It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Like most of you, we've been pretty busy this past month getting everything ready for Christmas. The first thing we were able to cross off the list was getting our annual Christmas card picture taken. (To see our family one, look at the post above). My sister came over one morning before church and took them for us. It was so much easier than trying to get everyone to a studio dressed, clean, and happy and it was a lot cheaper too. Granted, they aren't as good of quality as professional but I think they will be just fine for what we need. I found these adorable dresses for the girls a month or so ago and then was on the hunt for an outfit for Porter. I finally found this vest/tie/dress pants set and we were ready to go. Here's the best one of the three kids together:

The second runner-up. I love how adorable Leah looks in this one, even Porter can't keep his eyes off of her!

This was the last one, I think Porter's look says it all! (If you take one more picture of me in this silly outfit, I'm going to kill you!)

The next thing we had to do was get the tree up. The girls loved helping out with that.

The finished product, it's a little pitiful looking but I had to put all the valuable ornaments on the very top and then the girls have redecorated the bottom half a couple times a day since we put it up so it's not much to look at. But they love it and there's meaning to most of the ornaments so that's what matters.

Our stockings are hung with care (I need to get another stocking holder, anyone know where I can get an iron one that looks like these?)

The olive wood nativity set I got from Jerusalem 12 years ago is up. I can't believe I still have all the pieces after all these years (and with three curious kids)!

The kids have written their letters to Santa

And visited him in person!

We've made a couple dozen cookies and delivered them to family and friends

And we've made the annual pilgrimage to Temple Square to see the lights!

Whew, I'm tired just thinking about everything we've done. And that doesn't include all the shopping trips to find gifts for everyone, parties that we've attended, and getting the house ready for all the family visitors that we've had. I am definitely ready for Christmas to be here!

The sweetest thing...

I love watching Jared make cookies with the girls, he's so patient with them and lets them make a mess and they love being able to wear their aprons and help out. Jared even cleans up everything at the end and I get some yummy cookies out of it! What's not to love? Well, except for the extra pounds I gain...

Adding ingredients

I wanna see!

I'm helping!

Stir, stir, stir!

Thank you, Jared, for being a great father and always being willing to spend time with the girls and let me have a break. I love you!

How many cookies can you count?

Jared did a cookie exchange at work and here's what we got after a night of baking. How many cookies do you think we made total? Whoever guesses the closest in the comments gets a free hand-signed copy of the Butler Family Christmas Letter 2008! Whoo-hoo!

Abbie had a lot of fun helping Daddy out

And here we are at our church Christmas party last week, it was a Hawaiian Luau, which was fun and guess what we had for dinner, Robyn and Paul? You'll never guess...

Have a great Christmas, everyone!