Christmastime!

Christmas time is here!  I took a few things out the day after Thanksgiving, but we waited until Will was in bed on Saturday night to take everything else out of the basement.  We thought about letting him participate, but then thought better of that idea!  It worked out much better with him seeing the lights and the tree in the morning!

Billy and I have our yearly squabble: colored vs white lights.  I'm on the colored lights wagon, especially right now while we are in little kid mode.  I agree that the white lights look more classic, but that isn't my goal right now.  Having a fun tree, that is touchable is more where I think our house is at right now.  So we stuck with the colored lights again, and decorated the bottom half of the tree with unbreakable ornaments.  So far, he has been pretty gentle, and takes them off the tree and either hands them to me, or tries to put them back on.  And yes, we have mismatched ornaments, and things collected since I was small.  That is what I want decorating to be in our house...things that are ok to touch - and of course, memories.  I'm not saying I would turn down any Pottery Barn decor, but I like what we have now just fine.

One of my favorite things to pull out is our nativity sets.  I have a large ceramic one that my grandmother painted, a smaller white one, a teeny one that my aunt brought back from Honduras(maybe?) and this year we brought out the Little People set that Will received from my parents last year.  We have had the most fun with the Little People.  Roberto, the truck driver has joined the manger crowd, a donkey is sometimes on top of the manger, and baby Jesus has even been found in the dump truck.  Will is obviously too young to understand everything now, but it will be good to have over the next few years.

Christmas Cookies aren't exactly my forte, but I broke out the cookie press this weekend to make some Christmas trees for a Moms Club cookie exchange this week.  The press was my grandmothers and still works like a charm.  The cookies are pretty fool-proof too!

To kick off the season, we got our first real snow this weekend too.  It snowed Saturday and Sunday, and I took Will out on Saturday for a walk around the yard and a wagon ride around the block.  The cold didn't seem to bother him.  He was pretty focused on just eating the snow.  Gotta stay away from the yellow snow - good advice from Grampy! 

 Christmas shopping/ordering is almost complete.  With our siblings, we decided to forgo gifts for each other and only buy kids gifts.  I love thinking about kids gifts - there are so many options!  Especially compared to boring adults! ;)

We've had the Christmas Pandora station on since Thanksgiving.  Will has started dancing.  Which is really just stomping his feet up and down quickly.  Every time I try to record, he stops and just wants the phone.  Surely, everyone has seen this Little Drummer Boy video by now.  So good, and now my favorite Christmas song.  And oldie, but goodie.

Now, for a couple weekly Will highlights:
-He has been somewhat efficient at eating his oatmeal out of a bowl with his spoon.  The baby forks aren't really functional, so I give him an adult fork, and he can stab some foods and make it to his mouth.  Under supervision, of course.
-I bought him a coloring book and crayons at the Dollar Store.  After trying a marker earlier in the week, I decided a crayon was a better option.  But here's a tip, don't buy crayons at the Dollar Store!  They pretty much all broke and don't color very well.  A fun activity for a little while, though.
-Now that I have realized he understands quite a bit, I've been assigning him more "chores".  I asked him last night to put his dirty clothes in the hamper(we were in the bathroom) and he went into his room and opened his dresser drawer to put them away.  A for effort!  Typical boy though, wouldn't you say?