The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Well folks, it's that time of year... and Christmas is in full swing at the Volks.

Our first big task was putting lights on our house. We weren't quite done when this picture was taken, but this will give you a general idea of the awesomeness. :) Just imagine lights covering the entire railing and then a bunch of icicle lights hanging along the roof and you've got it.

Our neighborhood is fun and a lot of people get into decorating. Our neighbors a couple houses down have this Santa blow up decoration and the girls think it's pretty cool. We make a point to walk down and check it out almost daily.

Next up was decorating the inside of the house. We stuck to the basics this year because I really didn't want to constantly be picking up Christmas decorations. Let's face it, little hands have a way of getting into pretty much anything and everything.

Meet Elmer the Elf. Santa assigned Elmer to our family last Christmas and he faithfully returned to our Christmas tree again this year. He's been reporting to Santa every night and Cameron likes finding his new location every morning.

Speaking of Elves, Cameron has been OBSESSED with the movie Elf this year. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that we've probably watched it at least once a day since we unpacked it the first weekend of December. At least it's one I can somewhat stand. :)

Let's see what else, we went to the Longmont Lights celebration last Friday night. It was really fun. They had all kinds of activities. We went on a train ride, watched ice skating performances and saw Santa skydive with sparklers.

Then on our way home we happened to drive by this house...the photo does NOT do it justice. It was very intense, and very cool!

And then of course, we went to visit Santa. Sydney screamed when I tried to put her on Santa's lap, and Cameron was very stoic the whole time. She was extremely interested in Santa, but a little unsure about sitting on his lap. So we had a family picture with Santa. Cameron did open up and start taking to Santa a little bit after the photo. She was very impressed when Santa showed her the little "Elmer" elf in his pocket. It kind of brought everything together for her. ;)

After taking our photo with Santa we got some treats and did a little shopping (Santa was at Ace Hardware). They have miniature carts for kids there and Cameron was in heaven! When it was time to leave we had a difficult time pulling her away from the store. And when I say difficult, I mean she was screaming at the top of her lungs as I carried her out of the store. Awesome. My mom pointed out that we have a whole year until we have to go back to the store to see Santa again, so hopefully by then they will have forgotten us, and our little "princess". :)

A little pre Santa photo shoot, boy is it hard to get both girls to sit still and smile at the same time!

We also have been working on a couple projects in the kitchen, and Cameron is my number one helper. She loves to help me stir and, of course, she always offers her services as taste tester. We're still working on her clean up skills.

What else... it has been pretty warm and dry here the past couple of weeks, which I love, but probably won't be such a good thing come June. Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Needless to say, we've been taking advantage of the weather by spending time outside. This was on the way to the park. Syndey was insistent on wearing her backpack. Haha, funny kid.

Please notice the little green bible in Cameron's hands. This is another one of her current obsession! She loves to carry around and "read" that little bible. She even sleeps with the thing. I guess it could be a whole lot worse.

We also took a trip to the zoo and it turned out to be the perfect day. The weather was nice, and we basically had the whole zoo to ourselves. Cameron was funny, she asked me to take a picture of her riding the bear.

You've seen many pictures of Cameron like this over the past couple years, but what can I say, this girl LOVES sparkling cider. And sometimes, I just gotta go with it.

In the middle of all the commercial fun that comes with the Christmas season, we are still trying to show our girls the true reason for the season. Thank you God for sending us a little tiny baby on that first Christmas so many years ago. May everything we do this Christmas reflect the greatness of this gift.