Christmas is coming...

This was my Facebook status earlier today....

"my head hurts, my body aches, I am NOT getting sick, the kids won't do anything I ask, and my house is a MESS because I decided in the midst of everything else, it is time to decorate for Christmas today.... this could go one of two ways... Christmas could be canceled in our house, the decorations can all go back into storage in the garage and I can relax in bed with a nice adult beverage for the rest of the day OR a miracle will happen and my kids will suddenly become angels, the house will magically get pretty and clean and we will go pick out a cute CHEAP Christmas tree before heading out to Polar Express tonight. Wanna take guesses on which it will be???"

I must say, I am pretty impressed with how well it got pulled together! (of course mommy MIGHT have had a MINOR meltdown before it got pulled together, but who's telling?? Not me...)

First the outside lights on the house...

I started this yesterday, and it was going great until I plugged Nathaniel's deers in and then a string in beginning went out, and poof... no lights! Ugh! I was too annoyed to deal with it, so I walked away!

This morning, when I got home from church, I had an idea and went to work on fixing it. And I guess I did pretty well since it looks all pretty tonight!

Next up, window painting!

I bought a stencil kit at the Dollar Store and had window paint pens left over from when we owned the store and turned Audrey loose with them....

I think that the results came out great! Audrey did a great job and had a blast doing it!

Next up .... the tree!

We went to the tree place. I had $22 in my wallet, but there were no trees for $22. So we were heading back to the car, but the salesman stopped me to ask why. I told him that none of the trees were in out price range. He walked me around the lot and pointed out 3 trees that he would drop to what I had, and the kids picked this one from those three. Then we put it on the wheelchair lift to bring home! Made sense to me...

I think it looks great in the house, set up on a few milk crates with Nathaniel's Christmas train running around the base of it...

Maybe tomorrow I will get up the energy to actually decorate it!

Finally the house... 

We got the entertainment center changed over to Christmas decorations.

Audrey set up the Nativity scene.

Audrey was a BIG help decorating this year!

And finally Audrey and I set up our Christmas village!

There is a lot left to do, but I think we got a start on Christmas!

Then we were off to live the Polar Express!