sweet home colorado: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

{THE LIGHTS}

Thanksgiving weekend Mark hung up our outside Christmas Lights! It was a warm and dry weekend and perfect timing considering we've had snow 2 times since!

I think he always does such an awesome job! They are always perfectly straight! This year we swapped out some of our white lights for red in a 2 white, 1 red pattern! It looks great and is something a bit different.

The boys, and especially Nolan, LOVE driving around and looking at Christmas lights. Nolan's theory on Christmas lights seems to be, "the gaudier the better"! He asks me all the time if we can get a "blow up" in our yard! He loves those big blow up snow globes, and snowmen, and Santa! Sorry bud! We will not be taking that route with our decorating! I'm fine with taking an extra 20 minutes a night to drive slowly through the neighborhoods so that you can look at OTHER PEOPLE'S "blow ups"!

{THE SNOW}

It sure has been cold and snowy around here lately! But I really don't mind it...it makes the neighborhood look that much more ready for Christmas! At first Nolan did NOT like the snow blowing in his face...but it didn't take long for him to get over this and to remember just how much fun the snow is!

He is a boy on a mission to clobber everyone in sight with snowballs! Love his face in these photos!

{THE DECORATING}

On Sunday we went to Home Depot and picked out our Christmas tree. There would be no hiking around in the mountains to cut down a tree this year! Although, baby seems to be quite content where he is right now! Maybe I could have tackled it! But it was kind of nice to drive to the store, pick out the tree, have them make a fresh cut, wrap it up, and strap it to the top of the car. The whole process took only about an hour from door to door. And the boys still had fun running around stomping in the snow and checking out all the trees even if it was just at Home Depot.

While the boys napped we let the tree thaw out a little and Mark strung the lights.

When they woke up we had a blast digging out all of the Christmas decorations!

They LOVE their nativity sets that Grandma & Grandpa have given them. Heath loves to hum along and do the motions to the song "Away in the Manger" that his Little People set sings!

We have pretty much played with them NON STOP since Sunday!

Nolan really enjoyed hanging up all the ornaments! He liked them all grouped together and even wanted to hang some on the same branch.

He loved remembering some of his favorite ornaments and he knows which ornaments belong to who in the family.

Heath also hung all his ornaments in the same low spot! They have taken ornaments on and off of the tree a million times since we first decorated. They play with them really nicely and put them back in a new spot each time. So our tree looks different every day!

Here's a quick video of some of our decorating fun...

When we were done with all the oranaments...

Heath climbed up on the ladder with Daddy to place the star on top!

And Nolan helped me find the "perfect spot" for all the other decorations. He really liked the mistletoe too! I don't think I had ever really explained this tradition to him before. It was so cute! He kept wanting to stand underneath it with me to give me a smooch!

After decorating we cuddled up on the couch as a family to do one of our favorite traditions...

The Elf on the Shelf! Nolan was so excited that our Elf "Eckabee" had returned from the North Pole! He has fun looking for where Eckabee hides each day! And he has been really good the past few days in hopes of impressing Eckabee with his best behavior for him to report back to Santa! It's funny because we got this book and elf when Nolan was Heath's age and Nolan has always LOVED it! Heath sat and listened to the book but he was kinda freaked out by Eckabee at first and now he could really care less about finding where he is hiding each morning. Maybe he just needs to be a little older to fully understand it all, or maybe this is just another example of their different personalities and interests.

{THE TREE}

Here it is in all it's glory! It's about 7 feet tall and full and it smells awesome! On Monday morning when Nolan woke up and walked downstairs he said, "What's that I smell?" We had to tell him all about how amazing fresh pine trees smell! Another thing I don't think we explained to him last year.

I definitely have not mastered the art of taking pictures by the Christmas tree! I try without a flash and with a flash and neither one truly captures the beauty of the tree or the boys!