It's that time of the year again!

There is nothing that makes me happier than decorating our house with Christmas decorations.  We always decorate on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  We have a very strange tradition of eating takeout from Boston Market, the most random place, on Friday night.  I don't know if it is because it is somewhat like a homecooked meal or what, but we had it one year and it has stuck.  I'm curious to see whether in 20 years, when I am reading over my blog posts from the past, whether we will still be doing this or not.  

Anyway, since I knew that breakable ornaments would not work this year, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased quite a few unbreakable ones for the bottom.  Avery loved to help decorate by passing us the ornaments.

After she got bored, she decided that standing on the boxes of my nativity scene was far more exciting!

She had pants on at one point in the night but Bill did a diaper change and decided she would be more comfortable this way!

I didn't take a lot of pictures that night but I caught up later on in the weekend when we made a gingerbread house.  We used to make gingerbread houses at school when I taught and I always looked forward to that day.  I want to have a tradition of making one every year.  I realize that Avery might still be a little young but we decided to give it a try.

Checking out the frosting

About every other MnM went into her mouth

Working so hard!

I had to give her a snack so that she wouldn't be tempted to eat all of the materials

She loved the marshmallows

The finished product- those special marshmallow on the roof were Ave's idea!

In  addition to the usual decor, I bought some cheap stick on trees and presents for Avery to play with.

These are the trees that I place too high for Avery to touch.  The presents placed lower were destroyed in record time.

This is what Ave decided to do with them.

 I saw an idea to make a felt tree with ornaments on Pinterest for Avery to play with.  She loves the ornaments on our tree and I have even found a couple of them lying in her bedroom so I thought that maybe she should have her own tree.  

The tree without ornaments on 

Figuring it out

And, success!  She loves it!

She even decided to decorate Grace with some.  Notice a trend?

And voila- hours of fun for Ave!

Here are a few more pictures that I have taken over the past few days-

Even though she has her own tree, she still likes to check out the real deal

Best night ever- fire going and Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

I do not ever let Grace on the couch but I thought this was too cute!

I can't believe it is already December.  Where has the time gone?