25 Days of Christmas is here!

Our favorite holiday is here!  And it began the day after Thanksgiving when Jacquie and her mom dropped off this beautiful wreath at my door step! 

We always love our tradition of 25 days of Christmas celebration.  We've been doing it for years and to my relief, we've gotten quite lax on our schedule and documentation of each day.  This year and every year starts with an advent calendar for each kid.  With the chocolates of course.  Then day 2 brought a reindeer art project. 

They turned out pretty cute!

The next morning brought a flood to our garage at 5 am!

We tried to make the best of the clean up! :)  This day also brought writing letters to Santa and the following day was reading Christmas books.

Day 5 brought Christmas tree hunting time!  Look at these sweet faces!

The kids enjoyed running up and down the aisles of trees while Garrett and I found the perfect one.  We got lucky this year and found a mismarked tree for cheap! 

Ho, ho, ho!

Then it was time to go home and decorate the tree, my personal favorite!  Each kid decided to have their own tree in their room decorated with their favorite ornaments.

Speaking of favorite ornaments, here's just a few of mine. 

And even though Garrett and I try to make a tradition of fighting over the lighting of the tree, this year everything went smoothly and it came out looking pretty beautiful!

Day 6 we headed to Helen Woodward Animal Shelter for their Christmas celebration with Ellie and Tamara.  We'd never been to this before and had a blast!  First there was a photo booth with props that we had lots of fun with!

Then we pet some reindeer on our way over to see Santa.

Ty was a bit reluctant to get close to Santa but the girls weren't.

  Tatum said she drew a blank when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas, so she told him she was still thinking.  Even though she'd practiced saying the Elsa doll. :)

All the kids loved meeting Santa's reindeer!

And when it was Ty's turn, he was a bit afraid but would stand next to me.

 

Santa asked Ty what he'd like for Christmas and since we'd talked about it at home, I said he wanted some monster trucks.  Thank goodness one of us could speak to Santa. :)

After each kid had a chance to talk to Santa, he gave them a stuffed animal!  Super cool!

After Santa, there was a reindeer candy cane craft,...

arm and face painting,...

in between animal petting,..

Ty chose a cool candy cane on his arm,...

and Tatum chose ornaments!

Every half hour they'd bring out another animal that you could meet.  Llamas, pigs, goats, chickens.  The kids loved it!  Ty, from afar, he wasn't interested in touching the animals besides the chicken.

Then it was cookie decorating time!

After some hot cocoa, Ty made an Olaf!

And everyone enjoyed the pig.

We headed back to see the reptiles and meet a dove.  Did you know a dove is a white pigeon?!  I had no idea!



 

The kids absolutely loved this place, and also enjoyed going into the shelter and seeing all the pets up for adoption.  That's hard since everyone of them was so cute and could use a warm, loving home.  Maybe one day we'll adopt!