Christmas is almost here!!!

It's getting close to Christmas and New Years!!! I love this time of year (although not so much the stress of holiday shopping). We are trying very hard as a family this year to focus on other things besides gifts...such as the birth of our savior Jesus Christ and the impact He has on our lives. We are also trying to make traditions that we can repeat each year. For example, a few nights ago we had "Polar Express Night." After dinner we had cookies, brownies and hot chocolate and all watched the movie together as a family. At first it was chaotic as all the kids settled down and into the movie. Jackson spilled his hot chocolate and Albert yelled at him...he then nearly spilled his second cup. A couple of kids kept bickering for a while but soon it all settled down and the kids were totally enthralled with the movie, espicially Brice. His eyes were gigantic as he watched, he loved every second of it. He has been totally into trains lately though.
We have also decorated the tree and this weekend are going to decorate a second "girl tree" that will be decorated with girly things like ribbon and girlish ornaments. This is the first year we are doing the girl tree, but I hope its a tradition that I'll be able to share with my daughters for a long time. I am planning to use what we have for this year and then the day after Christmas (which is also Emanuel's birthday) go out to the stores for some new things that will hopefully be discounted quite a bit.
We have created a whole Christmas calandar for this year with a special activity to do each night for the entire month of December. We haven't hit everything exactly as we planned and a few things were skipped or moved around a bit but the result has been really cool. The kids know each day there is something for them to do in preperation for the holiday. Sometimes its big...like putting up the tree or Polar Express Night and sometimes its small, like reading a holiday bedtime story or making snowflakes out of coffee filters to hang on the windows but its making this Christmas a really, really special one for all of us. Of course adding Kambree to our family has made it wonderful as well!