Getting ready for Christmas

We've had a pretty stressful Christmas season so far, but we've been trying really hard to make time to do things with our little family to get in the Christmas spirit. We've had some pretty fun family nights and family movie nights. We made a countdown chain with a scripture about Christmas on each link that we read each night. Owen is getting more and more excited for Christmas, and if we can make it through this week (this is the week of my dress rehearsals and performances of the Nutcracker ballet with the Temple Hill Symphony Orchestra) without getting any sicker than we are, it's shaping up to be a pretty good Christmas. Here are a few pictures of the things we've been up to.

Decorating the Christmas tree.

This was at the Pleasanton town Christmas parade. It was an hour or two after we found out that our car couldn't be fixed and that we'd have to start searching for a new one, and Matt and Owen's faces pretty much show how we were feeling that day. Needless to say, I didn't take any more pictures.

Decorating the tree at grandma Auman's house. Owen loves her toys and was way more interested in playing with them than in decorating the tree...

...so Matt ended up doing most of it.

This is the first year we've been able to use the nativity advent calendar I made... it's been packed in storage since I made it. I was so excited to pull it out this year!

Owen LOVES the calendar. He loves pulling the pieces out of the pockets and spends all day moving them around the scene.

Owen pausing while eating lunch to play guitar to whatever song we were listening to at that point. We've had a Christmas present factory going in our house for the past week and a half, and our table is covered with sewing machines, cutting mats, fabric, glue, paint, and pretty much every craft supply you can think of.... so we've been having lots of picnic meals on the floor. :)

This is one of the projects I've been working on - a Christmas tree skirt. We haven't had one the whole time we've been married and the lack of one started to bug me as soon as we put up the tree.

There are definitely some things I'd do differently next time, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. And mostly, I'm just really glad it's done. That was a LOT of sewing in straight lines.

Owen and I made toilet paper tube people the other day - Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and an angel. I try to do something crafty or fun like this every day with him. He loves these guys.