Today we went to the National Forest and cut us down a little Charlie Brown tree. Bekah REALLY wanted this one. It's a cute little tree and for $5 you can't beat that! The kids loved hiking up and checking out the selection.
Topher was so funny-he would stand next to a big tree and say;
"Look mom! The biggest tree in the whole wide world!"
Word for word.
Where do kids get this stuff?
We got home and got right to work getting it in the house and starting the decorating process.
When Chad and I were both kids-both of our dads would leave our tree outside at least a whole day to let it 'fall' and put off for a bit cutting it to just the right height before bringing it in the house. The anticipation as a kid to get that tree in your house was more than we could bear!
We won't put our kids through that kind of torture-we get home, from cutting it down-it's in the house within the hour!
First the lighting of the tree-and taking the baby's picture playing in the strands of electric lights waiting to give the kid a little shock at the first drop of slobber.
He loved it-I couldn't get him to look at me for anything-he could have played there all night but Chad was getting impatient to finish the lights so we could get on to the ornaments.
I took pictures and handed out the ornaments to the all so willing tree decoraters.
I threw out all the ornaments that annoyed me last year-so we don't have all that many-mainly just the ones that mean something to us-and a couple cute ones. 
Each year Chad and I get each other an ornament that represents something that happened in that year.
The kids each get an ornament according to theme-Bekah, snowmen-Topher, Santa Claus-Porter, reindeer and even though Zach and Ryeleigh aren't here we get them ornaments too-Zachary, nutcrackers and Ryeleigh, snow stuff.
We open them on Christmas Eve, along with our new jammies and hang them on the tree before going to bed, (the ornaments not the jammies).
It's a fun tradition and it's where most of our ornaments have come from. 
Someday I would like to have a family tree and a pretty tree to decorate with matching ornaments and the whole bit-but for now this will do nicely.
Porter tried to help with the tree too, but once he grabbed on he wouldn't let go. He was too funny-getting so excited and squealing at it.
Christmas Cluttered Entertainment Center 
The stockings all hung by the mantle with care... 
A few of my favorite things:
I LOVE this Nativity music box my sister in law brought me home from Switzerland.
Every year it is the thing I look forward to most of all in our Christmas decorations.
My new favorite ornament: Some of you Portland girls will remember this from last year and our ornament exchange-I brought it and I wanted it so bad, I cheated a bit at the game to keep it. It just makes me smile every time I look at it.
This star. I looked for a long time to find the perfect tree topper. I love it.
It was a fun day, full of Christmas spirit.
The kids have been happy all night, although....
There was one fit about this cheesy wooden santa box that I put in the Goodwill box along with some other decorations that were not my taste, but still around. Bekah cried and sobbed and threw out a lot of "mom is mean"'statements when I told her it was going, and to leave it alone. This didn't stop for at least 45 minutes.
Sometimes having a dramatic little 4 year old is SO much fun!
The kids loved it-there were lots of friends to sit with... 
...and lots of fun things to see-this was Bekah's favorite float-The snow Angels. Her favorite part was the dogs that were walking in the parade, when they would come and say hi to the kids. That girl can't get enough dogs!
Topher's favorite part was the marching bands and the fire trucks-basically all the loud stuff, (interestingly enough that was Porter's least favorite part-in fact he didn't care for the whole parade thing one bit!).
Then of course all the kids loved seeing this jolly old guy-Luckily for them, he was spotted several times on several floats, and a guy standing next to us looked strangely familiar as well.
I also wrapped all of Chad's family's gifts today-I spent SO much time making each individual family a gift, I hope they like them!
We did the last bit of Christmas shopping and got the presents for the gift exchange the kids in Chad's family are doing-we are shipping them all off tomorrow.
Can you guess what the first one means?
The countdown to Christmas begins! Today we made Christmas chains, with the numbers 1-25 on them. I helped Topher with his, having him tell me which number comes next and had him slide the strips through the hole while I did the stapling. Bekah did hers completely on her own, cutting the strips, writing the numbers and putting the chain together. She was so proud of it! I did notice she may be a little dislexic with her numbers though-the twenties and the teens seemed to be mixed up a lot and the numbers were backwards. I guess we need to work on her numbers a little more!
Did anyone besides me read or watch "Because of Winn-Dixie"? If not, it's a cute little book and movie that the whole family would like. Well, anyway, there is a little girl in there named Sweetie Pie and she wants a dog really bad, so she follows around the girl in the story who has a dog all the time. There is also a candy in the town and when you eat it, it tastes good, but also has some sadness mixed in, so everyone can taste something that makes them sad. Well when Sweetie Pie puts it in her mouth, she spits it out and says "Yeck, it tastes like not having a dog."
Well if anyone would taste that as the saddest thing in their life it would be Bekah. She wants so bad to have a dog, she wouldn't leave Charlie and Cody alone. 
This is why we don't have television at home, and why we won't get television any time soon. 
All the animals would take stuff right out of your hand and Topher was having a ball petting the geese and chasing the ducks. 
I got a couple fun pictures of the kids by the ducks and just playing around the pond. 
I wanted to get some cute shot's of the kids with my new camera, on some rocks in the stream and on the stairs but Bekah had to go to the bathroom. I went off in search of a bathroom, just to find that it was locked up for the season. Then after that excursion I came back to get my camera from my brother and Topher biffed it hard on the rocks and took a big chunk out of his lip-blood everywhere. So I had one bloody kid and another doing the pee pee dance, (Porter was in the snuggly, cuddling with daddy). 
So we called it a day and headed on home.
The girls all went out and saw Twilight and the boys all went out to see Quantum of Solace on Wednesday night. I liked it-not as well as the book for sure, but it was an entertaining couple of hours.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could think of and we ate it for the rest of the weekend with no complaints from anyone. My sister and her husband (and their dogs) and my Aunt Kim all came too. It was just such a relaxed and happy holiday. We all had such a nice time.
Jim had just put away all the turkey (in Tupperware-he didn't eat it all, it just looked that way, so I took a picture for a laugh). 
I made simple place cards this year-because I was so burned out from making my in-laws Christmas presents the week before! The cards worked fine, and I wonder why I always put so much time and effort into the more elaborate ones, simple looked kind of elegant.
Chad and I got all of our Christmas shopping done on Friday at Target-so that feels good, the Target card feels a little weighed down though!