December 2011....It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

December is one of our favorite months of the year of course! Last year we were getting ready to travel back to Ethiopia to bring Mamo home with us forever! He came home on December 19th! Our kid has a CRAZY memory, but he clearly didn't remember last Christmas AT ALL. He didn't speak English and some of you may remember he was VERY sick the week we got home. We actually spent last Christmas Eve in the Vanderbilt ER- No fun! So, this Christmas Mamo got a DO OVER First Christmas! :) He was sooo excited! We started decorating and transforming our house with all of the decorations! and We made some too with all those pinecones we have in our backyard!!

 (Um, Yes, that is my 4 year old with a can of spray paint. Don't try this at home. LOL)

Mamo loved that he got his OWN tree in his room. I was so thankful that I picked up some end of the season priced ornaments last year for his tree. When he saw Robby and Cailtin pull out their own boxes or ornaments, he immediately wanted to know where HIS Christmas decorations were located.
It wasnt't a box like Robby and Caitlin's but the Target bag worked just fine!

The trees all went up and he was just so excited about the lights, the Christmas movies, Buddy- our Elf that came for a visit, all the good food and all the family and friends that came our way to visit. We didn't travel anywhere this year. All of our family came to us and it was nice!

Copper got in on the fun too!

All of the kids were obviously excited about Christmas. It doesn't matter how BIG you are. Robby and Caitlin enjoyed telling Mamo all about our Christmas traditions and all about Baby Jesus and the Very Special Star in the sky.

We are gonna be Busy, Busy, Busy till Christmas day for sure! We have all of Philip's family coming in for Christmas! We are all busy making homemade gifts for Philip's family this year! I am real excited about this idea! We will play dirty Santa with the gifts we make! My 2 sets of parents will be making their stops too! Lots of cooking, baking and getting ready for Christmas around here!! The kids are so excited for Exams to be OVER and for Christmas break to START!! (We keep explaining to Mamo what Christmas break is -- we can't say Christmas Vacation -- because he thinks that means we are going to the Beach!