And away we go!!!

And before you know it, it's that time of year again! That's right folks...Halloween is over and it officially begins Christmas season. Actually, if you've been watching any television or shopping in any stores, you'd realize that the season began about a week before Halloween, so really, we're a bit behind. Josh jokingly said Wednesday night that we'd get decorating this weekend, but I think we both knew that it was no joke. Yesterday the spiderwebs came off the house and the skeletons were put back in the closet this morning. Boxes are being resurrected as we speak and it's beginning to look a lot like...well...almost Christmas (seeing as it's a beautiful sunny day.)

I should mention that I realized that this year would be even bigger back in September. Josh came home with a car full of pumpkins and bales of hay for our front porch. He stocked up on new bright orange Halloween lights and started sending me emails at work of how his "ideal" front porch would look. I could only assume that if he was this excited for Halloween, Christmas was going to blow up. So, this year we're upping the ante. We've got more stressful jobs, a third child, someone is turning 30 and I've decided to fully embrace Josh's obsession of the Yuletide! That's right, look out Mrs Clause...the Shepherds are ready for the holiday season!! Ethan even got in the mood this morning by "cleaning up" some of his toys (placing them six inches closer to the cabinet they are stored in) and telling Josh "Let's get Christmas started!!"

I leave you with a  couple of pictures. The first of our "Halloween porch" (which hasn't been entirely dismantled since I don't want the neighbors to know just how nuts we are about Christmas.) I would like to mention that multiple neighbors complimented our pumpkin carving and one tween even came back with his iPhone to take a picture of our Avengers pumpkin (I was quite the hit with the male 12-15 population!)

The second pic is of our newest addition. No, not Eben, but his stocking! I decided long ago that each of my children would have a completely different stocking for the mantle and here's his...

Welcome to your first Crazy Christmas Eben!!

(You can see how excited he is at this very moment.)