Elf came a couple of weeks ago. He made us a yummy breakfast as always.

This time powdered donuts and candy canes. mmm.

The donuts

Finntree with a little powdered donut on his face.

 Finntree always brings our Christmas pjs. They weren't on the table this year! They were hidden...

and the kids had to find them.

Pjs were found under beds and 

in the toy box!

Making a great Angry Bird Face.

All three in our jammies.

 I can't get enough of these darling button down jammies for Q.

Finn tree has done some other amazing things.

busy

December has been full of fun! 

There is not time to blog..

The kids and I just got back from Louisiana for a week visiting my parents.

It was such a great time! We miss them already!

We have been home for 1 day, and I have addressed all my christmas cards, wrapped presents, planned Christmas morning meal, been to a holiday party, made teacher gifts for M and B's teacher, class gifts for their kindergarten friends. 

Santa is coming tonight and Christmas morning is tomorrow for us.

Then we are going to a ballet recital for Berkleigh, a birthday party, and the office party.

(Somewhere in there I need to make taquitos.) 

Then I need to take down the Christmas tree so it isn't dry and catching on fire while we are gone.

Then Thursday we have another kid Christmas party and packing, and then that night we head out for California.

When we get to CA we have a day or so to hang with family, and then we are all catching a cruise ship out of Long Beach for a glorious week in Mexico for Christmas. We bon voyage on the 23rd with parasailing on Christmas Day and some zip lining and atving later in the week. 

I look forward to that trip, but the packing and amazing amount of fun and work to be done before the trip is exhausting me. :)

Just stopping it to say hi. Maybe I will blog tomorrow, but probably not. I might not see you until January. Who knows... but I do know that I will be getting a tan in some Mexican 80 degree weather.

Good night.

True meaning

When we decorated for Christmas this year, we put the nativity up first.

We read in Luke 2, and the kids placed the different people as they came into the story.

It was a reverent little experience for our family, and one that M & B have continued to talk about. 

I think we just started a new tradition.

Trying out a pinterest idea...

I saw this these two really cool photos on pinterest.

Here and Here

I am trying to practice different photography techniques (if you call this that.)

Anyways, this is what I ended up with. 

I love the lights, the bokeh (right?), and the glow on the floor from the lights, and who wouldn't love that little girl.

I'll take it.

Trimming the tree

I actually did just that. 

Our poor tree had a pregnant belly on one side. Just over growth of branches in one particular part. I trimmed her right up, and then the light wrapping, ornament hanging, christmas carol singing could commence.

Tyson, so happy to do the lights. 

Not. 

I always complain the lights aren't even, or there aren't enough lights, or there is a dark hole somewhere. He hates it. 

So I tried to change this year, and not care. Um, I still cared, but I wasn't a army general yelling where the lights needed to go. hehe.

Then the hanging of the ornaments. While we did most of it, Quincy did this:

Quincy needed to sleep, but she kinda missed last years Christmas with all the eating and sleeping she did, so we kept her up a bit to hang a couple ornaments.

I know she will thank us for this wonderful memory we created for her.

 I spy one of my favorite ornaments...

I love our Golden Gate Bridge. It is so fun to bring out our ornaments and remember some of the best memories we have. Living in the bay area was one of them.

Getting our tree

We got our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Why? Cause we are leaving soon for Louisiana on the 10th, coming back on the 17th, leaving the 20th for California, then leaving the 23rd for our Mexican cruise with Tyson's family. Eek. So excited.

We needed to start holiday cheer early, and early we did. We went straight from family pictures to the tree farm to buy a cheap, beautiful Oregon tree.

You know me... dressing the part. Gotta wear my lumberjack outfit.
(Cause lumberjacks where plum jeans.)

Found it.
It is a really large tree.
Berkleigh looks really smug about finding it.

Probably the cutest little Christmas tree farm ever. Really.

There is nothing like finding the perfect tree and then cutting it down yourself.... oh and the best part, paying WAY less than anywhere else.
Who is going to come and visit me for Thanksgiving next year, get a tree, and take it home with them?
Sounds good, eh?