It's beginning to finally look like Christmas :)

We finally got our Christmas tree decorated this weekend. I was so preoccupied with Primary duties last weekend that I didn't have time to do this as well. But at least this year, I had some help!



After putting the lights on, we started hanging ornaments. :)


And then we put some on the tree.



We couldn't forget our Christmas village.


And my cute Nativities.



Merry Christmas!

Punkin' . . . carving??

We decided to do something a little different for the kids' pumpkins this year. Instead of carving, which was basically me doing it anyway, we bought these plastic face pieces that the kids could just poke into the pumpkins, thereby making them into different animals. Well, for FHE this evening, that's what they did.






Since we had 3 pumpkins and 4 sets of animal faces, we put 2 faces on our biggest pumpkin.



This was definitely the cleanest, easiest punkin' carving we've ever done. And the best part is, they can do it again next year!

My Little Helpers, and A Family of Jack Skellingtons

I love that Brooklyn and Noah are always so eager to help me when I'm making yummy stuff in the kitchen. As soon as they see me pull out my Kitchen Aid, or even mention cookies or cake, there they are, asking me if they can help. The first thing Brooklyn always does is grab my smaller apron to put on. And then Noah says to me, "I need a towel on!", which he now says every time since the one time a clipped a hand towel to his waist to be his apron.

Well, today was no different. I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies for our Family Home Evening treat, and so just as I started pulling out ingredients, here came my little helpers.






Of course they had to take turns adding the ingredients, but once we got everything mixed together, they couldn't wait to get their spoons in to grab a little sample. :)



While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, we started messing around with our Halloween costumes. Here's Noah in our really small elephant costume that I had out to sell. He ended up wearing it most of the evening. :)


And here we all are as Jack Skellington, from our favorite movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas".





Later in the evening, Brooklyn showed us this fun craft, which she had learned to do during a school outing.




We finished off our FHE with Brooklyn practicing the song she was asked to sing in our Primary Sacrament program, which is scheduled for next Sunday. She was really excited to be asked and so wanted to make sure she sang it just right.


She did an great job, of course! :)