Getting Ready for Christmas...

Christmas came in a hurry it sems and with all the craziness of the new house & trying to get things finished up & settled, there was A LOTof pre-Christmas things we do that just didn't get done this year... but we did manage to squeeze in a little holiday fun here & there.

Melanie & I hit the "Sugarplum Tea" that The Minnesota Conservatory of Arts puts on prior to their Nutcracker performance.  We went with our new friends from preschool, Audrey & her mom Amy. We were certainly in the land of goodies!  The girls had lots of tasty treats to try!  Then a couple weeks later, Brandon, Melanie, Gram & I attended one of the performances of the Nutcracker.  Melanie thought it was neat to see all the dancers that we had seen at the tea!

Although we normally get our tree up Thanksgiving weekend, we were finally able to get our tree & put it up after our fireplace/living room was completed in early December.   We found a nice little tree lot in town & picked the perfect tree!  It came from a tree farm in St. Charles, MN... no too far away from us! 

We had fun decorating our tree & getting a few snowmen out!  That helped make it feel more like December!

The Holiday Train made its annual stop in Winona, so we headed to the depot to see it. We got there just as it was pulling in & stayed for the music & some hot chocolate & cookies!

Melanie's preschool had a nice holiay program the kids put on.  They sang a lot of great songs & even did a little play the night Jesus was born!  They were cute! 

Uncle Chris' visit at Christmas time is something we all look forward to each year.  He & his folks popped over for dinner one evening & we ended up with a surprise visit from another special someone...

...SANTA!!!  We weren't sure he was going to know where we were this year after moving but thankfully he found us!

Finally, we had one last celebration to tackle before Christmas...

... Brandon's 7th birthday!  Poor guy still had to get up early for school but that evening we went out for dinner then back home for presents! 

Hard to believe our little guy is already a big 7-yr old!  It is kind of cool that because of when his birthday falls, Uncle Chris has been around for all of them!

They both bean bags for their birthdays (a belated one for Melanie) from Aunt Dina for their new rooms!  They love them! 

Next stop... CHRISTMAS!