It is starting to look a lot like Christmas!

We got the house decorated and the tree up today...time to get myself into the Holiday spirit already. The kids and Jason had a big secret all day yesterday that I was not allowed to know. When I woke up this morning I was surprised with the tree being set up and ready for ornaments. This is our first Christmas in the new house...so no fireplace to hang the stockings on, but I thought they ended up looking really cute hung in the window.

It is always fun going through the Christmas stuff, and running into previous years crafts and special Christmas-y fun.

The masks the kiddos painted last year...they also put up all the snowflakes we made the other day.

It is so apparent how much the triplets have grown and matured...over the last 5 Christmas times they have gone from pulling the tree over and not leaving things alone, to being able to help put up even the most fragile and special ornaments. No worries, we still have our one man wrecking crew to keep us stocked on broken ornaments and messed with decorations LOL. Jericho, you may be more of a pain that the triplets put together :)

The bottom of the tree got most of the decorations...Jason and I will have to touch it up after the munchkins go to bed tonight.

The big kids loved finding their 1st Christmas ornaments, we still need to do one for Jericho.

Haddie.

Bug.

Xan.

They also loved my old photo ornament, I "made" this in preschool...I was 5.

What a fun time of year...I don't care much about the gift getting, I can not wait for the gift giving to get here though :)

Jericho helped a lot too...well, he tried. He broke about 5 ornaments, thankfully nothing special just glass balls....and I already see a few days of having to remind him a hundred times to leave things alone, but it is all good.

I love these. We need to get one made for Jericho too...poor guy, we have dropped the ball on his photo ornaments it seems Hahaha.

My sweet Lily said "Decorating the tree with those shiny balls makes my heart smile." And that folks is one of the many reasons she makes my heart smile.

They loved finding our craft ornaments that we have made...and ones that Grandma and Great Aunt Julie have made for them over the years.

Hayden showing Percy, who is still sporting bandages, our Elf ornament...you know all Elf's know each other :)

We need to expand on our decorations some more...but it is already looking a lot more festive at our house.

Photo challenge...Day 12: Joy is...

During all this festive fun, Xander lost...read pulled out, his second loose tooth.

Dinner tonight...I took an old fave of mine and lightened it up a bit. Crock pot cheese tortellini. You can see the original recipe here.

Healthier version...

Ingredients: 

1 bag of frozen tortellini 

1 small bag of fresh spinach...about 4 cups

2 cans of Italian style diced tomatoes 

1 box or 4 cups of chicken broth 

1 block of  1/3 less fat cream cheese 

1 lb. of lean chicken sausage 

1 carton of fresh mushrooms. 

 Brown the sausage and put all ingredients in crockpot, chunking up the cream cheese. Cook on low for about 4 hours. Serves about 8 and is 305 calories and 10 grams of fat per serving. I still loved this just as much as I did before...I didn't even notice the couple of changes I made to make it a little lighter.