It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE Christmas!! It just makes me smile :). I love the sounds, smells, food, the feeling, the music, everything. I also love to decorate for it. Right now we don't have a lot of items to decorate with, but I was so excited to pull out some clearance Christmas finds from the year before to add to the decor we already had. We were lucky that the previous owners left their Christmas tree in the shed and didn't want it back--so we have two!! One in the living room and one in the family room. I've designated the living room tree to be our decorator tree and the family room our family tree with homemade ornaments and all.

Our stake this year started a new tradition of having an Interfaith Nativity Exibit at our church building. The event spanned over the first weekend in December ending with the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional on Sunday. The event was a huge success!! The gym was beautifully decorated with over 300 different nativities on display from all over the world. Outside the youth posed as the characters in the Nativity. It was really special. When I brought my girls up to look at the live nativity, I felt the spirit so strong that it brought tears to my eyes. I had an overwhelming feeling of Christ's pure love and of His reality and was touched that I could teach my children about Him in that small moment.

They also had a children's nativity where the children could dress up like Mary, Joseph, a donkey, etc. and get their photo taken and printed out. It was adorable!!

P.S--In case you were wondering where all my posts from November are? Let's just say there weren't anymore because I spent ALL of my time making this baby!! I drew all my own patterns, cut them all out of felt and embroidered each scene on another piece of felt for the 25 pockets. I just finished it today and I'm so pleased with it!! I'm hoping it will be a big hit for my girls this year. Each pocket will hold a little prize or piece of candy.