Santa Came To Town

This year I got tired of all my hand-me-down and DI Christmas decorations that I've collected since our first year of marriage. I've been too cheap to buy expensive items that weren't exactly what I wanted and knew I could probably make the same thing for half the cost. So this year I made my own.

I took an old box that we had that was housing some ornaments, put a little color in it and turned it into a "nativity box."

Mod Podge, paper, and cardboard boxes can go a long way with my "Ho Ho Ho" door hang and my Christmas boxes.

I took a cardboard tube container and made it into a snowman with paper and Mod Podge once again. I cut the scarf out of some old socks I had.

Brayden and I got this idea from a magazine and made these cute carolers out of an empty wrapping paper tube, paper, and baby socks made to look like hats.

These "Believe" wooden blocks have been my favorite this year. It cost me only a few dollars for the letters since I already had the wood, paint, and stain.

Here are my cone trees made out of styrofoam, paper, and...you guessed it...Mod Podge. (It's my latest favorite thing.)

And then with the kids this last week we made a gingerbread train that I won from my Bunco night last month.

It took all I had to keep Brayden from eating the gingerbread since she got her hands on everything else.

Last weekend was our ward's Christmas breakfast with Santa.

This was Kaleb's first time on Santa's lap. There was no crying. He just stared at him and got a good grab of his beard.

Still staring...

He finally looked for a picture...but check out his grip. Still holding onto Santa's beard. I don't think Santa could lift his head up without the beard coming off.

He gave Kaleb his treat and he let go... ...but we still managed to find bits of Santa's beard in Kaleb's hand when we took him away.

Brayden was such a good girl and waited so patiently for her turn. She told Santa she wanted a doll this year. (this is not a hint. No need to send any dolls our way.)

And finally, the cold really hit us this last week. We actually found frost on our windows.

It was supposed to snow last week, but we weren't fortunate enough. Other parts of Texas got it. This is just the frost scraped from our windows.

Cold is no fun with no snow. But we're looking forward to playing in the snow when we go to Utah in a few weeks. Also we wanted to congratulate my sister Dayna and her family. They welcomed a new baby boy into the family on Wednesday!