It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I was totally excited to hang up Christmas lights this year, mostly because I was able to do it in shorts and the weather was gorgeous. But also because I am just so excited about Christmas this year! Not to be a negative person, but have I mentioned that the last few years have been extremely difficult for our family? They have been! But things are so much better now and we are excited to celebrate the most special and holy holiday in good spirits and together as a family! So let the decorating begin! So I have hung up our icicle lights outside the house and a few things inside the house.

Whoops, looks like I missed taking down a Halloween decoration...but we've got the countdown going on...and the number of days is down to 27!

Don't mind my dust...it's Arizona. :) This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. It's Cooper in his Halloween costume when he was a little over a year old. We borrowed this from our sweet neighbor Mari in Washington, and treasure the pictures of Cooper wearing it!

This is another of my favorites. My parents got this for us in Germany when we were first married. We have managed to carry it around to our many apartments and houses without it getting broken! My kids love it when we light candles and it spins around. It has the nativity on different levels. It is a beautiful and very meaningful decoration to us.

These are the rest of my favorites. On the top are some cute jars I made last Christmas and of course they are filled with my favorite decoration, M&Ms, and some cheesy snow globes that the kids love. The second level is my musical angels. Love them. Some are broken, but we love them. There are eight of them, and eight of us, so we have fun with it. On the bottom row is a nativity set that was doorbell ditched to us a few years ago by a cute family in our ward in Washington, and a wooden puzzle type nativity from Germany, and just another simple nativity. My decorations are not fancy at all, but they are very meaningful to me and the kids and we love them all.

This is from the front door. Maybe I should put a Santa hat on the dog for a little more Christmas spirit?

Over the years I have gotten rid of most of my decorations because I either didn't love them or they broke or they were just tacky. I didn't really decorate too much in Washington. I am so in the mood to decorate now and this is it! I am going to make new stockings for the kids and hopefully figure out a few more things to do inside the house because it doesn't feel very Christmasy! I guess when we get a tree it will make a big difference. But you just can't go chop one down here...looking for a great deal on a fake tree...