Jingle all the Way

I can't believe Christmas is almost here! We have had such a fun month. Christmas with kids is the absolute best. Everything is so much more fun with them.

Each night we have been doing our Advent stories with our Jesse Tree ornaments. Last year we did the Jesse Tree ornament exchange with friends from church so it has been fun to use those again and hang them on a tree in the girls' room. Most of the ornaments survived but there has been a lot of gluing and re-gluing.

We have driven around to look at Christmas lights twice and will go on Christmas Eve as well. This is my favorite thing to do! I love getting cozy in the car, listening to Christmas music (of course), and looking at all the creative light displays. We found an awesome street in Panther Creek and then made the journey to Prestonwood another night. I hadn't been there since I was a kid and it did not disappoint. It was as awesome as I remembered. Cambry and I were yelling and pointing to everything the whole time (Look, a huge Santa! Look at that mailbox! Look, spider man is on the roof! Look, all the Disney characters!).

We went to a white elephant party that one of Greg's coworkers throws every year. We have been to it several times in the past. It was always so far away, but now that we live in the Woodlands too it is super close. The kids had fun and there were plenty of other kids and toys there.

Cambry turned 5 this month and I turned 35. We had a family part for Cambry in Dobbin which I will post about separately. For my birthday we dropped the kids off at a drop-in playcare so we could go on a lunch date. They didn't have room for Colton so we just took him with us. He was good. We went to Hubble and Hudson Bistro. Then later that afternoon my parents came over to celebrate. Greg cooked us a nice steak dinner and my Dad made coconut cream pie.

This year I finally bought Christmas stockings. In our 8 years of marriage we have never had stockings or a fireplace/mantle...until now. I searched and searched for the perfect stockings. I wanted something coordinating but all a little different. I really wanted something in gold and white but could not find anything in stores on online. Finally Etsy came through for me. I love love love these stockings!

Cambry had her Christmas performance and party at preschool. It was precious. They all wore Christmas pajamas and each class sang a song. Then the older classes dressed up in parts for the nativity. Cambry was the cutest little cow.

Side note: I had no idea they were even doing the nativity part or that she was a cow. Whenever I ask her how her school day was I get answers like "I don't know", "I'm not sure" or "Don't ask". This is most certainly pay back for how I treated my parents when they asked me these questions growing up. I remember my mom would always ask me how my day was after school and I would say things like "Regular". Hahaha. 

ANYWAY. After the performance parents took a few hundred pictures then the kids went back to the classrooms for the party. They had pancakes and hot chocolate, decorated sugar cookies, one of the moms read Christmas stories, they had playground time, then they came back and had happy birthday Jesus cake. If you include the 30 minutes I arrived prior to the performance start time the whole thing lasted 3 hours. Let's keep in mind I had Lainey and Colton with me. WHOA. It was all I could do to keep them from destroying the classroom and eating every one's cookies and trying to run around during "Up on the Housetop". But we survived and it was fun.

I will have to do a Part II to this post for a few other things we have been doing. 7 more days til Christmas!!