It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

Now that Thanksgiving is over and it's December, it's officially Christmas time!!  Christmas is hands down my absolute favorite time of year.  I've started my Christmas shopping and decorating and will be baking up a storm shortly.  It's been quite cold here lately and we had snow flurries for a few days but no real accumulation at our house.  We live so close to the mountains that most weather seems to pass over us and hit the rest of the city.  However, the weather forecast is calling for snow tonight and tomorrow so we'll see if we get more than just flurries.

Last week was my first week officially on my own at work.  I was put "on call" Sunday night which turned out to be a blessing since I still was a little under the weather from Thanksgiving weekend.  My first night on my own was calm and easy compared to the second night.  Tuesday night was horribly hectic and stressful (four of my six patients were fresh post-ops!) but I held it together and survived.  I'm just hoping this week is  better.  I've been told that things generally slow down around this time of year but it hasn't seemed to yet so we'll see.

This past Friday night we had a Hail and Farewell dinner for Matt's battalion at a restaurant not too far from our house.  After dinner a group of us went out in Old Colorado City so we were able to walk to the bar.  It was nice to go out with a big group now that all the guys are back from training at JRTC in Louisiana...it had been quite awhile since we'd gotten drinks with some of our friends!  We paused in the park on our way home to get some pictures with the Christmas decorations:

Matt in Santa's sleigh

My turn

All bundled up with Santa's house behind us!

Saturday morning was spent doing some Christmas shopping and getting a few more decorations for the house.  It was SO cold outside but we put our lights up nevertheless...Matt was such a trooper and put our icicle lights on the roof while I did the garland on the porch.  We still have some lights left to put above the bay window but we have to find a taller ladder first.  We also still need to get another extension cord so that the lights in the garland and the icicle lights can be on at the same time.  I took a picture of the house once the lights were on but it definitely isn't the finished product.  Our poor icicle lights are still pretty tangled up since they're brand new...we're hoping they'll fall out and straighten out here shortly.

Carefully hanging the lights

Working hard...and probably freezing!

A bit blurry but gives an idea.  The garland has white lights in it as well
and we'll be hanging more icicle lights over the bay window too!

Our plan is to go cut down our tree next weekend and put it up and decorate the house.  I can't wait to get all our great decorations up.  Since Matt was in Iraq last year and this is our first Christmas as a married couple, I want to make sure this one is extra special!!  I'll be sure to put up pictures next weekend of the house all decorated and the final product of the outside lights.  Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season as much as we are! :)

Cooper enjoying the decorating festivities...
and avoiding the camera.