Christmas Time

We got so wrapped up in the preparations for Christmas that we forgot to keep everyone updated with our progress.  So here is a quick recap.

We were really excited to have our first Christmas at home in our own house.  We decided to go all out.

Having always traveled for Christmas we never had our own stockings so Josh and I spent every night for a week making them.  I will try to do a post about the details of making them soon, but for now here they are on the wall (we don't have a fireplace). Check out the stack of Amazon.com boxes hiding in the corner.

 When we were cleaning out the stuff that I had stored at the parents before the move I found a ton of hunter green felt leftover from some poodle skirts that I made in high school.  With the help of my new best friend Pinterest, I had a great idea for a Hannah friendly tree.  I attached it to the wall with spray adhesive (it fell off after about 2 or 3 weeks of being played with, but with a little extra spray went right back up) and then cut circles out of some red and white felt for ornaments.  I have great plans to make more elaborate decorations for next year.

Hannah loved it! there was many an afternoon where she pulled all the ones that she could reach off as fast as she could while I tried to put them back on.  She normally won.

 Here they are in the room flanking the entertainment center.

 Here is our glorious tree that we bought the week after Thanksgiving so we had plenty of time to admire it.  It is about a 6' tree on a 2' table so it reaches the ceiling and is mostly out of reach of little fingers and paws.  The presents only made it under on Christmas Eve because we found little kitties like to climb them to get to the lights.

We almost lost it one afternoon when I heard a sizzling after I turned the lights on.  Luckily I was right there and found the smoke coming from the side of the tree.  There was a short in one of the lights (which explained why half a string went out) that melted the plastic and was starting to catch the branch on fire.  With my electrical knowledge I fixed it with no problem, but we are counting our blessings that I was there and paying enough attention.

 In non-decorations news we got the chairs for our living room.  They were on order before Thanksgiving and finally came after most of our guests had left and didn't get to try them out.  I also found the lamp and its twin at TJMaxx while shopping for gifts and fell in love.  They go on either side of the couch on the end tables that I have not yet found.  The table in the picture I also found at the Maxx; it is headed where our Christmas tree is, in between the chairs, but we haven't seen that yet.

 We normally have tamales around Christmas and decided to share the love by inviting some friends over Christmas Eve.  We had a great day cooking and cleaning.  Hannah even got into all the fun.  She saw Mommy and Daddy in aprons and felt left out so we put the smallest one we had on her and she had a blast!  Here she is chewing on a ripped corn husk while Daddy is putting them together.

And here she is showing off her Christmas Cheer!

Here is a video of Hannah with her two favorite presents both of which were from Grandad and Didi.  Santa felt a little upstaged.

 She still wants in the swing anytime she sees it even though we haven't gotten it hung yet.  Daddy's arms have gotten mighty tired trying to swing her on his own.