Thoroughbred Lane lights

We go to Chino every year to see the Christmas lights. But I had heard that a neighboring city did the same thing, only theirs was better! So we packed up the kiddos, snuggled them in, and then headed to see the lights!

We asked a lady to take a picture of our family... she missed the kids in the stroller underneath, haha!

She was all snuggled up in the Bjorn, a blanket and daddy's coat but would manage to escape free within minutes :)



We all chose a special treat while we were there. Lauren chose hot chocolate...



Jake chose a cookie...

And Justin, Meg and I chose a Rice Krispie treat ;)



Yes, it was cold but it was soo much fun. Lauren told me that this is one of her 'most favorite things to do at Christmas'. Yep, it was a pretty good time!

Candy Christmas

I've mentioned it before but every year, my mom, aunts and I make this agreement when it comes to Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas: they make the dinner and I make the dinner settings beautiful ;)

So this year I had my mind set on a 'Candy Christmas' theme. I've made these sweet candy trees,

these placecard holders,

  

 some miscellaneous table decor (no, they're not candy themed, but they're red and cute. That counts, right?)

and these candy cane candle holders:

That's just a sampling of what I've made... I have about double the amount of items I posted. Whew. I've also got some other misc. decor to make for our table, as well as LOTS of baking, lots of wrapping, more crafting, and making some dishes for dinner. I'm kind of exhausted just thinking about all I have to do before the big day ;) But man, will it be worth it!

Frosting Christmas trees

Justin went street witnessing with a couple of friends on Friday night, so it was just the kiddos and I. One of those friends is a guy from our small group, and since his wife was gonna be home alone too, I invited her and the boys over for a little get together :)

We had dinner together, the boys teased Lauren played all night long, we chatted, and just had a fun night. But I think the favorite part of the night was making an edible Christmas craft!

I gave the kiddos each a bowl of frosting (dangerous, I know!) and let them add as much green food coloring as they wanted. Then they stirred it up.

Then I gave them triangular sugar cones and had them coat the cones with the green frosting, making trees:

 And as if frosting and sugar cones weren't enough, I gave them some M&M's to decorate their 'trees' with:

 They were supposed to look like this:

I wish I could have gotten more pictures of the completed crafts but before I finished setting out the bowl of candy, the kids were inhaling their treats!!

And so, once the crafting/inhaling was finished, we said goodbye to our friends and I sent my sugar high kiddos to bed :)

Fingerprint ornament

Okay, before I go any further, if you are one of our kiddos grandparents, DO NOT READ THIS POST! You all are getting these for Christmas and I want to keep them a surprise.

For the rest of you though, we made these:

I've seen some people make one of these ornaments for each child. But because I made 4 of these as gifts (plus one for us), and we have three kids, that would be 12 ornaments!! So instead I decided to have each kiddo make 1 fingerprint snowman on the ornaments. 

My plan was also to get step by step pictures but that clearly didn't happen! With three kiddos under the age of four and non-washable paint accessible, I decided to forgo the pictures to help my littles make their gifts :) 

However, my big girl did manage to snap one photo of me painting Miss Meg's finger, haha!

Gonna make some cute Christmas gifts (and decor!).

Tissue paper Holly Wreathe

Kiddos and I made this cute craft yesterday. We got paper plates, cut out the inside, shredded up some paper, and then glued the paper onto the plate:

Then we crumpled up some red tissue paper, formed them to balls and glued them, thus making the 'holly'.

Our house is seriously festive with all of the Christmas crafts scattered about ;)

Elf yourself

For some reason, Elf Yourself isn't allowing me to upload the video this year. So, here you go. We've watched it probably 50 times... the kids never get sick of it :)

Christmas baby

I found this cute picture on Pinterest a while back:

and decided to recreate it with my own little Christmas baby ;)

It's certainly not as good as the one above but it's the best I could do with a very busy, diaper-less baby on the move ;)

And then, investigating the lights ;)

Oh, and lets not forget my little guy who decided to get on the action... haha!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Decking the halls and decorating the tree

We 'decked the halls' a couple weeks ago and just finished up the tree last night. It was wonderful; Christmas music on, hot coco ready and kiddos hanging up their favorite ornaments ;)

When it was all said and done, our tree looked like this:

Every year, we choose a few new ornaments... one for our family that represents something special that we experienced during that year, and then the kiddos get to choose an ornament that they love. I'm sure from the pics below you can tell that they don't love candy ;)

Jake's candy cane ornament

Lauren's lollipop

Megan's first ornament ;)

Our new ornament this year... depicting our family of FIVE!

 And then some personal faves from years past:

My fave; etched glass

Justin's fave; the first ornament of real 'value' to him after we had a baby ;)

And, a few photos of our decorated home:

And now, 14 days 'til Christmas! Can you tell how excited I am??? ;)