Before our Thanksgiving meal was fully digested, we were decorating for Christmas! It was Leah's (probably last) year to put the star on the tree!
She was confident she could do it herself!
Maybe with just a little help from her parents. Sounds just like her future in general!
She did a lovely job.
Laney, of course, was right in the action.
So many good Christmas smells to smell!
Not pictured - one of my favorite moments of getting ready for Christmas was when we were decorating the music tree in the front room and all started singing harmonized Christmas carols all together - having musically competent kids is so delightful!
Decorating the tree is quick work with these tall kids on the job!
Auntie Al took this picture for us- gone are the days of having to pose with empty cups!
Everything seems more magical with the twinkling Christmas lights on.
It would appear that our Christmas decorating summoned the snow!
Another layer of magic- everything turned white! Noah love love loves the snow, and this winter has been severely lacking in the fluffly white stuff so far.
Many times over the course of the month I have seen Emma and Noah sit by the tree and read some of their favorite Christmas stories- and one night I crawled into their beds and insisted on reading Santa's Noisy Night, The First Christmas, and other children's book favorites.
The kids took good care of each other and painted ornaments one night while Dad E. and I went to an annual white elephant party with friends.
This year we wore pajamas, and it was glorious!
I'm pretty sure we nailed the high schooler look.
Another night we gathered with the stake presidency for our annual advent dinner. This is such a sweet tradition with the people that keep us sane and moving forward all year long.
You know it's December when the poinsettias arrive!
We watched so many Christmas movies this month, and loved it! One night we strung popcorn and cranberries while watching Charlie Brown's Christmas-
Another night Emma and Noah hammered out some tin lid ornaments while we watched the First Presidency's Christmas devotional.
These amazing and brave babies performed Because I Have Been Given Much the week after Thanksgiving.
We had an ice storm!
One afternoon the boys and I played paper Battleship- Adam and I killed each other in the final move, while Noah despairingly declared, "There's nothing left for me to do here."
Leah and Adam made dozens of cookies to earn Silver Cord hours!
And then packaged them all up to give to the teachers at their schools!
We had some visitors in December- Grammy Q's cousins Gail and Roxanne stayed with us for a few days that were supposed to be crazy busy but instead were entirely shut down by the ice storm. They made us the famous Tregagle Chinese Hambuger.
Christmas tree on a foggy morning- what a mood.
We love Christmas lights! The Grinch house in Ankeny is no more, but this house in West Des Moines was an impressive replacement!
Writing out thank you cards for teachers- Leah said she doesn't know of any other students that gift their teachers anything at Christmastime, and I sure hope that's not true. Teachers deserve all the Target gift cards!
We went to a Pentatonix concert! I thought our seats were toward the back of the arena, which was true, but we were nearly on the floor. We had such a great time at what turns out to be the first real concert for 5 of us!
The lights and stage show were amazing,
but the best part was when they came out and performed on a platform that was so close to us!
I might have ruined our kid's expectations of reasonable concert seats forever more. There were people so, so, so far above us.
It was such a fun and cold night!
Of course, the kids had to stop and skate on the ice in the parking lot before heading home. As one does.
Our December was off to a fantastic start!
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