'tis the season for super fun stuff!

First of all, check out this awesome shot of Lola giving Sammy a little kiss.  Don't worry, we don't let her lick him all day, but she would if she could.  This dog lives for spit-up and baby drool. (and don't mind Poppy's spaghetti sauce stained face)

And check out Big Boy Sammy (as he likes to be called) sitting up!  He's getting better at it everyday!

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We have a beautiful advent calendar that is a little wooden house and Poppy gets to open a door or window each day.  In years past, we've always filled it with candy and other little treats and trinkets for Poppy, but this year I decided to write down a little note from an elf that tells us a fun thing we get to do that day.  The other day the elf said we can have hot chocolate with all the fixings after dinner.  Poppy was soooo excited - she LOVES hot chocolate.  And then we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas while drinking our hot chocolate.  I'm going to try to snap pics of the different advent activities we do...

Both Poppy and Sam loved reading this book.  And we've read it at least 100 times since then.

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On Saturday our little advent elf told us to go get a Christmas tree, so we took our annual walk down to the local tree lot, like we have every year since we've lived in our house.  Unfortunately, another part to our annual tradition is that Marc and I argue about where to get our tree every year.  Marc has always hated my beloved tree lot; he thinks the trees are over priced and sorry-looking and he desperately wants to drive out to the country to chop our own tree down at a tree farm.  So after winning the battle for the past five years, I finally agreed that next year we could chop our tree down where he wants.  Sniffle, sniffle.  How can you beat being able to walk to get your tree and bring it back home on a wagon?  Oh, and on the way to get our tree this year, we were walking down the street when a crazy white cadillac came driving down the street, blaring its horn and pulled over to greet Poppy, with a jolly old Santa sitting in the driver seat.  He gave her a GIANT candy cane and she has been carrying it around ever since then, telling everyone that she saw Santa driving down the street.

(in case you can't tell, that's Sam I'm carrying in a black sling)

She really didn't care about the Christmas trees, she was so excited about that candy cane!

Hee, hee.  I just had to include this picture of Poppy helping us get the living room ready for the Christmas tree...

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Then Sunday we were off to one of the coolest things - we went to the Genesee Country Village for their special Yuletide in the Country.  We basically were on a small tour with about 10 other people (my parents went with us) and we were able to go inside colonial homes that had actors acting out the history of Christmas.  It was sooooo neat.  We weren't really supposed to take pictures and there were no flashes allowed, so the few pics Marc did take are a little blurry.  The weather was perfect, cold and snowing...

I was so nervous about Sam getting cold - I had him bundled in about 5 layers, plus a snow suit, plus I wore him in the baby carrier, plus I put a thick blanket over him.  He fell asleep the first minute we were outside and he didn't open his eyes once during the 2 hours we were out there!

In this house, two little girls read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and Poppy had a huge smile on her face the entire time because she recognized the story.

All of the actors were dressed in costume and had accents.  As we walked through the village, people would walk by singing Christmas carols and ask you to join in.  It was so neat!  Poppy said her favorite part was when the boys and girls danced together...

And then at the last house we visited on our tour, they lit the real candles on their Christmas tree, had a boy playing bag pipes and showed us what their traditional Christmas dinner was like.

After the tour, we were able to stay for a yummy turkey dinner before we got in our freezing cold car and drove an hour to get home.  Poppy couldn't stop talking about all the things she loved about it.  She even remembered a song that one of the carolers was singing in the village.  We all had such a great time, we can't wait to go back again!

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My two cuties reading together.  Poppy loves to read to her baby brother.

So many more fun Christmas things coming up in the next few weeks!  Oh, and Sam's photo shoot went really well - it was very interesting.  For those of you non-Buffalonians, Fisher-Price is based in Buffalo, so they are always looking for kids to photograph for their boxes or ads.  So no, Sam is not a model, but he did smile really good for the photographer!  You know I will definitely keep everyone posted if he makes it onto the box of something!