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!