Ah Christmas!

It's no secret Christmas is my favorite holiday, favorite 'season' by far. Christmas has a feeling to me - it's warm and cozy filled with those you love, it has a smell - like cookies, cinnamon & chai, it has a look of twinkles & sparkles. I just love everything about Christmas and this year we have really embraced so many of these wonderful things leading up to the celebration of Jesus' birth. 

I think when you have kids you really stop and think about what is important - creating memories & moments together. You think about what traditions you have and want to carry on, what new traditions you want to start. I think more about my childhood and how blessed I was to be filled with so many wonderful memories & moments with my family & there becomes this desire to make sure your children get the same. Enough with the rambling here is what we have been up to the past couple of weeks preparing! 

We wrote letters to Santa - Jackson's went like this: 'I would like a red truck & a Christmas tree' Then he went on to talk about how he'd like the deer to have some food & maybe toys & Lauren would like a red truck too and pink lights for her Christmas tree. But the whole I want a Christmas tree was hard... we weren't going to do a tree this year since we don't have a lot of room & all the decorations are boxed up and I have no idea where. As a few days went by and we still didn't have a tree and he kept asking and making references to really wanting a tree... well yes I gave in and went and bought a tree. Since we didn't have any decorations we spent a day making decorations - our tree may look a little ghetto fabulous.. but lets just say Jackson and Lauren are very proud of it and a LOT of love went into all of the decorations :) Here Jackson is working very hard on stringing popcorn and cranberries.

LK putting up her 'L' ornament

Jackson putting up his ornament.

So proud of our tree!

 We drank hot cider & watched movies. 

and we've been shipping orders - after this Christmas season my little elves are officially master packers & FedEx deliverers - Lauren is the door lady, Jack is in charge of carrying all small packages & mom is left to schlep all the large boxes & children wondering through the parking lot safely into the store - I'm pretty sure the FedEx workers are tired of seeing us!

all of the hard work really wears the kiddos out!

Eddie has been very busy at our house - usually getting into the food. The best so far has been seeing Jack get mad at Eddie for eating his sugar cookies! He likes tea too :) 

we baked and baked some more - I've decided sugar cookies taste much better when someone else makes them  - there is a lot of love (aka - time) in these. But boy did Jack and Lauren have fun making them & eating the dough when I wasn't looking! We may have a couple of sick kiddos tomorrow morning...

 and we got to see Santa Clause. We took a trip downtown after work one night to do Macy's Day in the Life of an Elf & to see Santa. Jackson loved it! Greeting Santa with a 'Hey what's up Santa?' 

and Lauren wanted nothing to do with Santa.

Last weekend I was able to go to Des Moines and shop with my dad for my mom (a tradition I haven't gotten to do for a few years) which is always so much fun! And this year Allie (my sis in law) got to join us - awesome! and on Saturday I got to shop with my mom and Allie - always a good time!

And today Jack received an email from Santa - we had to cut him off after the 6th time of watching this video - pretty sweet!

Santa's Email to Jackson

I think we are almost ready to hit the road and spend the week relaxing with family. First to Wisconsin to celebrate with the Tetzlaff's then to Iowa to celebrate with the Wulfekuhle's. Ahhh how I love Christmas!