Holiday Prep

The holiday season is fully upon us. We are embracing it early this year.

We started out with a fun family activity, courtesy of grandma Stevens - thank you!

A gingerbread train!

Jake and I full out failed in the train making department. We couldn't figure out where the pieces went and then we couldn't get everything to stand up and stick together. We gave up and decided to eat it instead:

Amidst all the holiday prep we still have lots of down time:
Breahna is ready to crawl. She gets up on her hands and knees but ends up going backward. She often gets stuck under furniture and needs rescuing:

Breahna's favorite time of day is her before bed bath.
The best chew toy ever, foam bath letters! I keep a few in the diaper bag, they are her favorite:

This has been a nice winter. It's very mild weather. We are still able to get out and enjoy the park. It just requires a little more bundling:
Breahna loves the swings:

Look, I do have pictures of the boys!
The boys love their sister and are both very protective of her. They make sure I know she's crying they often tell me she needs her blanket or pacifier, etc.
And they both love holding her and giving her lots of kisses and she things they are pretty funny. They can get get laughing pretty hard.

Alexander loves taking pictures. Here's some of his latest:
From the view of a three year old:

Hail!

We started a new family tradition, we cut down our Christmas tree. We went for a drive to the local national forest (after buying a tree permit of course). We found snow!
We didn't go far since the roads weren't plowed. Getting our truck stuck in snow was not on our agenda, we weren't prepared.
I spied a nice tree not too far off the road. It was pretty muddy but perfect!

 Jake got the dirty job of cutting the tree down:

 We had a 12 foot limit with our permit ... I think we were a bit over that ... oops

Jake had to cut a good sized chunk off the bottom so it would fit in our apartment. Perfect from floor to ceiling.
Getting it straight:

lights and decorating:

 everyone wanted to get in on the decorating:

Three excited kids: (well, one excited baby anyway) The boys were beyond squealing excited they just don't show it. And I'm surprised Breahna was as happy as she is in these pictures. She had just had a nasty up the back blowout but I made her wait until I got a picture before I would clean her up. Mean mommy.

One decorated tree:
We really need to invest in ornaments. Some day we will have a gorgeous tree that isn't so sparse. But I guess that would mean more to put up and put away.:
Jake found a star for the top and we were complete.

We've never put up a tree this early. It's kind of nice though. The kids love it, and now starts the constant "don't touch!" battle.

May you all enjoy your holiday prep. Remember to relax and have fun!