While I was getting ready this morning I heard Jason yell, “Babe, come here!!!!”

So I scurried down the hall and was greeted by this ridiculous sight:

?!?!?!?!?

The little one has perfected the innocent, “What, Mom?” look, don’t you think?

After laughing hysterically and snapping an obscene number of photos we started to get a little concerned about how they would get down – so Jason grabbed a stepladder and tried to perform a rescue, à la firefighters rescuing a kitten from a tree:

Needless to say, they weren’t having it.  Those kitties had conquered that mountain and they were going to savor their victory, by golly.

By the way, we did eventually get a glimpse of how they managed to get up there in the first place:

Brute strength and a whole bunch of claws.

And I thought I was going to have my hands full with a new baby!!  Sigh.

P.S.  Our spare bedroom doesn’t always look like that – it’s just been a disaster zone of stuff to be donated/thrown out/sold since we cleared out the nursery a few weeks ago.  Apparently “clearing out” in my book is synonymous with “hide in another room.”  Baby steps, people.

For the past few days we’ve really been getting into the Christmas spirit around here, with lots of family gatherings, cookie fests and gingerbread-house-making-extravaganzas.

So maybe our cookies didn’t turn out quite as cute as the recipe photo, but I didn’t hear anyone complaining.  :)

Squishing the candy cane kisses into the cookies was my favorite job of the evening.

My dad’s pecan puffs were the hands-down favorite of the evening – there were barely any left over for people to take home!  That’s pretty much always the case.

I went a little topping crazy.  Luckily, the extras came in handy when my sister hosted the gingerbread house extravaganza today!

I know a lot of you were curious as to whether the s’mores bars are as good as they look – and yes, I can attest that they are.  :)  Oh, and 5 cookies was waaaaay too ambitious for the evening.  We never got to these guys, and next time I’ll probably just go for one or two cookies.  We may have had a sweatshop vibe going at one point.  :)

Here is the gingerbread house that Jason and I made.  It was so much fun and we loved the way it turned out!  (And sorry for the sub-par iPhone pics!)

Here’s the little village of houses that the whole fam made.  (My sister and her husband made the one on the front left – it’s supposed to be the W Hotel in downtown Dallas where Khloe Kardashian and her husband are now renting.  :)  It even has a rooftop pool!)

My brother’s house was the winner, hands down.  It’s supposedly set in Santa Fe and boasts many eco-friendly features (according to him).

And that’s how we’ve been getting in the Christmas spirit!  I hope you’ve been having just as much fun, and that your holiday is very merry.  See you next week!