Our Beautiful Tree

Day 5 - Decorate the Christmas tree

I had a vision of what our Christmas tree was going to look like this year. I was going to go for a cute Badger red and shiny silver tree. Unfortunately, no one else in my family had my vision (maybe Ella did, but no one understood her).

So, we are having a multicolored lit tree. With lots of multicolored, not matching ornaments. I shouldn't have had such high expectations, look at how my girls dress themselves. The first task was to veto the cute white lights and bust out the multicolored strands.

Fast forward a few hours, when we finally get out the ornaments.
No day is complete without my cutest little Christmas angel.
Once we ran out of room on the lower branches of the tree, we needed to move up to the top of the tree.

So our tree is up in our house and mostly decorated. We will have to finish up tomorrow. We quit early tonight to head out to a local subdivision that had luminaries lit for the holidays. The girls were delighted to see that Santa was at the subdivision entrance handing out candy canes.

See you tomorrow for another fun filled December activity.

The Perfect Tree

Day 4 - Get a Christmas Tree. I tried to convince the girls that we should just go to Target and buy a tree that already had lights on it. No luck. I even gave them the option of getting a cute pink tree... still no luck. So, we bundled up and headed out to the tree farm to find the perfect Christmas tree.

We couldn't have asked for better day. It had snowed last night so the trees had a beautiful snow covered coat. It was enough snow to cover the browns of fall with beautiful winter white scenery. But, not too much snow that we could walk through the snow easily.

Ella was not so sure of all this clothes and going into a woods business.
Grace looked and looked.
Grace: "How about this one Dad?"
Dad: "Too tall."
Lydia spent her time sitting in her sled.
Ella and Daddy.
Grace kept looking...
Grace: "How about this one"
Mom: "Too short"

So Lydia helped too.
We finally agreed on a tree that was in the farthest corner from our wagon pickup. Grace offered to pull it back.
When we got back to the wagon for our ride back to the hot cocoa tent, we saw Santa!! We piled in for a family picture.
Then Grace hopped up on his tractor with him.
We had a great day getting our tree. We'll see what tomorrow's activity brings us. (It'll be hard to beat a special visit from Santa though).

Advent Tree - Day 3

Knowing what we had planned for the day today, I was tempted to wake up early and change the activity for the day. This morning I worked out at the gym, then took the girls swimming before going home for lunch. After a morning of swimming, I knew it would be a nap day for sure. Paul and the girls were going swimming again after dinner while I was going to Zumba. It didn't leave a lot of time for our activity or for blogging about it. (I know that once I get behind in the blogging, I might be behind the rest of the month).

But, I left it as it was originally written and figured it might just be a super crazy day.

(We don't always spend this much time at the Y. But, Paul and I are participating in a fitness challenge through his employer AND I am in a fitness challenge with my moms club).

Today's activity was to bake cookies with Mom. Having two very pretty girls usually means that we use twice as many dishes as necessary and a larger mess. Today was no different. Grace and Lydia measured and dumped and stirred.
Beat the cookie dough...
Then rolled the dough into little balls...
before rolling in sugar...
unwraped the Hershey Kisses... (I was a little concerned when neither of them asked for a piece of chocolate. What's wrong with them? I really wanted chocolate by this point in the day).
But we baked the cookies, and then patiently waited. They look delicious!
Ella woke up just in time to taste the cookies!
My happy pretty girl covered in chocolate!!
Finger lickin' good!!
It's no wonder that nobody wanted to eat dinner after our afternoon cookiefest.

We are supposed to get our first real snow tomorrow. I hope it doesn't interrupt tomorrow's activity.

Advent Tree - Day 2

Our daily activity today is Make Christmas Paper Chains. I had never done paper chains with Lydia before so I did a couple with her first. She thought she had the hang of it. Check out her progress.
Then we worked on it a little bit more. Here she is deep in thought.
Grace was quite focused too.
We had to make extra sure that these paper chains would last a LONG time so we used a LOT of glue. At least Lydia did.
Grace was a little bit more particular about her glue placement.
Here my happy girls are with their finished products. Now we just need to let them dry before hanging them.
We can't wait until tomorrow. (Here's a hint - I expect to have a very messy kitchen)!!!

Advent Tree - Day 1

As I write this post, I am already thinking that it might be a bad idea... I'm not great at blogging every day. Our days are sometimes crazy and unpredictable. Some days Lydia and Ella both nap, other days just Ella. Other days, I am cuddling cute sick girls more than on other days. But here goes...

Day One: Write a Letter to Santa.

The girls wrote letters to Santa this afternoon. Here's Grace hard at work.

Ella busy too. (I hope Santa can read scribbles).
and of course... Lydia (who only took the pen to pretend to write a letter to make Grace mad)...

O Christmas Tree

Have you ever seen those cute little advent calendars with a little treat for each day? What a great way to keep track of how much longer until Christmas. Last year, I made a muffin tin calendar for Grace and Lydia. It was cute, but small. This year I wanted to do something that both Grace and Lydia could do together. So, just like in November we made another tree. This time the instead of a tree with leaves, we painted our tree and decorated it with ornaments.
Every day, both Grace and Lydia will find the ornament that matches the day, get a treat (still left over from Halloween), and on the back of each ornament we will do a special Christmas activity. We are looking forward to a fun filled December!

Short and Sweet Thanksgiving Post

Since it is now officially December, I have little interest in thinking back to Thanksgiving, but I though I should post a quick Thanksgiving picture before going full speed into Christmas.

We celebrate Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Pedersen's house. This year was no different. We at a bunch (Grace had PB&J). Grace and Lydia played with Nona and Erick. Judy and I looked at sale ads. Ella won over everyone's hearts with her cuteness. ..and I have no idea what Paul was doing... none at all. After everyone else went home, Grace and Lydia put Grandma to work reading them books.


Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!