Another Catch-up

My, how time flies! I keep meaning to blog things that happen from day to day and just don't ever get to it! Here are a few different updates from our last week or so....

First of all, the baby is doing great! Almost 27 weeks old in utero and a real kicker. I've had a couple of people ask why I don't blog about her more. Well, part of the reason is that with pregnancy number three, I just kind of coast through it alot. :) But, most of the reason is because little missy has her own posts dedicated to her on the baby blog. I know I'm a blogging retard, and don't have links on my site, so if you didn't already know I had a blog for baby girl, the link is: http://ourbabyblessing.blogspot.com.

A few fun things that have been going on around here have been cold winter days (like most of you) where we don't leave our PJ's, lots of Christmas decorating (which I LOVE), a sweet birthday party for one of my favorite one-year-olds (my nephew Braden), and the busy-ness that December brings!

Last week, we enjoyed the snow/ice that we had for a couple of days. We had to go to school for the main "snow day", but the girls enjoyed seeing it out their classroom windows, and my three year old class was squealing with delight as they watched it come down and coat (barely) the bushes and the trees. When we got home from school, we got right into "snow day" mode. We had hot chocolate, got the fire going, changed immediately to flannels, and watched our new Christmas movie, The First Noel. We spent the night indoors, and woke up to more ice---a great excuse to hang out longer in our PJ's!

After the ice melted on Friday, we took a family day to hang out at the mall. (I say a "family day"...really, Mark took the day off of work and hung out with the girls while Mommy shopped on my own! It was a great family day! ha ha.) Mark and the girls went to see Happy Feet, got McDonald's at the mall, rode the carousel, got ice cream at Marble Slab, and walked around the mall. Meanwhile, I got a few Christmas gifts finished, and got the rest of our "tree supplies" for decorating at home.

The rest of the weekend was busy, busy! Saturday, we got to celebrate with Braden, as he turned ONE! It was such a fun party and my sister did the best job at having a fun farm party for all of us. Kendyll and Carlie got very into the fun, and enjoyed being the "big cousins", helping Braden do everything from eat his cake to open his presents. I tried not to be the annoyed mom the whole time telling them to stop helping so much (but I probably still was)! Is this not the cutest birthday boy you've ever seen?

I could just eat him up! And, Kendyll was hilarious. I told her Braden's party was a "farm party", so she insisted on wearing her "bandan" (bandana) and she would only wear it around the front of her shirt like a "real cowgirl". She was a bit dorky, since no other kids dressed for the theme, but she's still cute to me. Probably because I made her into the dork that she is. :)
Carlie was obsessed with the outside playhouse on the swing set and the birthday gift bags....not the gifts inside, just the bags. She had five on her arm at one time and was telling everyone "bye". I guess she was off to shop or something.
Anyway, the party was so fun, and it's so hard to believe that Braden was born a year ago! How did I know then how much FUN being an aunt would be? He was my first, and now we have Sophie too. I had no idea how much I could love someone else's kids! Happy birthday, Braden. We love you and your sweet cheeks so much!

After the party, we went home to do more Christmas decorating. Usually, I'm obsessive about doing it all at one time and just getting it done! But, this year, with the pregnancy factor and just the busy schedule we've had every day, we have only had time to do a little bit every day. Saturday was supposed to be the tree. But, it wasn't.

Many of you probably remember from last year, that I was thrilled that my "real tree" husband finally agreed to my idea for an artificial tree (Although I have always had real trees too, I was tired of the pine needle mess stuck in my carpet and the dead tree in our living room by December 18th.) So, in the after-Christmas markdown season last year, I purchased a beautiful 12 foot pre-lit tree 60% off! It was a great deal and I was so excited!

Now, they guaranteed me when I bought it that all the lights worked and that it had just been set-up in the store, so they knew this was true. Well, they either lied or somehow I broke 800 of the 1100 lights on this dumb tree. Because most of them DID NOT WORK!

I had my serious doubts about this whole tree thing as I took this monstrous thing out of the box, looked at its bent and misshapen branches, and then plugged it in to only have a few lights at the bottom work. Mark was ready to trash the tree and go to our favorite tree farm and "go back to the real thing". I, too, dreaded the work ahead of re-bending each stinkin' branch, and then unwinding some very tightly wound Christmas lights from each twig only to replace them with my own lights that I had to go purchase because we threw all of our old lights out last year! So, it has seriously caused me to have a block against decorating a tree this year. I have been staring at this ugly thing in my living room for a week now, and Saturday was the day I finally started.

Notice I say started. It took forever. However, I'm glad to say that we are now officially done with the tree as of yesterday evening. And, I love it. The "artificial" part of it is great for a few reasons:
1) After I finally got all 1200 lights on, I hopefully won't have to do that every year now! Or, take them all off every year like I always do with real trees.
2) If there is a spot I don't like, or a "bare" looking branch, I can just bend the twigs to fill the spot! With a real tree, there is no bending and rigging possibilities for making a certain ornament hang in just the right spot.
3) After all the bending, tugging, pulling, and moving of branches and lights, there weren't ANY pine needles to clean up! Sure, there were a few pieces of pinecone on the floor (this is a "natural" looking tree complete with pinecones), but for the most part, the carpet was completely clean---a look I prefer for my floors!
4) It is perfect in shape, perfect in height, perfect (now) in amount of lights, and beautiful to look at. Most years, we found a pretty good tree (thanks to my anal ability to "pick 'em" from a tree farm), but nothing that had no natural holes or didn't lean a fraction to the right or left. So, I'm happy with my fake, but pretty, tree....even though it doesn't smell as good in our house as it usually has in the past. :)

Here is a picture of my sweet girls last night after baths, when we had finally finished the ornament hanging. They have on the cutest pj's from grandma and were so proud of the job they did on the tree. There is nothing better than Christmas time with lights through the house, Christmas music blasting, and two darn cute girls dancing their hearts out to "Go Tell It On the Mountain". Now, tonight, we plan on enjoying the beauty of a finally finished Christmas house. My favorite time of year, for so many reasons. It makes me smile, even after a day today with a room full of crazy three year olds.