Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Today is a rainy, messy day and I love it! Of course, it's not snow, but it does keep me inside, which is what I really wanted today. Yesterday I shopped all day for Christmas presents (trying to take advantage of these last few days when Leah's in preschool). It was exhausting! Now I'm more than content to sit in my pajamas, sipping coffee by the fire and enjoying the Christmas lights. I do love Christmas decorations! After my second cup of coffee, I decided to get out my camera (my favorite "toy" from last year) and take a few pics. Here's our tree:

I do love sitting in a dark house with only Christmas lights on! Luke did point out one flaw in our tree when we finished reading a book about the nativity. "We only have a bow on the top of our tree. We should have a star, like in Bethlehem." Duly noted, dear boy. Here are a few of my favorite ornaments:

Here's a sweet one that Leah made:

I just started ordering one of these ornaments from exposures.com each year. They put them on sale, usually. I only have two so far. I think it will be nice to have one from each Christmas card picture that we take. My kids can fight over who gets them when I pass on!

This one is extra-special because it's the one I bought after Luke was born. We had a two-foot tall Charlie Brown tree that year. I picked this ornament up at a Hallmark store and it still makes me smile.

Here's so that you can see that I wasn't kidding about the Charlie Brown tree.

Now some of our ornaments look like they're on steroids:

There's something unnatural about a pinecone that large, red, and glittery. My tree is such a hodge-podge (I have no idea how to spells that!) of stuff that I've collected over the years. Those mega-pinecones were at Home Depot a few years back and just called to me, though I'm not sure why exactly. Besides the tree, sitting by the fire this time of year is another one of my favorite things.

We don't have alot of days cold enough to enjoy a fire, so I turn it on as often as possible. And just sit. It's nice to just sit. This is the point in my picture-taking when Leah tired of not being included in the pictures. I do think that she is used to having most pictures taken of her. "Now, take one of me!" she insisted. The outfit that she is wearing in this photo is her second of the day already. She wore her first one outside and stomped in some puddles, in the rain. I told her she could because it wasn't thundering. There will be at least three more wardrobe changes today, I'm sure. Here's her fireplace pic:

The stockings are hung on this mantle:

Leah, requesting another picture of herself:

Here's our dining room table, where you can see that my collecting may have gotten out of hand. Leah thought that we should light all of the candles so that she could pretend that it's her birthday. By the way, I did not buy all of these candlesticks/holders in one year, but over several years! I should probably stop the madness now.

Isn't there something festive, and highly addictive about shiny mercury glass? Okay, maybe it's just me.

Leah got her wish and we celebrated her!

I would show you my outdoor lights at this point, but we don't have any. I usually hang a row of swag lights on the eave of the front porch (nothing major), but thought that I should go without them this year. I come close to killing myself each year that I hang them, so I didn't think I should climb a ladder in my current condition. Oh well. I'm waiting for one of my neighbors to decorate their house so that I can just do this:

Btw, I would be the house on the right! Now that I've sufficiently stalled, I'll finally get to the laundry! 17 days till the birth of our King!