Our Christmas Tree is Up

Christmas tree time!!  Is it me or did this year literally pass by in a mili-second?  I mean, it's terrible because that means I'm getting older quicker.  Not good, not good.  

Anyway, it was time for another family night decorating our tree.  Last year, Bossy was an awesome helper.  And I'd have to say, he was pretty amazing this year, too.  He was really into making sure the ornaments were in the right place and he had some good opinions about which ornaments to add to the tree.  The best part was seeing him so excited to help and interested.  I know he was proud of the end result.

It would have taken me a month of Sundays if he hadn't helped.  Although, it did take a little longer after a little dancing, photo/video taking, singing, time-out episodes and snack breaks.  But we got her up and she's a Beaut!!

 Bossy told me to pose.  ha.

 Snack break for the littlest. 

 Bossy laughed after he took this photo because he caught me off guard and snapped it without me knowing.  Love that little due.

 Teaching Bossy the 3 things that you need to start a fire.  

 He was the best helper.  

 Ohhh this guy. He was a mess.  Cranky as all get out.  

 Our first fire in our "new" fireplace.  *we recently knocked out our tile that surrounded our fireplace and added rock all the way up to the ceiling. more on that later*

 So, each year we'll have the boys take a photo of the tree after we've set it up and decorated it.  The two previous years were easy peasy.  This year, not so much.  :)

Navy boy was adamant about not-taking-a-photo.  So we rolled with the punches and snapped a few anyway.  Ha.  You know-for those later photos that we can show to his future wife.  Oh, and to remember that night.  I'm sure I'll laugh later, even though I wasn't laughing at all during the moment.  :) 

Until next year, boys!

xo,
Jen

Christmas Decorating - Part 2

Now that its ohhhh....January 15th, I thought it was time to wrap up the rest of our Christmas decor that we got to enjoy for over a month...which is totally not enough time.  If it were up to me, I'd keep everything up all year long.  How cheerful would that be?!  Mighty.  

But now that all of this has been taken down, it's been nice to go back over these pictures to remember all the joy these decorations brought our home.  Gosh, I love Christmas and everything about it.  Missing the holidays already.  

Simple but perfect for us.

 What we got to enjoy at night with all the lights off.

xo

The Christmas Decorating Tradition - Part 1

Every year we all put up our Christmas decorations as a family and this year was no different.  We listened to Christmas music and documented our night.  Keeping my fingers crossed that Boston grows up loving this little tradition and passes it down to his kids.  

He was a little more into it this year than he was last year.  Although, after about 25 minutes of helping with lights and hanging alls on the Christmas tree he was pretty much done.  He moved on to some trains playing, taunting Jet with the Christmas tree lights and wanting a snack.  Toddlers.  

Clearly he grew a little.  :)  Last years Christmas pj's.

Daddy puts the tree together.  I spread the branches out so the tree looks full.  And then dada wraps the tree with lights.  Yes, we are still living in the 1990's with a light-less tree.  :)

That hiney cracked us up with those tight pj's on.

 His ball hanging was superb.

 Superb-ly all in one spot.

 Ohhh and we can't forget our infamous tradition of hanging a ball together.  Mainly to see how big he grows each year.  

2012 :: 2011 :: 2010

Our perfectly imperfect 2013 Christmas tree!

xo

It's A Gingerbread Train

There's gonna be lots of recapping from Christmas going on over here.  There was lots done which means lots to write about.  And I thought before we get too far down the road (kinda like our family trip that we took back in October that I haven't written about) I better go ahead and purge everything in the next 2 weeks.

So today its all about trains, candy, gingerbread and a candy-eating/decorating toddler.

Anything candy and trains was bound to be a hit with this guy.

There was a few seconds where I thought that this whole "gingerbread decorating" wasn't gonna happen.  You see, this was my first time to put together a gingerbread anything.  I wasn't using enough icing to hold the walls up so they wouldn't stay standing up.  After about 35 minutes and a pile of icing between each wall, wheels and roof of the train they were standing up!  And instead of waiting until it was all dried up, we decided to get goin'.  Not a good idea.  About every 3rd piece of candy that we pressed on....it would make the walls or wheels fall over.  Its too bad I didn't get a picture of it but I was too busy frantically mashing them back together.  

Clearly we should have waited for daddy to get home so we could have an extra set of hands.  And big ones.   

But all was well after about 20 minutes of drying time. 

I'm pretty sure he ate every other piece he applied to the train.  And so did mommy.  :)

I iced up and he applied.  Anywhere I put icing he would fill in.  It was a great team effort.

From his view.  

There she blows.  A pretty little thing that he was oh so proud of.  

Great job, Bos-man.