Owl be Home for Christmas

We had a door decorating contest at school.  Our door won second place.  The kids got a 5 pound Hershey bar to share, they were so excited.  We had to use some recycled materials, so we used toilet paper tubes, grocery bags and left over paper from extra copies we made.  They colored the backs of the copy paper to make their owls and the eyes for the owls.  It was a fun way to spend the afternoon with them before Thanksgiving break.

Another criteria was the kids needed to do most of the door.  I put up the wrapping paper back ground and made the tree, they did the rest, including the lettering. I will have to say that I am proud of them.

Owl, be home for Christmas and so will my babies, for one more year. Mission papers go back in on January First.  phew,  it has been a long and sometimes painful year.  I'm glad we have got this far.  We have offered up many prayers and have many more to go.

Christmas Begins

How do you celebrate Christmas?  We have developed the habit of getting a real tree.  We really enjoyed getting them from Grandma's house.  But, the past two years we got our tree from TSC in town. My camera broke this summer and I have been taking a few grainy pictures with my ipad to make an occasional post, but Kyle bought me a early present and got me a Black Friday special on a cannon rebel.

 So, now I can get back to some quality pictures.  Someone snuck a picture of me too.

 I placed things, and then moved them, and maybe moved them once more.  It seemed to take a bit longer this year to get everything placed.

 These crazy pups keep eating the branches and we woke up to a chewed up bird ornament...it was one of Kayla's.  Ha!

 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care....

 So reindeer can come visit...we invited them to decorate the tree with us, but we just bought it that night and the branches were tied up and really didn't relax enough to decorate.

So instead we dipped chocolates...buckeyes of course and a few dipped nutter butters.  Christmas has settled on our hearts this year and it feels great!