Deck the Halls

We were excited this year to get up our Christmas decorations. To the kids delight, Paul put up lights on the bushes outside and even got a little "extravagant" with some lights on our only tree in the backyard. Since Jack loves blue he put white and not one, but two colors of blue lights up on the tree. Our neighbors are highly impressed with his tree wrapping skills that end about as high as Paul can reach. It looks a little goofy, but the kids love it. Inside, we decided to do two trees, one in the front room and one in the living room. The kids of course think all the lights and decorations are great. For the first several days Logan would point and "ooooo" at the trees every time he saw them all lit up. Last year the twins were too little to really enjoy any of the Christmas festivities, but this year though they don't understand they still get caught up in the excitement. We got an early Christmas present from Kevin and Nicole, a Christmas Geotrax train. The boys have spent hours driving trains around and now it encircles the Christmas tree.

Paul and Jack went out and got this tree last Sunday afternoon. They got there with barely enough time to pick a tree and buy it before the place closed. Despite being rushed they found the perfect tree, tall and skinny. Jack helped decorate it later that night and since then the bottom has been redecorated daily. But really the kids are good about leaving it alone for the most part, though they really love the ornaments Jack and I made with their pictures on them. Jack also helped me make a tree topper for this tree. I couldn't find one I liked the few times I looked while out shopping so I found a tutorial online to make a paper plate angel, thank you Martha Stewart. Jack is really into glitter glue, especially of the blue variety, so I cut out the template and he went to town with the glitter.

We've put up pretty much all our decorations now and besides the trees, it's a little hard to tell. What would have filled our last home to the brim with Christmasyness, barely makes a splash in this home. I'm hoping we find some excellent after Christmas sales on things to spruce it up a little more next year.