oh, the anticipation nearly sent him over the edge. Garrett went with me to pick up our mail. That is a story in of itself. Our mailbox, the cluster box was broken into during the
2nd week of December. If you know me, you know that I love snail mail. I especially love it during the month of December. I love all of the Christmas cards & photos from friends & family.I race to the mailbox each day. So...having to go down to our local post office has been a royal drag. On this particular day, Garrett had come with me. When the clerk handed our mail to us, Garrett was so excited to see the four green envelopes with the North Pole return address labels. He knew that his letter from Santa was in that pile. I made him wait to open his letter. I wanted all of the boys to open their letters together. It was a long afternoon for Garrett. It is another yearly tradition that we all look forward to. I am glad we could enjoy it together. Each of them were able to read their letter to the entire family. It was fun to hear how busy Santa & his elves are, the week before Santa. It was neat to hear Santa compliment each of the boys on their individual efforts for this year.The boys LOVED hearing that Santa was working hard to fulfill their wish lists. We can't wait to see what he leaves for each one of them on Christmas Eve.

12 weeks of Christmas

This week marks the 8th week of the 12 weeks of Christmas. Are you thinking, "what is the world is Raimi talking about"? Green Tangerines has been releasing calendar pages(one by one) for the last 8 weeks. The idea is that you pick up your featured month each week,go home & create your page. By the end of the 12 weeks, you have a completed calendar to give as a gift...or you keep it for yourself. You decide. I had the opportunity to help create pages for the 12 weeks, along with Kristen, Kathy, & Brenda. Here is a peek at this weeks release. You can call the store at 916-771-8010 to get your pages today. Don't worry, you can still pick up kits that were previously released,

holiday traditions

We love this holiday tradition! We enjoyed hot Wassail & waited on the corner by our house. What were waiting for you ask...Santa of course. Santa drives through our neighborhood every December. The boys so look forward to this. Thanks to the police department & the electric company, Santa cruises down our street. He brings the elves & they pass out candy canes. It is a night that lets us share the holiday spirit with our friends & neighbors.



{boy do i need to learn how to take better night shots-Santa is there, top left}

We added a new twist to a tradition that already exists @ our house. On Christmas Eve, the boys open new Christmas Jammie's. After reading my friend Stephanie's blog (I think it was her SIL's idea) I had the boys open their new Jammie's last night after watching Santa zip through our neighborhood. It make sense to have them open them now so they can enjoy them before Christmas too. I found these cute Jammie's @ GAP. They have Christmas words/sayings on them(presents, naughty, nice, Santa, etc...). They are pretty stinkin' cute if I do say so myself. Thanks for the new tradition Steph! Here are the boys in their Jammie's! How long do you think they will continue to let me keep this up? I am hoping forever-LOL!










On to our next tradition(it is a fairly new one too), we are going to watch the movie ELF & giggle ourselves silly! What are some of your favorite traditions?