December Fun - Christmas Trees!

This year, I was super excited to begin decorating for Christmas. Since we're in a new house, I was anxious to see how all my Christmas decor came together. However, I was also dreading decorating in many ways. After spending several months packing and unpacking boxes, the last thing I wanted to do was unpack all of our Christmas stuff!

We started decorating about a week ago on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We have a smaller tree that I decided would look great upstairs in front of the dormer window, so I started with that one. Initially, I thought I would just set up that tree, but we also ended up setting up both Brenson and Brianna's trees in their bedrooms that day.

Our pretty little tree upstairs has the perfect home in our dormer. 

Brenson's blue tree . . . he is super excited to have it in his room!

Brianna has had a small purple tree for the about five years, but last year it stopped working. I bought her this white tree with colored lights on clearance last year, and it's so pretty in her room!

Brooke and Brecklyn don't have a tree in their room for a few reasons. First, there's really not a good place to put it. Their room is pretty full with two beds, two dressers, and a bookshelf. Also, we don't have a tree to go in their room, so I would have to buy something. I really don't want to spend the money on that at this time because they would have that thing torn to pieces in a day. Having two one year olds at the same time is so different than just one, and I just can't trust them to not touch the tree the way I could Brianna and Brenson when they were toddlers. 

The year we moved into our first house (ten years ago), we bought an artificial tree that I just loved. Last year, it bit the dust, and Chris's attempts to fix it just ended up ruining it completely. I was so sad when we decided it would be best to just get rid of it and plan to buy a new tree this year. However - like things so often do - it really worked out for the best since we ended up moving. I had been looking for the perfect tree for our new space, and finally found one at Sam's Club of all places. When we went this past Friday night to purchase the tree, they only had the display one left. We were really undecided about buying it, then they offered to take 20 percent off of the already great price and we were sold :-). 

That night, we officially became THAT minivan driving around with a load of kids and a tree strapped to the roof! 

By the time we got home Friday night, it was too late the set up the tree, so we ended up doing it on Saturday instead. We decided to do a little bit of other decorating first, and Chris had lots of help wrapping our banister in garland!

Brianna, Brecklyn, and Daddy

Daddy, Brecklyn, and Brenson

Then, I had asked Chris to help hide some cords for me under our sofa table where my Precious Moments Sugar Town village is displayed. Brecklyn had to be right up in Chris's business!

She decided giving Daddy kissses was much more fun that helping him work :-).

Finally, we were ready to decorate the tree! Brecklyn couldn't wait to put a few ornaments up!

Brooke was excited, too!

Our new tree is nine feet tall, so there was lots of help needed to get ornaments at the top. 

Bren much preferred to decorate the lower part of the tree . . . 

. . . although Daddy did talk him into putting a few up high, as well.

Daddy helping Brecklyn

Momma helping Brooke

At one point, I took a step back to see how the tree was looking and had to pause for a few moments and just watch my kiddos. I adore this photo of them decorating the tree.

I'm thrilled with the finished product!

Love!

I had decorated our fireplace and mantle earlier in the week, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, as well. I got emotional hanging all those stockings . . . it just still hits me some days that I'm so blessed with a precious family and four sweet babies. FOUR.

After we finished decorating inside and had a quick lunch, the twins went down for their nap while Brianna and I wrapped a few presents (I'm allllllmost finished with my Christmas shopping). Daddy and Bren headed out in the cold and drizzle to decorate outside. They put up our yard decorations and even started on the Christmas lights. 

There's still quite a bit of work to do outside, but it's coming along!