Putting up the tree!

It's that time of year again, seriously, doesn't it just seem like it was Christmas? It's really hard to believe this will be Elijah's fourth Christmas! We usually put up the tree around Matthew's birthday (the tenth) but this year we did it a little bit earlier. If you all remember this time last year we were super busy with moving out of our little campus apartment and into our townhouse, combine that with Matthew finishing up his Master's thesis and graduating from UGA, we got around to putting up the tree a little late. Actually, I think we didn't get it up until around the 16th and I'm pretty sure we left to visit family shortly after.

Well, things are much calmer this year. If you don't count my pregnancy and Matthew finishing up his first semester at Yale (woo hoo!). Friday night we had our usual holiday routine of making a big pot of chili, putting up the tree, baking and decorating Christmas cookies. Usually this is all followed by eating the Christmas cookies and maybe some Egg Nog (E Hog if you're Elijah). It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it!

I'm really looking forward to this Christmas with Elijah. We keep telling him he'd better enjoy it since it's his last Christmas as a spoiled, only child. He's really in the holiday spirit this year. He has a little advent calender Mimi sent him and gets a piece of chocolate every day until Christmas. Okay, so maybe he's more interested in the chocolate than he is the Christmas countdown...

Anyway, he loved every minute of the festivities on Friday night, here's a look...


Me cooking, as usual!

Elijah waiting for some chili.


Matthew, capturing the moment on film.


The boys getting to work on the tree.


I was making the cookies and Elijah was running back and forth.


Always helping mommy out! (Oh and he loves his Santa hat!)


Being silly, and covered in flour.


Sampling a cookie. (If you look carefully, you'll notice a tell-tale sign that a three year old was decorating this tree. Look for Santa on the tree.)


He took the ornament hanging very seriously. In fact, if you notice in the finished pictures, the tree is a little droopy around the bottom from all his efforts.

The finished tree! It actually looks pretty small in this place. I guess that's a good thing, we barely had room for it when we lived on campus in Georgia!

Now, time to wait for presents...