I was hoping to get this up first thing Saturday evening, while it was all still fresh in my mind, but alas, life takes priority and now it’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m trying to cram it in to the 15 minutes I have before leaving to pick up the kids and hit the swimming pool. Sooo… here goes!

We had a festive weekend. I signed the kids up for an Elves Workshop held at Lex’s school. I see ads for it every year but this is the first year they were both old enough. The program is run by a local high school youth-in-action group (or something like that!) and they have craft projects and snacks for the kids. They had a blast! They decorated cookies and candles and ornaments. Eve was pleased to find a friend from her class there as well. When I picked the kids up two hours later they were jacked up on holiday sugar and happy as… well, as children at Christmas!! :)

They headed straight for the cookie decorating station!

I took five pictures of these two silly girls and this was the best one I got. For some reason I could not get two sugared up four year olds to stand still for me! Imagine that! :)

We came home for lunch (I was hungry anyway!) and then piled into the car to get a Christmas tree. I had the kids all bundled appropriately, but I forgot one tiny thing. Boots!! We tromped through slushy, muddy fields to pick the perfect tree. Actually, Eve led us right to the slushy side, promptly stepped in a not-quite-frozen puddle and spent the rest of the time walking around in soaking wet “party shoes.” Opps! I carried her to the other side of the field which was much drier and we were quick about picking a tree. Luckily it was a great field and finding a good one wasn’t that hard.

Should we get this tree?

Or this one?

There's our tree! And our very handsome lumberjack!

Back home we had some much needed quiet time (in which Alan put up tree and I put on the lights) and then we cracked open the big box of ornaments and went to town! It was fun, fun, fun! The kids were enthralled and Lex kept declaring the tree “all done!” because he was in a huge hurry to turn on the lights. When it really was all done we plugged in the tree lights, turned off the living room lights, and properly admired our tree. Then I wrangled them all for a family photo :)

Eve insisted on unwrapping and carrying several fragile ornaments at a time. Then she would get frustrated because she couldn't hold them all while hanging them one at a time. Logic eventually caught up to her enthusiasm.

Lex was very careful and gentle in his decorating efforts this year.

Just one final tweak to the star...

Ohhhh..... ahhhh..... rejoice!

Merry Christmas!!

The magical view from under the tree.

After dinner Lex put his feelings into dry-erase artwork.

Lex drawing a holiday masterpiece

1... 2... 3... Christmas tree!

Just for fun, here’s last year’s tree decorating post… by the same name. Creative, I am not. Apparently I like the tree better back in the corner. Something I should probably remember for next year. So far I’m happy with it by the closet this year.