Christmas Tree and Gingerbread Houses

Russ and I both had Friday off. It was wonderful family day. We spent the day getting our Christmas Tree and preparing for the gingerbread house making party we were hosting on Saturday.
{I'm thinking taking the first Friday of December off needs to become a family tradition}

Last year we found this little u-cut tree farm in Scio that sold Noble Firs for $3/foot! We headed out there Friday morning to pick our tree.

It was a beautiful morning. Blake loved running through all the trees.

Blake was not a fan of the loud chainsaw {can't blame him}. He was happy to be in daddy's arms! 

After we got our tree we headed back to town to do some shopping at the Big C, and of course get the cheapest lunch around :) 

Then we headed home. Blake was exhausted which was perfect, I would decorated the tree while he was napping, then he would wake up and be so excited to see our tree! {especially since he ooos and awes at the ones in the stores} 

Umm, I was wrong... 

5 o'clock rolled around and Blake was still sound a sleep. 

Me not wanting him to sleep any later in fear of him not wanting to go to bed that night, I went in and woke him up {foolish of me}. Of course I was thinking he'll wake up happy {since he had just been sleeping for almost 3 hours!!!}  and see the tree and be so happy that one of those pretty things he sees in the stores would be in his own living room! 

Nope. Not so happy. Or excited to see such a beautiful thing in our living room. Russ even had the video camera in hand to record what we thought, would be an awesome reaction. Instead he did nothing. 

Later that evening he did walk over to it and say "wow, wow, wow!!" like he just realized there was a tree in our house. {just a little delayed} But of course we didn't get it on camera. Oh well. 

Saturday we hosted a Gingerbread House making party!
Russ really wanted to try making homemade gingerbread. It was quite the process!
We started Thursday night, we bought the ingredients and he made the dough. The dough chill over night.
Friday morning we he rolled out the dough and cut out the pieces by following a pattern. We he baked the pieces and then made the icing and glued all the houses together Friday night so they would have 24ish hours to set before we stuck gobs of candy on them. {just have to mention that I did help with some of the gluing, but yes, Russ did everything else}

After many hours, three batches of gingerbread and many, many cups of flour {18 to be exact!} we had  six gingerbread houses ready for candy!

Let the decorating begin!

We made one gingerbread house per family. Here they are finished...

Us

{not pictured, the Jensen family}

It was a fun way to start the Christmas season! I'm thinking this might also have to become a tradition. 

The recipe we used is here if you are interested :)

I hope you are enjoying the Christmas season so far!