Smell that?

I wish you could smell my house. I didn't even know how good it smelled until I went to the garage and came back in. YUMMY. Yesterday I made cinnamon roll dough. I then let it sit over night so it would be a good consistency for rolling. This morning we woke up early, we all slept under the Christmas tree and our sleeping was off, and I started baking those cinnamon rolls. I baked ours and then rolled others and put them in tins for gifts. Tonight we will go deliver some cinnamon rolls to unsuspecting folks while driving around looking at lights. A good way to get the kids to understand giving while we get the Christmas light looking crossed off the to do list. This picture is of the rolls in our fridge.
And as a side note, every year our church encourages families to sleep under the tree during this Christmas week. Every year I don't really want to. This year I gave in. ( I guess I should admit I had Ben bring down Ethan's mattress so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor.) We watched some Christmas cartoons, Prep and Landing and Prep and Landing 2, and then went to sleep. Only it was pretty exciting for the kids and they just wanted to giggle. After we all fell asleep Ben got up and went to his bed. Later said he got cold. The three of us then woke up at 5 to snoring from the bedroom. We couldn't fall back asleep, it was cold, so we finally turned on cartoons at 6 and I started baking.

Gotta love Christmas Break and the un-routineness it brings. This week is good for me. I love schedules and normalcy. This whole week has been about doing things we don't normally get to do, spending time together and eating things we don't normally eat.

Hope you all have a great Christmas Break, I know we are.

can you guess what happened?

BEFORE


AFTER



Here are some before and after pictures. You may think I just posted them in the wrong order. But no, the empty tree and ornaments on the floor are the after pictures. Can you guess what happened this morning? First time in our 11 marriage. Just happy no ornaments broke and our tree topper made it out okay. I Love that tree topper. We bought in Disneyworld and it would be irreplaceable.

Now I await Ben's return so the tree can be replaced in the stand. It needs to be straightened out some, haha that is an understatement. That should be a lot of fun.

Decorating for the first time

My sister has not seen our "new" house. Now I know we have lived here for 7ish months so it's not really new anymore but she moved to Germany when we moved and she hasn't even seen pictures of our place. When we were first looking at the house I was thinking it would be a great house for them to come stay at during the Holidays but alas that will have to be put off a few years.


Anyway, I am slowly getting our decorations up and thought I would let her see my Christmas Living Room and you all get a peek into my house along the way.

We have not bought window treatments for this room yet. We bought them for 3 rooms and the rest will just have to wait. The Christmas village on the mantel is the LEGO Holiday sets. They are mine and I put them together and then away after Christmas. The kids want to play with them but they know they are Momma's!

On a side note. Every year when I pull out my stocking holders I reminisce a bit. I loved this set. Was really happy when we decided we were done with kids so I could go get the 4 letter NOEL from target. Then not 9 months later I was pregnant. It wasn't a planned pregnancy and one of the first things I thought of was how I was going to have to go buy PEACE to have 5 letters. We ended up losing that pregnancy and NOEL stayed. I rarely think of that miscarriage. But every year when I pull these out I can't help but think of it.

Christmas Spirit

So yesterday was one of those days we will remember when our kids are grown. Just a great family day full of Christmas activities. We got up and headed down to the annual Christmas Bazaar. Now I could miss this and be fine but the kids love going. Bought some treats and the kids bought some cheap junk and then we headed home. After we got home we played for awhile and then Grammy met us at our house to go get our Christmas trees. There have been many many years of getting our tree with Grammy. A tradition that occasionally gets broken. Anyway, this year we had perfect weather to go tree hunting. Found our trees and then onto their homes they went. Ben put the lights on the house while we got our tree lights up. Then we watched the first part of Indiana Jones while Ethan put ornaments up. Not a very Christmassy movie but it was on and the kids enjoy Indy. After this on to the local movie theater where they were showing Polar Express. Finally we watched our Christmas movie for the day and then headed home to put on layers of clothes. It was freezing outside (also incredibly foggy) and there was to be a first annual light parade here in our small town. We walked down to the fire department and watched the parade and then walked to Panzanellies for some dinner take-out. Walked on home for dinner and hot chocolates and finished our Indiana Jones movie before a late bedtime.

Ben and I talked in bed about how this is the days that the kids will remember. Full of family fun. We also felt like it should be closer to Christmas. Feels like a day that should be done after school is out for the break. But we were not the ones who made the city's calendar.