The spirit of Christmas

Well it's definitely getting close to Christmas.
My house is a mess with presents.
My kids are wanting candy canes every day for a snack.
And it finally getting cold in Arizona. (Ha ha to all those who live in places with snow... )


The other day we went to the train park in Scottdsale. It was great. Tim was so thrilled to be ridding on the train. They have the park all decorated, and the whole time he was pointing to things... Santa, the big Polar bear, the lighted elf village, and then after each one he would go "woooow". The people sitting behind us, laughed every time he would do that. But as exciting as that was, for Tim, the big thrill came after the train ride. When we got off there were several kiddy Characters posing and waving to all the families. Tim was so excited to see Elmo. He jumped up and down and ran over to give him a big hug. It was so cute.
As fun as that was, the next night we attended a good friends Christmas open house. The Flocks every year, for as long as anyone can remember (so we are told) have an open house for the holidays... Lots of great food and fellowship. Now, keep in mind when we first started attending this there were no babies in the nursery at our church (that was 7 years ago). Last night there were 6 toddlers and 2 babies. The party was fun, albeit a little tiring, trying to keep them all out of trouble. Tim was into EVERYTHING (as usual) and Lexa was content to play as long as I was in site.
She sure did look so cute dressed in her holiday best.
Now that brings us to today.
Last year Tim was to little to do much as far as helping get ready for Christmas. So when Mike's mom said she wanted to make Christmas cookies with kids, I thought, "he is still to little." But I agreed, figuring that we would be doing most of the work. Boy was I wrong. Tim loved it. He had a blast. He was not much into decorating the cookies, but he sure had fun learning how to roll out the dough, and using the cookie cutters to make shapes (and eating the dough...Lexa liked that part of cookie making too.) He got so excited when he got to cut out a star or a tree. We even let him move them with the spatula from the mat to the cookie sheet. He did great. He did not make to much of a mess (I say that because we were at my in-laws house and I did not have to clean it up...LOL.) He did manage to get all white, when he played in the flour, but it really was not that bad.
So as you can see the holiday spirit is upon this house... Good times, good friends/family and good food.
Wishing everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. May the spirit be contagious.