Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve 2011

December Fun

It has been a fun month getting ready for Christmas!  Once we got past the stomach flu, we have enjoyed decorating cookies and gingerbread houses, listening, singing and dancing along to Christmas songs, visiting a live nativity, seeing a fabulous Christmas light show, going to a concert at a local church and lots more.  I have really tried to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, but it seems that all of the photos I take do not reflect this so I need to reconsider if I'm really doing a good job myself and in teaching our children. 

Elaina and Owen went right up to Santa this year.  Audrey was very excited until about 2 seconds before this picture was taken and then she changed her mind. 

2 Gingerbread houses and 1 Gingerbread ship with guns.

I took the girls to the mall this week to ride the Christmas train.  It was fun, but we missed having Owen along.  He was having fun celebrating the Holidays Around the World in 1st grade.

Christmas Tree

Every year I think it would be easier and cheaper to just buy an artificial Christmas tree, but then we go out and have the experience of cutting one down and I am very happy to continue this tradition.  We had a beautiful sunny Saturday for a very fun family outing to find a tree, enjoy some hot chocolate, and then head home to decorate.

Erik really did all of the work- the cutting, hauling and the photography!  We found a beautiful tree.

Owen loves the Santa hat that used to be our tree topper.  Thanks to Grammy, we now have a homemade angel on top.

He loved that hat so much when it first came out of the box that he wore it to bed for several nights!

This is such a fun month!!

Extended Family Time!

We had a wonderful 2 weeks spending time with all of our siblings and their families both in PA and NY.  We are so grateful to be closer to our parents so that our kids can spend more time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  With 11 cousins ages 5 and under, our 3 kids always have lots of playmates whenever we get together with family!!

Our girls love babies!

Riding the tractor is always a highlight!

All of the Hubbard grandchildren love to listen to Papa read a story

The 3 oldest cousins

Uncle Mark does a great job of getting time with the kids one on one

I had to include this picture of Gramma... enjoying and playing with her 9 great grandchildren!  Love it!!