The Highlight Reels

I intended to do a Christmas post much earlier. It seems so long ago now. Even though we did celebrate for 6 days straight! Instead of a play-by-play post of our weeklong festivities with family, I'll just give you the highlight reels of Christmas morning:

We had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our Savior. We had a little "birthday party" for Jesus. Cupcakes for breakfast?! Yum...

Anagrace "camped out"under the tree Christmas Eve. Christmas morning she discovered her room makeover...

Anderson had a blast opening the presents...some that weren't even his! He was really excited to get "Mack" from Disney's Cars to hold the matchbox Disney Cars.

They were all super excited to get the John Deere Gator, although I think the video portrays more shock than anything.

I hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The Prevette Family is definitely excited about the possibilities of 2010....

Wordless Wednesday

SWEET

Spent some one-on-one time with my SWEET girl.

Baked, decorated and ate some SWEET treats together.

Then, went to see some SWEET works of art. We had a great time just the two of us. Picking out our favorite gingerbread houses. Talking about Christmas...

Laughing. (Nice "dragon face")
SWEET memories!

Christmas Traditions

I just thought I'd share some of our Prevette family traditions. Some began the year Justin and I got married and others we've started somewhere along the past 8 years...

We always put up our nativity after reading the Christmas story. My dad got this one for us our first Christmas as "The Prevette Family". Anagrace and I did it this year along with her schoolwork.

I think that the "Countdown Calendar Tree" is probably Anagrace's favorite decoration. Shortly after she wakes up she has to move the stocking and count down the days left 'til Christmas.And a close second in the running for her favorite Christmas decoration, is the pink tree in Anagrace's room. She has had a small tree in her room since she was born (I'm pretty sure). But this pink one is new this year.

Our newest tradition is making a gingerbread house. This is actually the first year we've attempted it; I thought that it was the first time Anagrace could really "help" and enjoy it. And we did have a great time with it. We took it easy being our first year...we bought the premade house. It was already assembled, with roof and walls attached, all we had to do was mix the icing and decorate. I know that is kind of like cheating, but we'll increase the difficulty as the years go by!

So, those are just a few of our traditions. What traditions do you have? I'm always looking for fun and creative ways to make memories!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot (well, a little) Like Christmas....

I've "decorated" my blog.

And I've decorated my tree.

But that's the extent of my decorating so far. I've still got to put up the nativity scene and decorations on the mantle. We sold our computer armoire, which is where we usually display our Christmas village. So, I'm not sure if we'll have the village out this year. The absence of the computer armoire has also affected our tree. Two years ago we bought an artificial "pencil" tree to save money and floorspace. I love the look of the tree, but without the furniture around it the tree does look pretty skinny.

I thought I'd give a little tour of our tree and some of my favorite ornaments. Most of our ornaments have a story or special meaning attached to them. It's like a really tall and beautiful scrapbook!

Ornaments representing our first Christmas as a married couple(from 2001) :

One of Anagrace's first Christmas ornaments (from 2003), a gift from my grandmother, whom she is named after. It's kind of hard to see,but there is a cherub on it:

A few ornaments from my childhood:

One of the ornaments that my great Granny West made:

Although the orange doesn't "match" my tree, I couldn't leave it off...an ornament from our church commemorating our first year there(2007):An ornament made by one of the special education students in my class from my very first "real"job:So, those are just a few of my favorite ornaments. Here is the tree in its entirety:I can't really do an angel or a star because you can view our tree from 2 angles, from the front door and from the living room. I wouldn't know which way to face the angel or star! So, a bow, berries, flowers and pinecones work nicely around the top of the tree, I think. The tree topper:

I'm hoping to do some more decorating this weekend!