"A pitty Tismas tee!"

Last year Ian finally got his wish of creating a tradition of driving to the mountains to a Christmas tree farm to pick out "the tree." It was a wonderful experience as we stayed overnight in a cabin, had lunch in a quaint town at a restaurant that a guy we worked with 12 years ago owns, ran into some friends in town, and then picked a tree out of the field that Ian cut down (much to Kylie's delight). However with us driving to visit family over Thanksgiving and then heading back again last weekend for a funeral and a wedding, we realized that a trip to the mountains wouldn't happen until at least the 13th and I didnt' want to wait that long to have a tree! Besides, Caleb is suffering some serious anxiety right now when he has to sleep somewhere other than his own bed, so we figure staying put is a better idea for a while...

So we simply rode down the nearest major road to a Christmas tree lot (the trees are from a farm in West Jefferson ~ where we drove last year) and set about the task of picking the perfect tree. Kylie really got into searching this year and would run down the rows asking "What bout dis one? Or dis one?" When we finally settled on one she had recommended she was overjoyed and of course, "monkey see, monkey do" and Caleb was in on the rejoicing even though he had no clue what she was so excited about!

The dynamic duo jumping in circles yelling "Yay, yay, yay!" about our tree.

And then Kylie noticed a much taller tree and said, "How bout dat one for Dahma?" I was touched by her thinking of others (I think she associated us buying a tree with getting one for Mom as she asked us to pick one up for her in the mountains last year ~ we got her a 12 foot tree for $25 up there!) and figured that since Mama has fixed us Sunday meals for over 9 years that we could at least spring for a tree...

When we got home from picking our tree we decided (perhaps a bit against our better judgement) to go ahead and decorate it even though it was getting late. So Ian put on the lights while I bathed the kids and then we let them come out to hang ornaments. Caleb really thought the lights were cool and it was so fun to watch their different styles of ornament hanging. Kylie would find a spot she found suitable and then hang about five ornaments from that one branch (yes, I did some moving). Caleb would just take an ornament, hang it, take it off, find it a new place, rehang it, and then take it off again. In the time we decorated the entire tree I think he put about three ornaments on. But the important part of the memory for me is that we had fun!

Not the best picture, but I had left my camera battery charger at Mama's and my camera battery was critically low. We'll try to get some of the kids in their matching jamies (I had Kylie's in pink, but she totally insisted that she wanted some "just like Ta-eb to match!") in front of our fully decorated tree tonight...

And I had really worried that I'd go crazy keeping Caleb away from the tree (I was considering not putting one up, but Ian totally vetoed that!) but luckily there is only one ornament that he really finds attractive......and it's a chime so I know when he's over there!

While we were waiting for Ian to get home from work so that we could go get our tree, we headed outside for a few minutes. Kylie wanted to jump in the leaves, so I went to get our rake to create a small pile. Luckily there were two rakes because they ended up deciding that raking was more fun than jumping!












And then of course we came in for a snack and with that the kids finished up an entire crate of Clementines in one week!

No worries about scurvy in this house!