Our Beautiful Christmas Tree!

We had a lot of fun decorating the Christmas tree this year! The kids were very excited to hang ornaments on that Friday after Thanksgiving. After hanging the very first new ornaments and getting some much needed fresh air, we got started on our first tub of ornaments. The kids loved discovering what ornaments awaited them- "Mickey!" "Wall-E!" "A car with REAL working wheels!" (Daniel) "Elmo!" "Minnie!" (Annabel) and so on. Each new ornament pulled out of the tub was Annabel's favorite, "my FAVorite!" she'd say as she gave me each ornament box to help her open.

They quickly figured out (or in Daniel's case remembered) which ornaments made sounds and then the real fun began! Each ornament was inspected after that for buttons to press! The "Imperial March" (the first 30 seconds of this video will suffice to get the song stuck in your head!) is now running through my head constantly since that is Daniel's favorite sound ornament this year- he's always pushing that button! (I think we're starting a Star Wars fan here, though he's years away from seeing the movie in my opinion, but thanks to a few very basic Star Wars board books we own and some he's gotten at the library AND Angry Birds Star Wars which he plays on Daddy's tablet, we have a budding fan. "Are you a Star Wars fan?! Then come watch me play Angry Birds Star Wars!"- and he's actually pretty good at this game!) Annabel loves the button on the framed family picture ornaments where Daniel is talking, especially the one where he says "I love you Mommy, Hugs and Kisses, and Merry Christmas"- also my favorite ones because of his little voice and our family pictures in them. (Ben, if you're reading this, I need another one of those this year with Annabel's voice, too!!!) (And how do you bottle up their little voices forever?! Now that I think about it, I should probably video tape those ornaments heaven forbid that recording disappears! Annabel may just wear out that button this year!)

Anyway, we got one tub done before their much-needed nap time and then as soon as Annabel woke up, we three finished the second tub and then a few other boxes of ornaments, too. (And I found some more boxes of ornaments on Saturday night!) The kids hung 80% of the ornaments themselves and did a pretty awesome job of getting them hung up all over and around the tree. I did some up higher of course (Daddy did the ones even higher than that!) and also any that Annabel handed to me for me to do, since she found the hooks hard to do (she liked ornaments with loops better- these were understandably easier for her to do!). It was nice quiet afternoon decorating the tree- I needed that special time with my kids!

One of the first things Annabel said when we got the tree out was that it needed a yellow star. It was so cute. This was one the first things Daniel pointed out as well when he was her age, that we needed a star- and at the time we didn't even have a star for our tree top so he and I made one. Daniel quickly told Annabel we had one, but it was red; that was good enough for her. Daniel helped Daddy put the star on, and since Annabel was upset she couldn't do that, she was tasked with the job of "straightening" it, which delighted her- she just wanted a chance to be up high and help out, too!

Our tree looks beautiful and lights up my every day from morning till night now!