Catching the Spirit

Finally!

So, I finished my holiday baking. Here are pictures of my kitchen before and during the baking process:

Before:

During:

The list of items made:

English Toffee

Peanut Butter Balls

Mint Chocolate Truffles

Lemon Shortbread

Ginger Snaps

Pumpkin Bread

Raspberry Thumbprints

Mini Pecan Pies

Cranberry Orange Ricotta Cheese Brownies

Chocolate/Carmel Dipped Pretzels

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

I know, I know, I gave my mom a hard time about her obsession of nativities. I guess I've inherited a bit of the overkill gene myself, only mine is with baking. I love it.

I finished my Christmas shopping for my boys. A and I are not exchanging gifts this year as we're going to Europe this Spring, so we're saving our money for that. I still have our siblings to do.

We finally decorated our Christmas tree today. None of us are feeling spectacular today so we stayed home from Stake Conference and did our tree. This year we got a real live tree. And I do mean "live". We're going to plant it after Christmas. My friend Karen told me that her family had this traditon growing up, so it's one we've decided to adopt. I'm still getting used to not having the traditional looking Christmas tree. This one is native to Arizona, so it's a little Charlie Brown looking, not as much high-mountain looking.

Here's a pic:

I know, it leans a little at the top, but that just adds to the charm, I'm telling myself that anyway. I don't know when I became such a tree hugger as to think this was a fantastic idea, but I'm excited about it!

We also went to 3 Christmas parties this last week. One was to our friend's the Stevens', one was with our friends the Whitmore's and last night was to A's work party. Our friends Mitch and Rachel kindly babysat for us, thanks guys! Mitch even changed a poopy diaper, so brave!

This week we have our ward Christmas party, Relief Soceity Christmas party, will hang the outside Christmas lights, I'm going to my Gourmet Groups Christmas party, and we're trying to go see the Temple Lights and the Zoo Lights at some point. And we need to distribute our goody plates.

Another thing that has given me the Christmas Spirit is the deliciously rainy/cloudy weather we're enjoying.

Here are some pics of the rest of my Christmas Decorations:

There is some controversy over the way I snaked the larger nativity away from my siblings after my mom died. I'll have to include that in another post (this one is too long already).

And I had to include this one. We've had these Reindeer Antlers since E's first Christmas. M is thrilled to be the proud new owner:

Lastly, A came home early on Friday, just cause he loves me and brought me a surprise:

I'm a very lucky girl to be married to such loving husband, not everyone has that luxury.