From Thanksgiving to Christmas...

In our house, Thanksgiving has officially wrapped up...

At church, the girls made a craft where they made a turkey by making a handprint using paint.  Here is Karina's...at the bottom it says "I am thankful for Mom Dad" where the "Mom Dad" is written in her 4-year-old scrawl.

Here is Eliana's turkey handprint.  She wrote "I am thankful for adoption."  She seems to really understand the entire thing, why we're doing it, etc.

With Thanksgiving behind us, however, the girls are eager to get onto the more fun holiday--Christmas!  We purchased a wreath and they wanted to hang it up.  First went on the bow...

Then Eliana hung it on the hook all by herself.

At church, they also had a wreath making craft.  So with LOTS of help from Mommy and Daddy, the girls each made a wreath which they hung on their bedroom door.  Eliana's is on the outside of the room, and sports lots of decorations handpicked by her.

Karina's wreath is on the inside of the door and also sports a few decorations, although a lot less.  

Starting on Monday, December 1st, the kids each got their advent calendars.  So they get to each a little piece of chocolate each day.

The girls wanted to spice up our house with the smell of evergreens.  The solution?  Collect fallen pine tree branches from the recent wind storm, strip all the needles, and then sprinkle them around the house, such as over the piano, on the mantle over the fireplace and other creative places.  So our house got covered with pine needles and we didn't even have a Christmas tree to show for it!

The kids also wanted to get on with it with decorating the house.  So after begging/pleading/insisting all day long, they finally convinced Daddy to grab a box of Christmas decorations from the garage.  Up went one of the nativity scenes, with Gabriel's help.

 Karina and Eliana positioned the little figures...

 We also got out our wooden advent calendar, which has 24 little wooden objects to hang onto 24 little hooks.

Karina helped set up another one of our nativity scenes.  This one we bought during our travels to Brazil and is made out of clay.

We also got out our glockenspiel, which we bought in Germany during our travels (before kids.)  Karina especially loves this, as she is our little engineer.  Gabriel also got his hands on it and manages to knock off a blade on the fan (which we Elmer glued back on.)

 And last but not least, Eliana hung up the big snowflake that hangs near the entrance to the house.

 So our house is starting to feel very Christmas-y...  The next step is to set up the Christmas lights and then the tree!