The Halls are Decked

This past week we have been very busy getting ready for Christmas. The halls are decked, and I've been adding a few new little things this year. One of my favorites is floating ornaments..I got the idea from someone else and thought it would be fun. So they are hanging over our island in the Kitchen. And I plan on changing it each season/holiday so check back to see what will be next.

I have also been busy making homemade candies. This is something my family does every year, we usually do it altogether but I had to work the day they did it so I just did it on my own. I had my nieces over last week and they had a great time helping with it. They also helped me make tags to go on the gifts. I added a new favorite this year called pretzel hugs. I posted it on the recipe blog you can check it out, I did Christmas M&M's this time. These are the little gifts boxes I filled with the homemade candy.

Not to mention the annual Christmas cards I send out. I know these probably aren't that important since most of the people we give them to we see quiet often. But I enjoy doing it and being able to look back each year and see what we did. This year I attempted to make digital cards (with the help of Gina) it was a lot harder than I thought. I'm not that savvy at photoshop yet, but I like how they turned out.

Well in the last week I was able to accomplish all the shopping, baking, mailing, and wrapping that I had to do and now I can just sit back and enjoy the season. I have also finished Birthday shopping for both my hubby and Tyler whose birthdays are the week after Christmas. Well I do still have to help my mom wrap, I am one of those weird people that really enjoys wrapping, and I don't have that much myself so I help her every year. I am also weird in the fact that I have to have matching wrapping paper and bows for that year. So this year you can see the colors below.

My sweet husband surprised me and bought tickets to The Forgotten Carols, which I am absolutely in love with. I have never seen it, but I could listen to the CD year round. It was so good and I loved it. We have attended two Christmas parties already and they both have been really fun. We had a big family party for my mom's side with games, and a pinata for the kids. And we had a surprise visit from Santa, which surprisingly Tyler was very upset about. He has been talking about Christmas and Santa for at least a month, but once he seen him forget it he wanted nothing to do with it. Oh well maybe next year. We also did a Sub for Santa and we brought all the gifts to the party. I took Tyler shopping with me and explained to him why we were buying gifts for other people. Hopefully he understood it somewhat. Then this past Friday we went to my Work Christmas party at the Little America. (pic below) I always love going to this because it's the one time a year we get to dress up nice and go to dinner, and the best part is we don't even have to pay for it, and the food is delicious. It's just a nice relaxing evening with no kids, and I always look forward to it.

Hope you are all enjoying this Christmas season as well.