Daily December 6: Blue Jeans Week 46

For my Daily December today I am posting my photos of the week.  I normally do this every Tuesday.  Enjoy!

Sunday:  We got the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving, but because of company and such we didn't get it decorated until today.  Everyone likes to help, and it looks really good.

Monday:  Rarely do I get a shot like this--the whole family at Wal-mart?  Yes, it is crazy, but tonight we were shopping for Sub-4-Santa adopt-a-child, so everyone needed to come and help.  It was crazy, and fun, and I am glad that is a tradition we have to help the kids think of others and realize how blessed they are.

Tuesday:  Miss O on her own decided she wanted to string popcorn for the Christmas tree that Ben and I have in our room.  It is a smaller one, so it shouldn't take her too long.   I was impressed with her desire and diligence in doing it.  It also made the house smell so good making popcorn in the popcorn maker versus the microwave.

Wednesday:  The fruit of Christmas is a pomegranate my girls tell me, and they love them.  I always thought oranges were the fruit of Christmas.  I don't think I knew what a pomegranate was until college or later :)

Thursday:  I got the Christmas countdown chain up and ready to go.  My kids love that tradition.  Everyday they take off a link and it has something to do--sing carols, read a favorite Christmas story, etc.  See Daily December 5 post for more on that.

Friday:  This nativity set is our newest Christmas decoration this year.  I love it.  It is very detailed with jewels on the wise men and such.  I got it as Costco.  My kids are finally old enough I felt confident in buying a really nice nativity set to have out.

Saturday:  It has been tradition for the last 11 years that the first Saturday in December my parents watch the kids all day so Ben and I can head to the city and (hopefully) finish all our Christmas shopping.  So we enjoyed a full day together Saturday and actually did finish all the shopping.  Ben had to try out a few of the things we got just to make sure they worked :)

Hope you are all enjoying the season and be sure and check back often for my Daily December blog posts!  Have a great week!

Last week

Since tomorrow starts the crazy of December, I wanted to share some photos of last week which was just full of fun stuff because we had family here.  Family is always fun.  So, on the last day of November memories of the last week. . .

Piano recital--yes I played in it--a duet with Miss E.  We were sensational :)

We had family night with my sister's family and my parents and made our tree of thanks.

Every year we make a Tree of Thanks where everyone gets 4-5 leaves each and write on them things they are thankful for.  

In Kindergarten they have a big Thanksgiving feast--the kids peal the potatoes, churn their own butter, make their costumes, then eat, eat, eat--turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, etc and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  So yum!  I was the potato lady that took the potatoes and cooked them after all the kids peeled them. 

Then I got to serve these pilgrims and Indians. So much fun!

We decorated graham cracker "gingerbread" houses.  Making them from graham crackers is about 100 times faster than making them from real gingerbread.  This is my nephew, my mom and Mr Baldy--aka Mr. J.

The girls and Ben work on their houses.

Aunts got to do hair this week.  They always enjoy it much better when someone else besides mom does it :)

We always decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.  That is Miss O under the tree on light patrol :)

There are rail road tracks that go through our town, but they have taken the tracks out and converted it into a walking/biking trail.  The whole things stretches about 50 miles. One day last week my mom and Miss A wanted to walk into town from 10 miles out on the trail, so I dropped them off one frosty morning, and 3 hours later they walked back.  They say they had fun :), and then to celebrate their walking, we took the older kids to see Harry Potter. Oh. my.  It was intense.  Not my favorite HP movie, but it was good.  So, that was our week, and now we are ready (I hope) for December, so bring it on!