My family of three

ornaments! I figure not everyone will actually see my decorations...so I thought I'd share some of my favorites.. Cayleigh's first ornament... Last year's... love this one :) This one has special meaning. This ornament was made by me on the first year we moved out. Marissa used to call our place "the department"... My dad painted this for me and all of the dogs have a tag that had someone important in our lives. Some have since passed, but it will always have a special place in my house. We have been doing an advent calender with Cayleigh this year. Her grandma got it for her and used to do it with Matt when he was a boy, so we thought we would carry on the tradition. In addition, we bought a christmas book that explains the true meaning of christmas, and only after she sits through the book does she get her piece of chocolate. She absolutely loves it and starts getting excited for her "book and choccccc" at lunch, though we don't read the book...

Today we got together with Willow and Sarah, Uncle Keith and Lauren's newest edition, Isla! Here is the last time we saw Willow and Sarah. Our girls are growing up so fast! We met at an inflatable party place and the girls took a few minutes to warm up to the idea, but once they saw other kids, got right in. Cayleigh was NOT on her best behavior, but Willow seemed to be! And did I forget to mention Isla?? She is so beautiful, and her smile was just too sweet. Meet Isla... :) We did take note of the immediate connection Willow and Cayleigh seemed to have. They just really seemed comfortable with each other, almost as if they remembered each other. Going down the slide alone... and together!! Little Ma and Poppy-this is for you, it's the best we could do! and the obligatory goodbye hugs and kisses!

So back in the fall, we went on a walk at the park and Cayleigh decided to collect a ton of pinecones that had fallen. They stayed in my car for about 2 months and I had all of these hopes of making a wreath, or making ornaments....didn't happen. I wanted to do something with her though so we ended up making glitter pinecones. What do you do with glitter pinecones? I don't know. But sometimes the process is more of the point than the end process, right? :) Oh and any suggestions are welcomed! Ta-da! PS-I did 2 posts so don't miss the christmas tree post below! :)

With all of my happiness about blogging one year, I nearly forgot about doing a christmas tree post!! As always, we planned to get our christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving. With rain in the forecast, we postponed it to Sunday, and were happy to hear that the weather would be nice. Last year, it was really cold, so when we arrived and the sun was shining, we were thrilled. Problem was, it was TOO hot. Our truck temp put it somewhere in the low to mid 60's and when you are walking around a tree farm for 2 hours, makes it no fun. For some reason, out of the 10,000 trees on the farm, we could not seem to agree on one. Too fat, too short, too much dead on the inside....I think we *almost* took all of the fun out of it! We walked around the entire farm twice I think before going back to one that we originally labeled too wide. As we were debating over the size, a ladybug flew off and we deemed it to be a lucky tree, and we cut it down. It IS a little wide for the place, bu...

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