Adventures In Decorating

A few weeks ago, God brought some new friends into our lives and we love hanging out with them! They're so much like us, it's scary! So we've been getting to know them. They've seen Evey at her best and worst and we haven't frightened them off yet!

Our plan was to put our tree up the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The holiday weekend is always so hectic, and we wanted the time to enjoy our family tradition of Egg Nog, Elf and Decorating. Well, as anyone with young children knows... it takes twice as long to get anything done when you have a kid in the mix. As usual, Saturday, nothing we wanted to get done actually did. We went to bed with our house a mess, and no decorations up. So we attempted for Sunday.

We got up Sunday morning and went to the early service at church. We braved the nasty, rainy weather and we were going to hit the grocery on they way home, but Evey had other plans. So Christopher dropped us off at home so I could feed her lunch and he made his way back out to the grocery. By the time we were ready to actually get something done, it was almost 1pm. Of course.

Thank GOD, the Bicknell's called to see if we wanted some help! Honestly, we may not have had a Christmas tree for Evey's first Christmas if it wasn't for them. As Mark and Christopher got all of our decorations out of the attic, Christopher made a devastating announcment. We had no tree. Last year, our tree broke and none of the lights worked the entire season, so we threw it away. We had completely forgotten. At least we had a coupon to Bed Bath and Beyond.

We loaded E up in her carrier and all five of us piled into my toaster and made our way out again, into the cold and rain. We actually found the perfect tree. At first, I was worried it was going to be a little chinky, but it really looks good!

Watching Ellen and I try to remove the tree from it's tightly packed box was, I'd imagine, very amusing and Ellen and Christopher put it up while I fed Evey - again. She's my little hobbit and it was way past time for Afternoon Tea!! Once the tree was up, it was time for Elf and Nog. Christopher made egg nog from scratch that was so rich and almost put us all to sleep!

We added our ornaments to the tree and told the Bicknell's about a lot of our memories. We added Evey's ornaments, front and center! All in all, it was a fun adventure and afterwards, we had a great (and much needed) nap! We definitely couldn't have gotten it done without help!

Evey wasn't sure what was going on... Her ornaments document our trip to the Smokie Mountains, "New Parents," and our Little Monster. The little monster was from Papa to his Evey Monster!

Putting Evey's ornaments on the tree.