Ho Ho Ho NO!

I'm not sure where things went wrong. I can't tell you what happened specifically as I wasn't there, assuming there was even a "there" to be at. All I know is that one day my boys were thrilled with Santa, and the next Zeke was scared and Deacon was angry. Yes, you read that right, angry. Deacon came out of his bed room one day, and we had the following conversation:

Deacon: Mom, I don't want Santa to bring me any presents because I'm angry with him.
Me: You're angry with Santa?
Deacon: Yes.
Me: Why?
Deacon: Because he makes me angry. He can bring Ezekiel presents, but not me.

Then he walked away. The other night we put on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and as it started Zeke said to the TV, "Santa Claus, I don't like you, you scare me." As far as I know, this is the first Christmas they're really aware of anything Santa at all, so I'm not sure where these feelings are coming from. Thus, when Santa visited our street on Wednesday, Finn was the only one who went out to greet him, and that's because Mommy physically made him (I picked him up and carried him outside).

(Sorry it's blurry. I only had my iPhone, and things were going quickly and my neighbor took the picture for me.) Finn did pretty well being near Santa. He sort of stared like he was trying to figure Santa out. Then he cried a little, but that was only when Santa patted his head.

When one of the police escorts saw the other two boys up in the window he asked if they were going to come out too. I told him one was scared of Santa and the other was angry with Santa. He chuckled and said, "Well, keep the angry one in there. We don't need Santa getting beat up." Heh.

It was a cool thing though. Santa drove up and down every street on base, in a fire truck, and handed out teddy bears to all the kids that came out to see him. So, that means we've seen Santa roll up in a paladin and now a fire truck. That guy really enjoys using alternative methods of transportation, huh? I think he also rode around on a little train thing the Spaghetti with Santa nights, but we didn't go to that, so I'm not positive that actually happened. And, as you can see by the picture below, he stopped right in front of our house.

If you look close enough to our window above the garage, you can also see Scaredy Scott and Angry Andy watching from the safety of their living room. I love how they keep life interesting like this. Oh, those Walter boys.

This Year's Tree

In Alaska, our house came with an arificial Christmas tree. It was a nice enough tree so we used it the 2 years we were there. However, much to Josh's disappointment, our place here in New Jersey did NOT come with an artificial tree, so we decided to go out and buy a real one this year. This news thrilled Zeke, who counted down the days until we could buy a tree. Every day as he got off the bus he would say, "Three more days until we buy a Christmas tree, right Mom?" and so on.

So, Saturday morning off we went to get ourselves a real Christmas tree. When we got to the tree lot, we put Finn in the stroller, much to his dismay. Josh said, "Here, give him a rock to play with, he'll be fine."

Of course, Finn immediately put the rock in his mouth. Sigh. Notice the second rock between his legs. Deacon decided giving Finn rocks was a good idea, and was more than happy to go along with it.

I found one tree that was beautiful, but unfortunately it was also a little on the big side.

Even Deacon was skeptical. Oh well.

We did eventually find one, and despite the look on Finn's face, it is a lovely tree. (He was SO over being in that stroller.)

While Zeke and Josh paid for the tree, Finn, Deacon and I roamed around, mostly watching the guys open the trees that had just arrived from the farm. It was a pretty neat process. The one guy was super sweet and even gave Finn a little branch to run around with.

Once the tree was paid for and strapped to the top of the car we were on our way back home.

Here's Josh bringing the tree in. You know, before he set the stand up to put the tree in.

We set up the tree then left it for the rest of the day as we had that ball and what's it to go to. Sunday, however, Sunday is when the rest of the fun happened.

Since Zeke was super thrilled about the whole "tree thing" it seemed fitting that he put the star on the top of the tree (with some help, of course).

After the star came the lights.

After lights, Josh took the boys outside to put some more lights up out there, but not before Zeke got his one special ornament up on the tree.

After we came back in, Christmas tree decorating commenced...for everyone except Mommy who was sent into the kitchen to make dinner. Sigh.

And here's the finished product.

We are all very pleased with it. And now that I've written this post I realized I haven't watered it since we set it up so I should probably go and check on that. Ciao!

Slow Down December!

Well, my plan to blog every day in December went right out the window! My apologies. I actually sat down on the 1st to blog, but then my friend texted me to see if I was going to the tree lighting ceremony on post that afternoon, and I figured, "Why not? It's a beautiful (if chilly) day." So then I figured, "If I'm going to this tree lighting thing, and Santa will be there and all that, I'll just wait to blog today and write about our afternoon in the evening."

Having decided to wait to blog then, I went upstairs to try on dresses for the ball Josh and I had to go to on Saturday. I know, who waits until Thursday to try on dresses for Saturday? This girl, that's who. And wouldn't you know it, not one of my 3 dresses fit right, leaving me dressless for the ball. Therefore, the evening of the 1st was spent online dress shopping just to see what might be in the stores. This also took care of any blog time I might have had on Friday, since I spent Friday at the mall dress shopping. Which also meant I was pretty worn out come Friday night.

This brings us to Saturday. I thought for sure I'd blog Saturday since I knew we'd be going Christmas tree shopping and what's it. But wouldn't you know it, Saturday I found myself back at the mall. As it turns out, the bra I bought to wear under my dress still had the security tag on it, so I had to go back and get the tag removed. And while I was there I got all the extras to go with my dress: shoes, jewelry, shawl, clutch, etc. Saturday evening was the ball, and Sunday, well, Sundays I don't blog usually anyway, but my sisters were here, and I wasn't feeling good, so here I am now.

So, back to Thursday. Thursday after school I took my 3 boys and Thomas (he's in 1st grade and lives on our street and rides the bus with Zeke) to the tree lighting ceremony on base. It was fun. The kids mostly ran around in circles ignoring all the festivities.

After the tree was lit (somewhat anticlimactic as it was still pretty light outside so you couldn't see the lights that were on) Santa rolled up in a paladin. That was fun. After he got out of the paladin, he handed out candy canes to all the kids. Zeke, who is thrilled with the idea of Santa, apparently is way less than thrilled with the actuality of Santa. He hid behind Josh's legs and said "NO! Santa's scary!" Thomas and Deacon were fine though. We also took a family Christmas card picture.

Lol, could you imagine if I did send this out and everyone was like, "Um? I thought Beth and Josh only had 3 kids? Who's this extra one? He looks like he belongs, but um..." Anyhoo...

Saturday morning we took the kids to buy a Christmas tree. It was a beautiful morning and we had a good time looking around, trying to find the "perfect" one. I'll write more about it later as I have some fun pictures/little stories from our time at the Christmas tree place.

Saturday night was the holiday ball on post. It was nice. The place was beautifully decorated. We were able to sit at a table with a bunch of people we know, so that was nice. The food was good, even if we did eat WAY too late. Everyone looked lovely and I had some sweet footwear (not sure if you can really see them in the picture, but they were gold and glittery with a 6 inch heel.

Sunday we went to church as usual, and after nap time we decorated the tree. And by "we" I mean Josh and the boys decorated the tree while I got stuck making dinner. Lame, right? But Zeke was thrilled to finally have a tree and to be decorating it. He'd been counting down all week, leading up to Saturday.

Also excited about the Christmas tree is this guy:

He woke me up at 6:45 this morning just so I'd go down and turn on the lights. As soon as they were on, he laid in front of the tree quite content looking, and stayed there for the next hour until the kids got up and ruined the serenity of his morning.

And that, my friends, is about all for December so far. Hopefully it'll slow down a little bit and I can get some time to put up some stuff from November (maybe even as far back as October...yeah, that's what happens when I skip an entire month of blogging).