It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

(Christmas Tree drawing by Benton)

After much debate about how to re-introduce myself to my blog readers after such a long absence, I have decided not to. We'll just jump right on in.

Christmas time is my favorite time of year. I love everything about it. My husband proves his undying love for me every Thanksgiving when he lovingly climbs up over the garage and hauls out box after box after box of Holiday decor. Then without complaint, he climbs up the ladder in the cold (usually wet and dark) to hang the outside lights and clean the gutters. These are done in conjunction because he's already up on the ladder in perilous conditions and feels it saves a trip.

Since I'm such a Christmas freak, I am indoctrinating my kids too. We put a small (fake) tree in their room that we're using it as an advent tree. Every morning they get to open a little present and hang the tag on the tree. Today was day 14 and their "gift" was hot coca to go with their pancakes. So far, I have gotten away with spending exactly nothing on this little endeavor, but I'm afraid I'll have to hit the dollar store before long. There were a few other reasons for the decision. I love a pretty tree. I also love a nostalgic and whimsical tree. And although I've seen the two combined beautifully, I've just never been able to pull it off. I also have enough ornaments to decorate about 3 full sized trees. I just can't do it all! So the boy's tree gets to be the nostalgic one. They each have a few of their own special ornaments and we hung up fish too. It's pretty cute, and they did it themselves.

On to the weather. Its been positively frigid around here lately! This week is supposed to warm up, but in the mean time, we've been consuming a lot of hot coca. The boys really get into it, as you can see. The drink until they have mustaches then call themselves "sir." Inevitably, the mustaches get wiped off on pajama sleeves, so we've been using a lot of Oxy Clean as well.

Last Saturday, we made the trek up to Portland to see Zoo Lights along with the rest of the world. After fighting traffic and standing in line in the cold for about half an hour, we finally go to ride on the bus (Nathaniel's very favorite part) to the zoo. Once we were in, we had a great time. We plan on going at least one more time this season--perks of the membership, so I'll put more pictures up then. If you plan on going, here is some advise--don't go on the weekend, and dress warmer than you thin you need to.