Christmas Decorating

I love Christmas time! I love the smells, I love the nostalgia, I love the family time and traditions. So when its time to decorate you would think I'd love it but--it seems so overwhelming! haha BUT once I start getting stuff out, I really do love it again. :) My mom gave me a lot of really awesome homemade ornaments, some she had made when she was newly married and some that my great grandma had crocheted for her--I LOVE THEM! So excited about those decorations! My mom also gave me the most beautiful nativity, its so cool, it has a bunch of pieces (I've only ever had some little sets) and one of the pieces is a little drummer boy, so darling! So for me, decorating is the first step to feeling like Christmas is really here!

Maddie Lou

A few days after Thanksgiving my Maddie girl turned the big SIX. Sometimes its easy to forget that Maddie's growing up since she's still such a little girl, but she is definitely getting older if not much bigger. :)

Maddie loves going to school, she's been really great about wanting to learn how to read and write and is doing really well. She's definitely the most mellow of all the kids, she can sit and do some coloring or some project for hours and I love that about her! :D She is still a little feisty and has a lot of spunk even with her tiny voice. We're so happy she's part of our family!

Catching Up and Thanksgiving

Okay I'm just going to have to do like five posts and get caught up. Its just the way its gotta be. :) Since Halloween was my last post, the next big thing was Thanksgiving. When we lived in Utah and came to visit for a holiday we would go to one side of the family for a few hours and then visit the other side for a few hours too. It makes for a crazy day and when we moved back up here I guess it just kept going. It finally hit me that we should probably do what normal people do and switch off. So this year, we spent all of Thanksgiving with David's family. And you know what? It was great! Sure I missed seeing my family on Thanksgiving, but we saw them a few days later, in fact we see them all the time. ;) It was so nice to just relax and not worry about when it was time to leave, or miss out on playing games or dessert or anything else. We just got to be there and have a great time. So here's some pictures from Thanksgiving: