"It's that time of year"

Hey folks.

How crazy is it that it's Christmas time??? It snuck up on me, and I think it's only going to continue to come faster. I have two weeks of school, Jed has one week and then finals week, and then it's Christmas break!

Here's the sad thing... I wasn't excited about Christmas decorating! So sad, right? I have to admit, November has been one of the more stressful months of my college experience. It's been a hard, hard month. I sadly didn't feel like I could be a Special Ed teacher. It's extremely difficult, let me tell you. But, I have a renewed sense of motivation, my students continue to improve, I continue to feel more competent, and all of this makes me feel more and more every day that I will be okay! But, back to the topic at hand, I was feeling stressed and did not feel the motivation to decorate. Thank goodness my husband did and thank goodness a few evenings ago he was amazing and helped me do some major cleaning, and so since I was on a roll making the house look good, I actually got down the box with our decorations and made our house look Christmas-y!

Another great thing happened today: we got our first little Christmas tree! It's a whopping 3 feet tall and we love it! I just love doing things by the light of a Christmas tree.

One of our newest decorations/possessions is a beautiful nativity scene from Bethlehem! Jed's parents went to Israel in October and they bought us this as a Christmas present. Here it is. Isn't it beautiful?

Have any of you heard of the Elf on the Shelf? Jed's brother's family gave us our Elf (we named him Thisbee) along with a book about him as a Christmas present last year. Basically, the story tells you that this is one of Santa's elves, and he is assigned to stay at your house to make sure you are not naughty, but nice. Every morning you must find him, because he moves around at night when you are asleep! It seems to be rather popular this year. I see on pinterest lots of posts about what to do with your Elf so that when your kids wake up, you find that the elf was making cookies, and made quite a mess with the flour, or he TP'd your Christmas tree, or he decided to go fishing and you find him fishing for goldfish crackers. It's such a cute idea that I can't wait to use when our little boy is old enough to appreciate it (let alone is not in my womb). Anyways, here is Thisbee:

So, have a good December! I'm so excited for Christmas. I love giving presents and seeing my family's excitement when they open them. This year we will be spending Christmas here in Utah with my family. I missed them last year, but I didn't realize how excited I would be to get to spend Christmas with them!

Anyways, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!