Thursday, December 27, 2007

So this blog thing...



Okay I have never been that good at keeping up with a journal, and I guess a blog is just that, a journal. So for me I will always forget to say a little something everyday. Is that bad or wrong, its not like anyone really even looks at my blog or reads it. I just do it for my own personal enjoyment. Crazy as it sounds, I really don't know how to use it very well, but I am hoping to get better at it soon!






Christmas was a wonderful day for us! We slept in until 9:30 and took hours to open all the gifts. The kids were thrilled with everything, I think...Here's some pictures of the kids opening gifts...

Sunday, December 2, 2007

So today is the day that we start our Christmas decorating. We had thought we might have our floors replaced first and then decorate, but we realize that we may not have enough time right before Christmas to put up our trees and all my stuff! My ds would be so upset if we didn't do our annual activities, so we started last night hauling all 21 rubbermaid boxes out of the attic, this morning I have already went through 17 of the boxes and done some reorganizing, giving several decorations away to charity and putting other decorations back into the attic because we will not be using them this year. I use to put up 6 trees but last year it was 3 and this year I am thinking it will be 3 again, not counting my 2-3ft little trees, one goes on my front porch and the other goes in my dining room, except this year it might find a new home...
My dd has gone a little modern in her decorating, she has what I call a Charlie Brown tree, except glittery and it is only about 3 ft tall, no lights are needed and she puts orange, hot pink, green and blue light bulb ornaments. It is kind of fun and matches her room really well. She use to love gingerbread and her tree was decorated with pastel colored decorations...it has been several years since she has wanted to do that again.
My ds is crazy about decorating, this year he is going to add his Webkinz to his tree, he has 25 of them, we usually hand make many of the ornaments he puts on his tree, but this year it is going to be all about his toys! He even wants to put some of his McDonald toys on hooks for the tree. He saw this at the Festival of Trees last year, so now he wants to do it. Not only do we decorate a tree for his room, but he puts out little decorations around his room, it is really cute, he likes his room to look like the rest of the house...so funny!
I use to put a tree in my room with Girl Scout decorations, I use to be in a group for Girl Scouts that did a holiday swap of ornaments. We would make 10 of the same ornament and receive 10 different ornaments in return, I did this for several years and have over 100 ornaments, some of which are GS related others just homemade...I love that tree, but it is just too much work to put yet another tree up so that one won't go up this year. The group is no longer doing the swap so no new ornaments anyway. My living room tree is decorated in snowmen, one year I had a 10 ft tree, another year it was a 7ft tree, this year I think I will use my smaller 6 ft. tree, it doesn't take up much room. Of course I have over 300 snowmen ornaments, they will not all fit on the small tree, but when the 10 ft one is up, I almost don't have enough ornaments!!! Crazy as it sounds! My mom offered her prelit tree, I may decide to use it, but it is a 45 minute drive to her house and I am not sure I want to go that far, we will have to see. I haven't bought any of the pre lit trees because I like tons more lights than they put on those pre lit trees. Every year I say I am going to get one and every year I always complain about not enough lights...I guess I need to spend the big bucks to get one with lots of lights.
I know my decoratings sounds like an obsession and maybe it is, but I just love this time of year and the magic of the season. I of course love the reason we celebrate and love to teach my children about the importance of the day-Jesus' Birthday, I like to tell the kids we are decorating for his birthday...and we like to go all out because he is that important in our life!
I also love having a family tradition of making the cookies and getting the decorations down, listening to music and having family time. There is always a disagreement or 2 because not all of my family share in the decorate every room in your house theory! Can you guess who that is? My DH!!!!! He is a Bah Humbug~! Only for the decorations, he loves Christmas morning and watching the kids light up with excitement. I guess my obsession has really gotten to him! This year he hasn't even complained, he actually bought 3 new fans for my blow up snowman that bit the dust last year! I can't believe he is going to fix it! He also has been helping with the decorating too. Speaking of decorating, I must get back to that or I will never finish! I just wanted to share a little of my Christmas spirit with everyone!