The Start of a GREAT Season!

It's that time.....December 1st!! I love it! I love this time of the year -- not only for the "surface" reasons of gift giving, traditions, food & decorations...but what it really represents..the birth of our savior. I hope that we convey that to Anne Marie as we do all the other fun things as well. We brought out our decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving...one of our favorite things is our advent calendar. Anne Marie LOVES this. Each little door is opened each day until Christmas..we put small little things, like Hershey kisses, stickers or hair-bows in them, but it's something she looks forward to and we talk about the manger scene when we do it so that she knows about the story of Jesus birth.

This weekend we decorated the tree(s) as well. Mike and I decorated the one upstairs while Anne Marie was sleeping so that she would wake up and be surprised...then we let her decorate "her" tree downstairs. We found a few REALLY cute ornaments at P-One & World-Mkt that Anne Marie LOVED -- a Chinese dragon, a Chinese pagoda, and a couple cute little china-like girls. (one was even PINK -- you know we just HAD to get that one!!!)

Each year, starting the 1st of December we try to do a little something special each day leading up to Christmas day. (We don't always do "big" things, and sometimes we get too busy & have to skip a day -- but we try!!) December 1st brought 2 reason to celebrate - the start of Christmas season and the day we celebrate getting Anne Marie's referral pictures. So we thought an EXTRA-SPECIAL treat was in order...Christmas cookie-ice-cream-sandwiches!! YUM!! We made the cookies w/ Christmas colored chips in them & then stuffed ice cream between two cookies -- what more could you want?

Finger-Licking-Good!!!