Breakfast with Santa & Our Christmas Tree

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of December.  On one hand, I love it because Christmas is coming and there are always so many fun things to do to get ready for the holidays.  On the other hand, I hate it because I'm so busy at work and there are always so many fun things to do to get ready for the holidays and never enough time! We've had to start picking and choosing which activities we want to be part of our Christmas traditions and make sure those fit into our busy schedule.  This past weekend, we were able to start getting into the holiday spirit by doing a couple of my favorite Christmas traditions--Breakfast with Santa at Todd's work and cutting down our Christmas tree.  The girls both did great with Santa (Lucy already had her list ready for him!) and we found a beautiful Christmas tree at Cackler Farms which we decorated yesterday.

All smiles for the first picture with Santa (the smile quickly faded as we attempted more pictures)

Sisters with Santa

Now one with the whole family

Making Christmas crafts with daddy

Coloring with mommy (still thinking Lucy will be a lefty like me although she does switch back & forth at times)

My dad came with us too so Grandpa helped Lucy decorate cookies

Adding some sprinkles

All done!

Attempted another family photo

Yummy!

Todd & Lucy leading the way to find our tree

Cece wasn't as enthusiastic about finding a tree

We found our tree!  We picked the one directly behind me....a beautiful 11 foot tree which fit perfectly in our 2 story family room

Todd cutting it down

Daddy's little helper trying to pull the sled with him

We cut down the tree on Saturday afternoon and decorated it on Sunday afternoon

Lucy was excited to go through the ornament boxes and get them all out

She put quite a few up (of course, all right next to each at the bottom but I was proud of myself that I didn't move any of them!) and then pointed to where she wanted some of the other ones to go a bit higher up

We had to borrow my parent's big ladder to decorate the top of the tree and for Todd to put the star up

All decorated and now just needs some presents underneath it