"It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas????"

Now that Caleb's exam is over, we can start focusing on other things like Caleb's mom's visit, the birth of our daughter and CHRISTMAS!

If you know me, then you know how hard it was for me to wait a week AFTER Thanksgiving to begin decorating for Christmas! I'm not going to lie. It was hard!

So, this Saturday morning, we pulled out the tree (that I found here for $5), pulled out the lights (that didn't work and are only supposed to be used outside.....oooops) and pulled out the dozen or so ornaments that I brought from PNG. If you just look at our pitiful tree, you might be inclined to feel sorry for us. But, don't! We are just so happy to HAVE a tree and so excited to be in a first world country for this holiday! So, the tree is up, Christmas music is in the air and I even did a little bit of Christmas shopping. Life.Is.Good.

Even Caleb forced himself to get into the Christmas mood for me. He is the type of guy that doesn't get excited about things this far in advance. But, he made the effort and that made my day:

Look at that sorry looking tree. HAHA!! It looks even worse in the pictures. :) I love it anyway, though!

Notice Ben in the "muscle" shirt. It's so strange that it is so warm here yet so close to Christmas!

Beach Grandpa and Beach Grammy sent us a package which was filled with already wrapped gifts. In Caleb's family, they put out all the presents BEFORE Christmas. In my opinion, this is a silly idea. I put out some of Beach Grandpa and Beach Grammy's gifts and left the bigger ones hidden. Today, all day, Ben has been saying, "Can I open a present pleeeeeeeeease?" (Boy after my own heart.) As soon as he goes to bed tonight, I'm hiding all these presents again. I do not want to hear him whine until Christmas. I would rather he wake up on Christmas morning and see all the presents at once.

Tonight, the church that we are going to hosted an event called "Carols on Collins". The botanical gardens are located on Collins Street. Some of the larger local churches went in together to host this fun event. There was a live Nativity Scene, little petting zoo area, face painting and more.

Here is a picture of the live nativity Scene and Piper talking to Mary and Joseph. We found out that the little baby playing baby Jesus was 6 weeks old. Awwwwww! Makes me ready to meet my little girl. :)

Ben got a balloon animal. This is the first one....which he promptly popped. Luckily, they were free and the nice people gave him another one.

(Dawn, notice the shoes he is wearing!! He loves his Batman Crocs. They don't go with any of his clothes, but he insists on wearing them. We had to "make a deal" with him tonight. We told him he could wear these shoes to the park if he promised to wear his other crocs to church in the morning.)

After we walked around the booths, we all gathered in this common area for Christmas carols. I took a picture to show you how tropical and sunny it is here in Cairns.

Other people were wearing their Santa hats.....so glad I packed mine at the last minute!

Also, Ben got this glowing candle. It kept him entertained all night.

Not the best picture.....but proof that Caleb was there and smiling.