We have been doing lots of festive activities around here.. We decorated our gingerbread house (our 2nd annual... think this will be a tradition!). I don't know why this is so fun, but we really enjoy it! We got our kit this year at Trader Joe's. It was the real deal and a little more technical than our kit from last year, but we succeeded! The boys did all the decorating, Jonathan does assembly, and I just maintain order. 
We also went to get our tree. For the past several years, we have cut down our tree which is a very FUN tradition! But, we had to let that go this year b/c Myles had been very sick. It didn't seem right to make him trek out into the cold and rain... so we postponed but the day we went he still was not 100%. No problem. We can be flexible, so off to the local seller. We still had a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day for tree picking! 
The boys trimmed and hauled in the tree. We don't have many decorations. But I love it that way... it's very hard to get attached to an "expectation" of a tree when we only have a few store bought ornaments combined with some homemade items. Every year our box grows and that makes it really fun to open up and see what we have accumulated from the year before. The boys love looking at 'their' ornaments. I LOVE this time of year... and I love their ages!! 6, almost 4, and 1.5... so full of excitement of the whole season! 
We ended that evening with Wyatt's preschool Christmas program. Very short and simple, but very sweet. He was excited to be on stage and loved dressing up!! It was also fun to see Henry sit and watch Wyatt. I think it was one of the first times that Henry had to watch Wyatt... it's usually the other way around. He was very supportive and excited!!All in all, a great wknd!! And it has been fun to build the excitement of the season in the boys as well as always reminding them WHY we're excited. It's so difficult in this world to keep it all straight b/c it gets so mixed in together. But this is such a wonderful time of year to point them to Jesus with every activity. We read the Legend of the Candy Cane and then did a craft activity with it. A beautiful way to take a symbol they see all of the time and point them back to Christ.
Henry's birthday was on Sunday, November 13th. Happy Birthday Henry! It's so hard to believe you are six. I'm sure we'll be saying that for the years to come. You are turning into a very fine young man. You are very independent, very responsible, and for the most part, very dependable. You are a very hard worker especially when it involves doing something that makes you feel important... like cutting down branches with Daddy, painting with us, or taking care of little brothers.
