Christmas Open House

 The shopping is complete, the presents wrapped,

the halls decked, 

and the tree is trimmed!

I love how a house can be transformed for Christmas -

everything feels cozy & warm...

makes me want to curl up with a hot chocolate and a good book.

Here are some new additions to our trimmings:

This year, I displayed our Christmas cards down the bannister -
easy to see all of our friends & family that we love!

A marble creche - made of marbles!

I love their happy faces and rosy cheeks.

Mom gave us this last year as part of the 

"Christ-Centered Christmas" she made for us.

A bunch of us made about 25 of these for LAST YEAR'S ward 

Christmas party table decorations.

Simple & sweet.

Geometric pillow covers -

I totally cheated and ordered them from an Etsy shop.

Shhhh.....

 Pop-Pop made us this ornament probably about 15 years ago.

This year it had special meaning to me 

as we hung it on our tree -

it's front & center.

I sure miss him and Grammy.

This was the "find-of-the-year" at ToysRUs -

a Lego Star Wars advent calendar.

The boys love this!

They put together a little ship or person

each day until Christmas.

And another countdown calendar!

I made this w/ Kellie & Cindy during a scappy Thursday.

Each box has an activity to do together -

today is to build a gingerbread house...