Getting ready for Christmas

Last week we pulled down all the Christmas decorations and put up our tree:
Emily enjoyed getting all the ornaments out of the boxes this year. Joe and I had a hard time keeping up with her because she had so much fun unwrapping them and handing them to us. But it was so much more fun decorating the tree with a little person so excited about it!

I also bought a count down to Christmas calendar for Emily. She pulls out an ornament each day to put on the tree. We had a similar one growing up where you pull a candy cane off each day and we always had fun with it. Emily wants to put them all up each day so we aren't really following the numbers so much this year. But I look forward to putting this calendar up each year for them to use:

We visited Santa last night at the church Christmas party. Emily wasn't scared this year to sit in Santa's lap. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she just looked at him:
She hasn't grasped the concept quite yet to have her big ol' list to give to Santa . . . yea! Joe and I have enjoyed telling Santa what we want to get for Emily and Abigail.

And now on to little Miss Priss:
Don't let the calm pictures of her fool you : ) Abigail has been fussy the last couple of weeks. It's mainly at night and we've discussed all the things it might be. After asking some fellow moms and observing her, it looks like Abigail just gets fussy at night and over tired and it just takes her longer to calm herself down or pacify herself at night. But I can't complain much because during the day she is much calmer and the girl sleeps well at night! I just feel bad for Joe because he mostly sees the fussy Abigail. She did have a good day on Saturday so he got to see that his 2nd daughter can be pleasant : )

After sending out an email to ask advice about her fussiness, on Saturday she slept most of the day and then went to bed at 9:00 without much fuss and slept until 4:30. On Friday night after she got all her crying out she slept from 10:30 to 8:30 . . . so like I said . . . we can't complain much! She is a sweet baby girl.

Over the last couple of weeks I have experimented with some Christmas embroidery. I made a hand towel, kitchen towel, and shirt for myself. It was fun trying these new designs out:
I am now working on stockings for us since we only have 3 and Abigail doesn't have one currently. So I will make hers first to at least have that one done by Christmas. When I finish all 4, we will have our family stockings for Christmases to come!

We hope you are enjoying your December!