in case you were wondering...

After a snowball fight with some of the neighborhood kids and some hot chocolate, we put up the Christmas tree this afternoon. It's our standard fake we've had since the girls were little bitty. It's the old school kind where you've got to put each branch on individually and fan them out. And the tree stand...it throws me over the edge each and every year - which is why I begged Cherie to put the stand together this year :) Every year I consider throwing it out instead of packing it back up. But honestly, aside from it being a pain, there is nothing wrong with it.

This year the girls asked if they could make the ornaments for the tree instead of hanging up the stored ones in the boxes. So, we gathered every arts & craft supply in the house and invited a couple of neighbor girls over. The girls and Ben went to town creating all kinds of ornaments. I am happy to report the fake tree is about half decorated at this point. It has been draped in ribbon, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, beads, noodles and aluminum foil.

What can I say? I've always wanted a themed tree. I just didn't expect the theme to be "art supply drawer"!