It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...or not.

{ 2010 | 2011 | 2012 }

We finally got around to decorating our tree last night.  You know, 6 days before Christmas.  Better late than never?  I've decided that we'll leave it up at least until January 6th (Little Christmas, when the Magi visit Baby Jesus) and we'll celebrate with three little presents for the kids to help them remember Christmas all year long.  What those three little presents will be, I'm not sure yet.  I have some ideas, though, and they did not come from Pinterest this time!

Finn and I returned Monday from a whirl-wind trip to Kansas City where we spent time loving on the newest, teeny-tiniest member of our family.  We went with my youngest sister, and as she is gainfully employed, her time away is limited, so it was an incredibly fast weekend trip; I didn't get to do or see everyone and everything that I wanted to (next time, I promise!) but I did spend an inordinate amount of time holding that sweet smelling baby.  Finn travels like a champ (probably because we've been grooming him from week 2 of life to make the trip between Minnesota and Missouri).  I, however, am starting to feel the effects of 20 hours in the car in a 72-hour span.  And although I still have laundry galore all over my house and empty Christmas totes to take downstarirs and general straightening up to do, it was totally worth it.  I can confidently say that my new nephew is the cutest baby I have seen in two and a half years!  And my sister is amazing.  She is already an awesome mom and I feel really lucky to have been able to share that early time with her and her boys.

So now we have Christmas to prepare for.  A very small, quiet Christmas with just the 4 of us since Uriah has to work on Christmas day.  This is a novelty for us, we've had only one Christmas in our own house with just our little family in all the years that we've been together. The last time this happened was the Christmas before Finn was born; Kansas City had a huge snowstorm and we couldn't go anywhere.  It was awesome.  As much as I will miss my family this year (and I will! A bunch!) I'm very much looking forward to Christmas Eve mass at our church and dinner on our wedding china and staying up late with my husband to put together some awesome gifts and then waking up Christmas morning to find Santa has come!

Between now and then, though, we need to get rid of the laundry piles, go to the grocery store, finish making Christmas cookies and generally make our house less of a tornado and more of a welcoming Christmas retreat!  I'm going to get on that...pinkey swear.

Tomorrow I'm going to share with you the first 12 days of our Elf on the Shelf.  I did really good following my calendar at the beginning, but then we went to Kansas City and somehow I got a little lazy, so this last week has been a bit lame, but Finn still loves looking for Reginald every morning, even if he is only hanging from the chalk board with a naughty and nice list!

Happy Thursday, friends!
Only 5 days until Christmas!
Wishing for some snow here, but I'm quite certain we will have only a spotty-White Christmas!

And P.S. -  Can you even believe how big Finn has gotten in those Christmas tree pictures?  I can't (but then, I mostly live in denial!).  I think he should still be my teeny-tiny boy baby instead of the ball of energy that he has become!

And P.P.S - I just noticed that I never did finish/post Abby's Birthday Retrospective.  Saturday will be a day devoted to our teenager (my list of things to accomplish just got longer!).  I saw last night that she had the movie 13 Going on 30 in the DVD player and I had to smile!