Kicking the Beast

The "You're Way Behind Blogging Beast" is sitting on my back and every day that passes he gets heavier and heavier! I'm going to try and catch up in little bites. Christmas this year was literally a blur. Between ice storms, power outages, my new "job" watching Stevie, Christmas just snuck up and bit me in the butt! I ended up doing all my shopping hurriedly online at the last minute, didn't get to do the activities with the kids I wanted to, and I was up almost all night Christmas Eve wrapping and preparing things. My quest for this year is to have shopping, crafting, and preparations done before the Christmas tree goes up. I want to enjoy, and be able to convey the real meaning of the season to my kids this year. It's a very exciting prospect!

Anyways, onto Christmas 2008 recap.
First up, cutting down the tree:

When we moved here, there were four spruce trees on the side lawn that were peculiarly placed. We decided they would be our Christmas trees for our first four years here. Well this year we cut down the very last one, boo hoo! Anyways, we had just come home from Greg's work Christmas party (which rocked by the way and I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my camera! It was put on completely for the kids, amazing balloon artists, musicians, face painting, cookie decorating and crafts, way too much fun!!). We usually put our tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving, but that weekend was so packed we had to push it off a week.

Ian was happy to help once he realized Greg had deemed him old enough to help with the clippers this year. Not sure why he thought perching himself on Greg's back was help, but it was cute anyways. I didn't get to pay total attention to the cutting process, because Ana was running a muck exploring the yard.

The only picture where I got Ana to actually look in my direction!

Stay tuned for:
Decorating the Tree