It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

The great thing about living in Minnesota is that all the snow gives me such a happy white Christmas feeling. Yes, it is FREEZING! (It was 5 degrees the other night) but when it's cold outside it's that much more motivating to make it cozy inside. : )

As part of the cozy Christmas preparations we put up our tree last week. Everybody helped, even Brinley, although she couldn't do much except watch us and look cute. Still, she did a darn good job of looking cute. : )

When we went to go pick out ornaments for the tree I asked Teya if she wanted teddy bears or fairies or princesses. This is what she picked out instead.

I guess that should come as no surprise from a girl who asks me everyday if Santa is going to bring her a dinosaur. I try to suggest other things she might enjoy from Santa like a doll or a pony or some pretty dress ups. Nope, all she wants is a dinosaur. (and for me to draw pictures of dinosaurs so Santa will know what she's talking about)


At least she let me put her in a pretty red Christmas dress. As long as she'll indulge me in a few frilly dresses and bows she can have her cars and dinosaurs. : ) The face she's making in the first picture is her new "smile for the camera" face. The second one is her "stop taking pictures of me" face.


Besides the snow we've definitely had other things this week to help us gear up for the holidays. On Saturday night we went to a work party for Taber. They had lots of great food and even had a little station for the kids to build gingerbread houses.

Here's Teya with her masterpiece gingerbread house. I also had to put in a picture of Brinley and her fancy little jacket that she inherited from her cousin Brooklyn. I almost couldn't get the sleeves over her chubby arms but it was worth the squeeze the see her looking so stylish : )

Then today we went to a Creche display put on by our church where they had literally hundreds of different nativity scenes from all over the world displayed for people to walk through and enjoy.

Here are some of my favorites. I had to include the Native American and Japanese ones (top left and right) since that is part of my heritage. But I also threw in the penguin and the Eskimo displays because Taber, being from Alaska, has mistakenly been assumed to be an Eskimo who lives with Penguins. : ) (You can click on the collage to enlarge it and see them better)

So week one of December already has me excited for Christmas! You've got to love a holiday that you can celebrate the whole month long!