Christmas is officially in the house...

We've finally got our Christmas decorations up...

...here is our nativity!

After all He is the reason that we celebrate the season, and amongst all of the glitter and fun of Christmas I hope that that we can effectively teach our children the true meaning of the season.

...now, as for the other "fun" decorations in the house and pictures of our tree...here we go...

The day after we brought our beloved tree home we decided it was time to decorate so we pulled out ALL of our lights! Out of 4 strands of colored lights only 1 completely worked and the other 3 only worked half-way; I mistakenly thought they had revised the lights so if one light went out the rest of the strand wasn't shot...I guess not! So Briggs and I made a quick run to the store, and $20 later we had more lights in hand (which I must admit was hard to swallow since I ALWAYS buy after the season at a discount!) We also picked up a few tall plastic candy-canes to put in the tree.

Isn't she a beauty!

(Just after putting on the lights)

The kids were so excited to decorate the tree!

One of my favorite ornaments!

Brooklyn with the tree during the day...

And the tree when it's a little darker outside; I think it turned out pretty cute for a Charlie Brown tree!

This year we decided to set up our Polar express train; which the boys love!

If you look closely you can see that Ethan has put his wooden trains on top of the other train as he watches it go round and round.

(Now if only the bottom of the train was magnetized to the track so it didn't fall off all the time!)

My original table centerpiece that quickly got moved elsewhere!

To make room for this...

One of my favorite things for our home and for the season! Pink Poinsettia's!

The first year that Cory and I were married we went to Disneyland and we fell in love with the little village pieces in Downtown Disney. We bought our first one, Antler Inn, and for the next few years after that we picked up another piece to add to our collection.

Cory and I agree that the Poinsettia Palace is one of our favorites!

While there we also bought our stockings (the two striped ones). It was love at first sight and I knew they were the ones!!

And that's a wrap! Now if I could just focus and get my Christmas cards done!

Merry Christmas!