More Santa!

BurgerStop December 10

BurgerStop December 17

Santa!

Hudson's first Santa experience, at the Davis Conference Center for Safe Harbor's Evergreen charity, November 14, 2011

Christmas @ Work

My "Hudson" trees behind my desk at work.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!!

Christmas is up!! I was soooo excited to get decorations up this year! We won't be doing much in the way of presents this year, but we can still decorate and look festive!

My front room, all aglow! Twinkling colored lights hypnotize my little guy.

Happy, colorful tree! We are using my folks old fiber-optic tree. Lit up, it is beau-tiful!

Our new tradition- Lego Christmas Village and Lego Advent calendar.

Hudson's basket of books! Last night we opened one of my very favorites, The Monster at the End of This Book! He wasn't as thrilled as I was to read it, or even as thrilled as Sadie was by the Grover puppet, but in time, he will love it! :)

Work Advent Calendar

I made this Advent calendar for the bulletin board at work. I am quite happy with how it turned out! Inside each pouch is a small $1 gift. We have 15 employees at my office, there are 16 pouches. Therefore, the first 15 days, one person will be randomly selected to open it. Today was Christian, he got Silly Putty. Really, who doesn't like Silly Putty?! Then, to add to my idea, my boss decided to add a Treat Advent, where each day one person signs up to bring a goodie. Hoping this helps the time pass by. I am so excited for Christmas! Which is silly, since the build-up to Christmas is always the best part!

Christmas Village

So, I've changed my mind on the Christmas Village. In order to make it a mom and dad tradition, we are going to make a LEGO Christmas Village. Dad will get a new building to add to it each year, and he already has the train. I don't think the buildings light up, but we can string Christmas lights through it anyways. It will be fun.

Just ordered our first building- not a cute baby store- but it is a cute toy store.

Don't tell anyone...

but a big part of me is ready to start playing Christmas music and put out Christmas decorations. Royce absolutely hates all Christmas music because people (stores) start playing it so early. But I am in the mood. I am so excited with ideas for my little guy. Not that he'll know any better... but I am still gonna spoil him as much as I can! As a result, the rest of ya'll might just have to do without. I have so very much to celebrate this year!

But I also have a lot to be Thankful for, so I will put off my Christmas music and decor and let each holiday come at it's own time... meanwhile, I will start working on one of my gifts for Hudson- a Yellow Submarine Mobile for above his crib! It will have a music box that plays Yellow Submarine, and be made of wooden dowels, wire and air-dry clay. I will form the clay into various sea creatures or Beatles innuendo, not sure which...

Christmas Village

To start off my Christmas Village, I am going to buy this building:
Seems fitting. :)

Christmas Book Tradition

I have already started buying Hudson's first Christmas gifts. I decided some time ago that I wanted to start a new tradition with him. Every year, I will buy 25 books, including a different version of "T'was the Night Before Christmas." I will wrap them each individually, with "Night Before" done in special wrapping paper. When December 1st comes around, he will open one book, which we will read before bedtime. He will do this each night, with Christmas eve having "Night Before." This will not only be a fun, month-long built up to Christmas, but it will also help me build up his library. I want my kid(s) to love reading like I did. I think this is a fun way to start that.

I originally planned to just get a bunch of my favorite books, but then I went to Target one day and in their dollar bins, they had a bunch of Sesame Street books. I'm not necessarily a huge SS fan, but for a buck, I'm in. Especially since one of my favorite books is Sesame Street- The Monster at the end of this Book, starring Lovable, Furry old Grover. This book, of course, was not in the dollar bins. So I had to order it, along with the second book, Another Monster at the end of this Book. And another Grover story about hide and seek. And a Grover puppet. :) For "Night Before", I ordered a version with Elmo. I now have (almost) all 25 books. I am quite happy with my theme and cannot wait to read the Grover stories, with my puppet of course, to my own little monster!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-sXpJ5Ymf8