Christmas Decorations

We spent most of the day getting the house "Christmas ready".  I love this time of the year.  Taking out decorations from years past and finding the perfect place for them, lighting up the trees, listening to Christmas music and creating memories :)

Here are a few of the decoration around our house...enjoy!

Our family ornament for the year:

The stocking are hung up - from left to right: my dad, Larry, Sarah, Alex, Jaxon and my mom :)

In the curio cabinet with the urns, I put my mom's favorite little santa :)

One of my childhood decorations - mistletoe!  Got this one from my mom and dad and have fond memories of hanging it up each year with them:

One of my favorite wreaths - it has jingle bells on it.  Alex loves the sound of the bells and will open an shut the door no less than 10 times a day:

Snowman nightlight:

Coffee table in the foyer:

The snowman lit up:

One of my favorite snowman:

The wine rack:

My angel nightlight that I got from my mom:

Our Christmas countdown calendar.  I remember growing up I could not wait to change the mouse everyday :)

The moose nightlight - love it:

Merry Christmas:

Christmas Tree #2

Tonight, we decorated our second Christmas tree.  We decided to put this one downstairs in our breakfast nook.  This will be the tree that Santa put presents underneath and where we will open presents on Christmas morning.  This is also the tree that holds our most special ornaments - ornaments that bring back memories to make you laugh and cry and memories that take me back to my childhood!  The tree is a little tall (and we only had one angel), so this tree got a bow.

Enjoy the pictures of Christmas Tree #2:

Before:

Love this hat...and this kid:

During:

After:

A New Tradition

Today, Alex, Larry and I went to a local Christmas Tree Farm - Valley Christmas Tree Plantation to chop down our first Christmas tree as a family!  We had a blast!

I had done this before growing up and to this day, the memories are still fresh in my head.  I remember having so much fun with my dad and my uncles and finding the Christmas tree that would stand in our house for the next month, the tree that we would lovingly decorate and a tree that my dad might have declared "the perfect" tree and he may or may not have taken the "sold" sign off it and chopped it down for us to take home!  Thankfully the laws aren't too strict on Christmas Tree stealing, or my dad could have been looking a hard time :)

Anyway....back to our trip today!  Larry had never chopped down a Christmas Tree before (coincidently, neither had Alex).  We created yet another amazing memory for our little family of three (soon to be four).

After walking around for a little bit, we found it...the perfect tree.  For all the readers that know their Christmas tree varieties, we got a Leyland Cypress.  It is a bunch different than the trees that I remember getting as a child, but different is good!  It has beautiful shape and looks great with lights and decorations on it.

Here are some pictures of our tree chopping down experience - I will have another post soon with the finished product:

Walking with Daddy:

So excited...he is running to find the tree:

Love his sense of fashion:

Carrying the measuring stick for Daddy:

Daddy and Alex surveying the tree:

Daddy and Alex by the tree...take 1:

Daddy and Alex by the tree...take 2:

Alex by the tree...take 1:

Alex by the tree...take 2:

 Daddy sawing and Alex supervising:

Daddy still sawing...Alex is cheesin' it up!  This is one of my favorite pictures of the day:

A little more supervising going on:

Alex is getting a little bored:

Timber....the tree is down:

Daddy carrying the tree and Alex running near him:

Our tree tied securely on our car...we hope:

Christmas Tree #1

This year, we are putting up two trees.  The first tree will be upstairs - it is in the playroom, so it will just have lights, garland and an angel on top.  We decided to put it up and decorate it tonight!

Here are a few pictures:

The tree on the balcony:

Larry working on the lights - Alex helping :)

Love this smile:

 Looking guilty:

 Making sure the lights work:

Larry putting up the lights and Alex "helping":

 Loves the lights:

Smiley kid:

Running around the tree:

 All lit up:

I know this one is blurry, but I absolutely love it.  He is pointing out the lights on the tree and telling us how beautiful they are:

Silly kid:

As a special treat this year, my grandma (Karen) gave us a train that my grandfather (Bob) used to put under their tree every year.  I have always loved this train, the village the belongs with it and watching Bob put it all together.  I spent many nights watching that train go around and around the tree!  When we told Alex that we had a train to put under the tree this year, I don't think he understood what kind of train we were going to use (he is used to his "Geotrax" sets.  He was in utter amazement when we pulled out the train box, real tracks and began setting it up.  Thank you grandma for allowing Bob's train to live on through this 3 year olds eyes - you will never know what this means to us!

Here are some pictures of setting up the train:

Can you see the pure joy and excitement on this child's face?

Telling us "all aboard":

Someone is happy:

Playing with the remote:

Waiting on Daddy to get it working:

LOVE THIS ONE:

Alex's train set up (an elf from a Santa set, a transformer from his McDonald's meal, a few trees and some snow drifts):

Watching the train:

The final product....minus the angel on top: