'Twas the Season

Well, today we took our Christmas tree down, so I better make a blog post of us putting it up!

Like last year, Jeremy found us a real tree in town. This year, we moved all the furniture around so that the tree could shine through the front window. I'm glad Jeremy insisted we try it, because it ended up looking amazing! 

 

Tanner did a great job helping decorate this year.

 He was very proud to put the star on the top.

Dallin enjoyed reorganizing the Christmas decorations. He was busy with the toy nativity for awhile and also was bustling around taking ornaments out of one box and putting them in another. He thankfully didn't take many off the tree the whole season!

Dallin kept pressing the music button on this nativity toy, bouncing along with the beat. So we had "Away in a Manger" accompanying us nearly the entire time we decorated the tree.

Ta-Dah!!

A few days after decorating, I found Tanner standing over a shattered ornament bulb. Me: "What happened?" T: "Well...I got a ornament because I wanted to use it for a baseball. And when I hit it with my bat, it broke." Me: "Hmm. I see. And what about that mess over by Dallin?" T: "He tried too, but his baseball broke, too." Me: "Yep, the ornaments don't really work as baseballs. Please don't use them for baseballs anymore, okay?" T: "Okay, Mama. I won't do that ever again, I promise!" And Tanner stuck to his word.

Along with the Christmas season came a few other things besides decorating. 

We enjoyed cozier jammies, 

 

 lots of baking,

 getting creative with our indoor play,

art projects 

(but not as many as I had hoped because of our challenges with Tanner)

finding new places to hide,

 

cuddling,

 and bringing our furniture arrangements to new heights, haha!

We also managed to spend an evening at the Nature Center. The weather was actually warm enough to go on a nature walk as a family! It was kind of spooky, though, with all the fog in the forest. We had fog and gray weather for a good two weeks this December. On one hand it was nice because it meant warmer weather (30's instead of lower). But on the other hand, it was depressing because we had no sun to help us with our internal body clocks. I'm really glad we took the time to enjoy the nature center. Dallin was so excited every time we crossed a creek. "Wawa! (big gasp!) ook! ook! Wawa, wawa!" It was a great way to enjoy the season!