Advent excitement

This was the first year that I was really able to talk to Ryan about Christmas - both the Christmas story and our own Christmas traditions. There was a lot of excitement in our house leading up to Christmas this year.

The first thing we did was to made an advent chain - this is something I loved doing as a child and was glad to be able to share with Ryan now. He enjoyed decorating all of the strips, and then we worked together to staple them into a chain. In theory, we were to cut off one every day leading up to Christmas, but we often forgot. And since we didn't bother to bring the remaining chain to Connecticut with us, I have to admit that there is still a little chain hanging on our wall. Oh well!



A new tradition that Ryan & I started was decorating a gingerbread house. I had great intentions of baking our own gingerbread, making our own frosting, and buying candy to decorate, but then I remembered that I have a newborn and opted for the $8 kit from Michaels instead - wise choice on my part!




Once we got to Connecticut, one of the first things we did (after a nap, of course!) was to decorate Nana & Papa's tree. We decided not to bother putting ours up at home this year since we were rather busy & wouldn't be here for Christmas anyway. So, Ryan was very excited to put ornaments on the tree & did a great job!



this is what Kaeden was up to while we decorated the tree... he had been playing & just fell asleep. Don't worry, though, we were right there keeping an eye on him!

And, of course, my favorite thing to do leading up to Christmas is making cookies! Thanks to extra baby-holding hands, we were able to do quite a bit of baking & decorating at Nana & Papa's house :-)

First, candy cane cookies:

showing him how to roll, twist, and shape the dough into candy canes



Then came the sugar cookies. Ryan was sleeping while we rolled & cut them, but he did a great job helping to decorate. He did his first cookie all by himself, start to finish, but after that, he wanted me to frost it and then just do the sprinkles on his own.

working on his first cookie

showing off the finished product


meticulously adding red hots

this might explain why the whole house got sick this Christmas... (just kidding... it's all part of the process!)

And that is just the beginning of a Christmas full of wonderful memories :-)