Begining To Look Alot Like Christmas!

 We have had our 1st snow of the season!  I've have now "caught" what Anne Marie had, so I was NOT going outside to play in this cold (COLD!!) mess, but we couldn't tell her no when she asked.  So Daddy was kind enough to bundle her (and himself) up and take her out to play.  We only had a slight amount (1" maybe) but it was enough to make a few snowballs & catch snowflakes on her tongue and run around in.    She just kept saying "I just love Christmas!"  I guess since last year we had tons of snow right around Christmas time she must think it's a requirement.

 With Christmas comes ginger-bread-house-building.  I bought one last year on clearance.  (It's not like we truly eat the candy off of it...we leave it out until Christmas for decoration.)  I got fresh m-n-m's to snack on while making our house.   It took 2 days because the icing had to dry.  We tried to make it in a day & ignore the directions, but mommy accidentally knocked the whole house over because it wasn't quite dry enough, so we got up the next day to finish it. 

We also brought out our advent calendar.  Each night Anne Marie gets to open a little door to the calendar.  And don't worry she NEVER lets us forget a night.  Tonight she was already being tucked into bed and since our night was very busy we had let it slip our minds, well, we had to get out of bed to go & open her door.  Most days it's something little & simple.  A hershey kiss, a few stickers, but this year I found a wooden necklace in the $1bins @ Targ*t.  It has a string and you get about 12 wooden beads and each bead has a picture of a farm animal on it.  She asked for this one day when we were at the store & I told her no, but then I thought how perfect it would be for the calendar.  Day #1 we put the necklace part.  And each day she opens the door she gets a new bead w/ a new animal on it.  She is loving this!

I just love all our little Christmas traditions we do.  I just want to make sure that we slow down during this month to take it all in and remember the real reason for this holiday!!