looks like Christmas

It doesn't feel like Christmas, or a Colorado Christmas, at least--we've been in the high 60's, which is pretty unheard of! But at our house it sure looks like Christmas is coming! Yesterday I had to take a day to clean up the Christmas mess that is just everywhere lately. There was no flat surface to wrap, box up or work on anything Christmasey because said Christmasey stuff was all over them! It's a fun mess, though :)

 Thanks to my talented sister, we are enjoying the Jesse Tree advent custom for the first time this year! She hand painted ALL the ornaments (did a gorgeous job, too) for her own family's Jesse tree last year and made color copies of them to give me for Christmas. We are enjoying it so much! I think it's easy to feel like we need special devotionals or Bible story books for kids for them to understand, but I have discovered over this past year that reading to them right out of the Bible is easiest and best and they understand it just fine with some extra explanation here and there. We are loving reading the Scriptures each night and putting on the right ornaments!

 Natalie drew a Nativity yesterday and hung it on the wall. So cute.  The sheep is my fave.

 She also set up these Merry Christmas blocks. It's too cute for me to want to fix it. Plus, we are missing an R. Gotta find that.

 Looooove these shots of Casey and Natalie!!

How is your Christmas prep going?? If you're stressed, just breathe in, breathe out and pick some things to let go of for this year. Especially if you have very young kids. It turns out that I can do more things as they get older that I couldn't do when they were all littler, so give yourself a break for now! Ask the Lord to make clear the task list. That's my advice :)