about right next to the Christmas tree. Emily decided to finish out her nap by the tree.

It took several days to get our Christmas tree decorated this year. I attempted to decorate when the girls were asleep. My hope was that if Julia didn’t see me touching every ornament, branch, and light she might not try to do the same. Emily did help me place ornaments at the end.

I have loved watching both girls discover the different ornaments on the tree. Emily has found all the photo ornaments and the ones with her name on it. Julia’s favorite ornaments so far are the Veggie Tale and Pooh ornaments. I hung all the Pooh ornaments in one spot on the tree and called it ‘Pooh’s Corner’. They have done a great job of leaving the ornaments on the tree and only touching them gently.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house! The other day Emily helped me finish up wrapping a gift for Robby. She picked out three bows to place on the gift and stuck them down. We then hunted for the perfect hiding spot under the tree among the other gifts. When Robby got home, she promptly told him that he had a gift under the tree and tried to take him to the tree to find it. Thank goodness I had the gift in the box before she started helping me or else she would have told him what was in the box too. Emily hasn’t mastered the art of keeping secrets yet!

Julia has been enjoying the Christmas tree lights. We have found that when she is fussy, she likes to look at the lights to distract her. One day she was a little fussy, and I needed to lay her down to do something. I decided to try laying her just under the Christmas tree, so she could watch the lights. By the time I had finished what I needed to do she was asleep.