Deck the Halls...

Recently, at our weekly playdate with the cousins Amy and I were talking in the kitchen and realized the kids had been quiet for a while which is rarely good with a 3, 4, and 5 year old on the loose. We went into the living room (really we call it "the tickle couch room") and found this...

The tree only had lights on it before this but the kids broke into the ornament boxes and half the tree was decorated when we got in there!




Then we got in on the fun and helped keep the kids (and the ornaments) safe :-)


Earlier that week we had decorated our own tree at home which Ella LOVES to do!


Good times were had by all and only a few ornaments bit the dust ;-)

Kicking off the Christmas Season

We went to a local festival the day after Thanksgiving and it will definitely become a new family tradition! It totally exceeded our expectations and we had a great time. I took about 175 pictures-partially because there were that many fun things and partially because I LOVE experimenting with the new camera.

This was one of our favorite trees-simple but beautiful

Ella loved this ornament. We got lots of ideas for our annual ornament exchange with Chris' family

Besides 500 decorated trees, all kinds of vendors, live music, storytimes, pony rides, a carousel and food, there were animals!!! I never pass up a chance to touch creatures and Chris was up for touching the largest one there.

Ella and I both love crafts and spent a long time in "craft corner" at the festival. This was mostly because the really nice craft-helper-guy kept bringing us new crafts to do for free after we paid our 2 tickets for the first one! (and we got the tickets for free from people who were leaving and had extras!)

The Kids rock band Milkshake was performing and since we have their CD we were excited for Ella to see them in person. She was oddly fascinated and horrified simultaneously. Even with her hearing aids off she covered her ears the whole time and looked terrified but didn't want to leave! She wanted to be off to the side, way in the back, behind Christmas trees and watch from afar but somehow enjoyed it!

I really loved the snowflake tree

Here are a lot more pictures (not all 175, just the good ones)