Getting Ready For Christmas

We LOVE Christmas at our house and have been busily trying to get ready for it!

The day after Thanksgiving we started pulling out all our decorations. We picked two bad days to put up the lights outside though. The first day it was FREEZING! We were all bundled up but still cold!



As a side note...Caleb really likes the hat and mittens we bought him for Utah. He refuses to ever wear a coat or jacket without a fight, but likes to wear his hat and mittens 24/7. People look at me funny when we go places like, "Um, lady? You know it's 80 degrees outside and you have your kid in a winter hat and mittens?" But I say he looks cute in them, so who cares?! Whatever makes him happy! :)



The next time we tried to put up lights, it was warm again, but pouring down rain. Can you tell how much fun Caleb had though? The boy was soaked! So we decided just to do the lower part of the house this year and try putting up the second story lights another year. Here Caleb and Chris are consulting one another on the best way to put them up:



And here, Chris was trying to show Caleb how to do cheesy sarcastic smiles. Maybe they want to be like Uncle Kip who will never really smile for the camera--he only gives his sarcastic cheesy smiles. :)




Here Caleb is helping Chris put up the tree:



Then he helped us put all the ornaments on. He would carefully put one on like this:



And then he would clap for himself:


It was hilarious because he liked to put everything in one spot at the bottom of the tree like this:





But Caleb has done really well again this year with not touching the tree after it was decorated. He loves the choo choo train that goes around the tree and is VERY careful with it. He can turn it on and off by himself and then lays on the floor and says hi to everyone as they pass by on the train. Too cute!



Caleb also LOVES the lights! Everytime he sees some he squeals "Lights!" and then says, "More, more! More lights?" It's so much fun to go anywhere with him becuase he can spot lights anywhere! We love to drive around in the evening to look at lights! And of course, we can't leave the house without the hat, mittens, bus, and airplane. He likes them piled up like this, even though I don't think he can even play with them like this:



Our house is themed with snowmen which is convenient because Caleb LOVES snowmen too. He squeals, "Snowman! Mom, more, more?" He has a good eye for them...sometimes he will squeal snowman and I think, "No, silly Caleb...I don't see a snowman." And the next thing I know, we pass the one he was trying to point out! Here is Caleb hugging one of his favorite snowmen:





He also likes to wear my snowman candy bowl on his head:



And this is the snowman Caleb likes to sing and dance with:



Caleb got to recently sit on the lap of Santa for the first time this year. We went to see the middle school perform some Christmas songs since Bradley and Daniel were playing. There was also a really cute elementary school choir that sang. They had Santa there too. Caleb did well sitting on his lap and loved that Santa even gave him some candy when he was done. I tried to prompt him to ask Santa for a choo choo since I have a hunch that is what Santa is bringing him this year.... :)



We've also started some of our holiday baking...and of course Caleb loves to help with this too. The other day I got out the Kitchen Aid and put all the ingredients in the bowl and then plugged it in. I didn't realize that somehow the power switch was turned to high. Powdered sugar went flying EVERYWHERE! (See my last post for how I cleaned it up. :) Caleb's face and hands were covered in it--along with the countertop and the floor. He looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "Uh-oh! No, no mom!" I started cracking up. He is usually a bit OCD about having his hands and clothes dirty, but he soon realized that it was fun and had some good playtime with powdered sugar. If you look close, you can see it all over his face. Oops! My bad!