The first order of business when we woke up on Saturday was taking care of the sprinkler pipe. Derek feared it was beyond his blossoming handyman skills so we called in the professionals
Which happened to be a teenager fresh out of HIGH SCHOOL!(Seriously! Pretty sure he was 19!) Good heavens. But since he'd already done most of labor intensive part ( that of digging out the problem) it cost us significantly less than it would have had we called him without trying. So Derek still gets major props. He thinks he could fix it from watching him do it so next time...we won't need to call.
As soon as all was complete and covered we started on the living room. Trying to figure out the best configuration of the couches to accommodate the tree. Derek wanted it in front of the window, and it was no small task. We must have tried three or four different ways and ended up vacuuming portions of carpet that haven't been vacuumed in a long while. As soon as we were satisfied we hit the road for the tree lot for our Christmas tree. This has to be the very earliest that we've ever gotten a Christmas tree. It was strange to walk around the tree lot and be almost warm. As soon as we got it in the house lights were strung and ornaments were placed. Before I had taken any pictures it was done.
This is it...this is all I have of the decorating blitz. Not even a picture of our first tree trip on the van.(which was MUCH easier by the way) Pathetic.
A tradition we started this year was the Thanksgiving/Christmas chain. This year, as in past years, the Family Home Evening before Thanksgiving we wrote down all of the things we were thankful for on strips of paper and made a chain. But this year when I was cutting the strips I discovered that I had cut 24 of them. It didn't take much to make the connection that there would be 24 days until Christmas as well. So after we each took turns choosing things that we were thankful for we made our chain and put it on our tree
We plan to take off a link each day and remember the things that we are thankful for all through December when it's most easy to forget what we are thankful for and only focus on what we do not yet have. I thought it was a stroke of genius...or more likely inspiration. The boys still remember who said what on our thankful chain and are excited for it to be "their" thankful day.
I really think this will be a fun tradition that we'll keep doing for years.
Which happened to be a teenager fresh out of HIGH SCHOOL!(Seriously! Pretty sure he was 19!) Good heavens. But since he'd already done most of labor intensive part ( that of digging out the problem) it cost us significantly less than it would have had we called him without trying. So Derek still gets major props. He thinks he could fix it from watching him do it so next time...we won't need to call.
As soon as all was complete and covered we started on the living room. Trying to figure out the best configuration of the couches to accommodate the tree. Derek wanted it in front of the window, and it was no small task. We must have tried three or four different ways and ended up vacuuming portions of carpet that haven't been vacuumed in a long while. As soon as we were satisfied we hit the road for the tree lot for our Christmas tree. This has to be the very earliest that we've ever gotten a Christmas tree. It was strange to walk around the tree lot and be almost warm. As soon as we got it in the house lights were strung and ornaments were placed. Before I had taken any pictures it was done.
This is it...this is all I have of the decorating blitz. Not even a picture of our first tree trip on the van.(which was MUCH easier by the way) Pathetic.
A tradition we started this year was the Thanksgiving/Christmas chain. This year, as in past years, the Family Home Evening before Thanksgiving we wrote down all of the things we were thankful for on strips of paper and made a chain. But this year when I was cutting the strips I discovered that I had cut 24 of them. It didn't take much to make the connection that there would be 24 days until Christmas as well. So after we each took turns choosing things that we were thankful for we made our chain and put it on our tree
We plan to take off a link each day and remember the things that we are thankful for all through December when it's most easy to forget what we are thankful for and only focus on what we do not yet have. I thought it was a stroke of genius...or more likely inspiration. The boys still remember who said what on our thankful chain and are excited for it to be "their" thankful day.
I really think this will be a fun tradition that we'll keep doing for years.
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