Let it snow......

This close to Christmas I am glad to say that my shopping is done. It's a good thing too because we have had a ton of snow falling and disrupting our lives. I'm not complaining, however because we had our first whole family snow day yesterday. The weather was bad enough that even the college closed- and it was during finals. It cleared up enough for the girls to play outside with friends - so they buried Charlie in the snow, but the weather turned again . We have another foot or so of snow out there. It's enough snow that the swings in the back yard can't move anymore. We're waiting for the winds to pick up and bring us the blizzard that's been predicted. It's bad enough that church has already been cancelled for tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be okay to have school on monday so my preschoolers can still have a party. Sadly my 2 day class missed theirs with our snow day. Anyway, we'll update you tomorrow (really- as long as we have power) and let you know how bad it was. Until then, it's great to be home as a family.

Fabulous Birthdays

Shawn and I celebrated our birthdays last weekend. I'd have to say that this year was the most fun birthdays we've ever had. We started out by going out to dinner with some friends on Shawn's birthday. We had a great time. I especially enjoyed Shawn saying on the car ride back, how he really wished we had gotten a dessert b/c you just need a dessert on your birthday- not knowing that Vanessa had actually made him a birthday cake. He was excited to dive into it. We continued on celebrating with a work party on Friday. It was also a ton of fun. The best was yet to come, when on my birthday we actually went away. Friends took the girls and we took off. We spent the afternoon shopping at the mall of america, met up with friends for lunch at Bubba Gumps- where they sang to BOTH of us, and then went to a late movie and a super late dinner. We slept way in on Sunday and didn't get the kids back until after 5:00 p.m. as far as birthdays go, this one ROCKED!!!!
Thanks to Vanessa for making BOTH of our birthday cakes, to Carolyn for taking the girls and to Vanessa and Bonnie for making sure we got off to an early start!!!! You guys totally rock!

Christmas Concerts

The girls all had their holiday concerts. Em's was first and she chose to wear the summer skirt and shirt set that her Grandma Camp had made this summer. She sang and danced and did a great job. Charlie had both a band concert and a choir concert. she did Fabulous in both. I'm so glad that she can sing. Lily also had her first little concert as well. Her's stressed me out the most as it was also my 1st concert as a preschool teacher. It was a lot of fun and my kids all did a great job.

A REAL tree....and some false crow

We had a great time going to get our Christmas tree. We took some friends who are new to the area and new to cutting your own tree down with us and had a great morning. After getting our tree set up- but not decorated, we headed to Rochester to do some shopping. We were seeing the "Christmas Forest" at one store when Charlie leaned in and said, "how will Emily and I share our Christmas tree? ", referring to a homely red tinsel tree I bought as a Valentine's Tree several years ago when the girls could not bear to take the Christmas Tree down. So, C and E had claimed it in their room each Christmas. Now that they don't share a room anymore, Charlie needed her own. There were trees on sale for $7 so I bought her one. Em, seeing that Char's tree actually looks like a tree (is green and not made out of tinsel) wanted one as well. Lily of course decided she must have one as well- and has inherited the red tinsel tree. So, Our Real Tree Only house now has 1 beautiful large REAL tree- and 3 false trees- 4 if you count the Charlie Brown one I bought for Shawn's office. So that crow is tasty pretty fake right now......

Real or False?????

This Christmas will be the 15th Christmas that Shawn and I have celebrated as a married couple. Of those 15 Christmases, all but two have included a live (real) tree. On the 2 occasions we had false (artificial) trees, we had no choice and really hated the tree. Each of us seperately came to the conclusion that we NEVER wanted a false tree and are glad that we both agree. For Shawn, it is hard enough to even buy a tree from a nursery as he cut down his own trees almost all of his life. And, I must admit the best tree experiences I've ever had have come from the times we cut down our own tree. (My favorite being when Shawn was so enamored with a tree that was HUGE. It was so huge that it took several members of the University of Idaho football team to help him carry it out. We also had to cut several feet off just to get it to fit in our apartment and had greens for EVERYONE who wanted any. ) Our real trees are gorgeous, smell beautiful, and are one of our family's favorite part of Christmas. They are, however, not without mishap. There was the cat climbing the tree incident which resulted in numerous broken ornaments and a VERY wet carpet, the time we didn't know the\at soft needled trees dried out so fast- and resulted in a very crispy tree we had to take down the day after Christmas, and my personal favorite- a visit to a tree farm where the paint the trees to look green. (No joke, the trees were orange in the summer and they paint them green- even the bark is green- it's the u-cut place on the way to Rochester for those of you in the area).

As for false trees, they are not without their own amusing stories. I have 1 brother who for years would simply store his false tree already decorated in the closet. On December 1st he pulled it out and plugged it in, on January 1st he put it back in the closet. As a child our dog managed to knock our tree down several times and I know of family who used the plastic white tree that has no needles-only lights on the branches- the kind meant for your front lawn as their tree because their cats climbed the false tree they kept in their house and knocked it over too many times.

So which are you doing this year and why? Have a great tree story? Share it here, I'd love to hear it.