Christmas is nearly here, and I’m definitely on the ride!  We have been having such a fun time with it, visiting Santa Clause:

Cutting down our Christmas tree in the snow packed Pecos National Forest:

We also cut one for my brothers restaurant, The Hollar. It’s such a fun tradition to start with your family, and the forest service encourages the cutting of trees to help manage forest fires!

Why do those trees look so much smaller in the forest?  We totally went overboard, and had to cut some of our tree off to fit it inside, even at the highest point of our living room… nearly 12 ft.  but it is beautiful.  The leftovers are making some really beautiful arrangements.

We had an amazing snow day, just in time for a beautiful white Christmas:

 Isla and I stayed in and baked Christmas cookies, and once I got the hang of doing it with a toddler, it was a blast.  They surely weren’t pretty:

But Isla had so much fun, and that’s all that mattered.  To help all of you parents out there who might be attempting this, pretend you are playing with play dough!  I ended up giving Isla a large piece of dough, and she just played with the cookie cutters and chocolate chips:

It was truly a disastrous mess, but a lot of fun especially since she had a fever and a little cold!

Today we went on a sledding hike and built a snowman (notice he has a belly button, Isla’s creative input):

She had a great time decorating him!

It’s been such a fun season so far, look for a post this weekend on the house decorations and a toddler Christmas party we are throwing here tomorrow!  I baked for hours today!