It's beginning to look alot like Christmas....

Sorry once again for being so absent. I have been taking advantage of not having to be on the computer for school, and enjoying some freedom for awhile! These past few weeks have been rough with all of us being off schedule, so I have been working on just getting us back on track!

Our weekend was a busy one. On Saturday we went to the Christmas Tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree. We did not go with the rest of Greg's family this year, for they all went last Sunday instead. We were going to go then but it was raining and cold-just not worth it for us! Our girls enjoy the whole experience of going-running through the trees, seeing and feeding the animals, seeing Santa. As the cousins have gotten older, getting the tree isn't nearly as fun as all going out to eat afterwards. They always go to the same place, a family restauraunt that would not have anything Mara and I could eat, so we had planned to skip that part.

Anyway, it was cold on Saturday and we were all dressed in many layers. We picked our tree out fairly easily-a smaller tree to accommodate the little space we had to put on this year! Our usual tree spot was taken over by our aquarium a few months ago.

The girls had fun. We pretended to be mountain climbers climbing up the hill through all the trees, and Analese kept referring to us as "mountain climber mommy" and "mountain climber Mara". Mara kept falling in every mud patch there was, so she was pretty covered and got tired quickly.

We got our tree ready to go and walked through the animal part, stopping to feed a baby cow and some goats.

We took the girls to see Santa. Analese wasn't too sure about it, but Mara headed right inside and went right up to him, pointing to him and saying "Santa, Santa" over and over again. We asked her if she wanted to sit on his lap and she shook her head no. Surprisingly, Analese went over and got on his lap! So then Mara did, but she wouldn't look at him the whole time :) Analese told Santa she wanted a pony and a new teddy for Christmas this year. I was proud of her for sitting on his lap, and anytime someone brings it up , the first thing she says is "I didn't cry at all!"

At this point, Analese was starting to lose it so we finished up and headed to the car. She had quite the meltdown outside the car, my drama girl, started screaming "I'm cold!" over and over again. We had her in the car, piled in blankets and coats to try and calm her down. Mara was crying at the same time, yelling "sister!" over and over again :)

On Sunday, we got the tree set up and lights on, but we were not able to decorate it since we had a holiday party to go to. It was at Greg's cousin's house. The girls had so much fun playing with her son, who was 8 months old. He kept dropping his toy and they would scramble to get it for him. It was so cute to see! Mara was obsessed with the babies, and I kept finding her just standing close to whoever had a baby in their arms, just looking up and watching them. It was so funny!

Yesterday we spent the morning decorating the tree. The girls didn't get into it as much as I thought they would. They lost interest pretty quickly and I did most of it. It was fun to pull out the ornaments-we have so many handmade ones from family that we have gotten over the years.

Greg has decided that the girls should not play with the ornaments on the tree, and last night I heard him telling them over and over again to stop playing with them. I am not sure why he is suddenly so concerned about it, and even threatened to take the tree out! I told him later to just lighten up-the whole reason we put certain ornaments on the bottom of the tree was so we wouldn't have to worry about them breaking, etc. They have been taking them off the tree every year-but can you blame them? All this new, shiny, items just dangling there, tempting them. I really, really hope he gives up this battle.....or it will be a long week!

We still have a bit of shopping left to do. We have been finished with the girls for a few weeks now, but need to buy presents for the names we have picked from Greg's family. Greg said he would take a day off this week, but the week is quickly going by.....I have a feeling we'll be out with everyone else this weekend. Not fun.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their week!