Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

This was the first year we put colored lights on the tree. I prefer white lights for everything, but Tom and the kids like having lots of color, so color it was. Really we should have a couple more strands of lights on it, but I didn't have the energy to go out to get more so I made do with two strands. When we unpacked all of our decorations we noticed that our star was broken. We bought a new, and in my opinion much better, tree topper and the kids love it. The girls helped decorate the tree and put the majority of their ornaments on two branches. And they both helped daddy put the tree topper on and plug it in.



We never got a chance to get our outdoor lights up thanks to a string of snowy and icy and rainy days. I did manage to make and put up two giant wreaths on the front of the house, but then never plugged them in. Next year. Really I want to cover our house in lights a la Clark Griswold, but Tom's not fully into that idea. Next year. Our elf, Mr. Socks, has also been pretty busy flying back and forth to the North Pole and getting into all sorts of trouble here.

I finished all of my elfing thanks to amazon and a couple of trips to Target. Now I just need to wrap, though I'm afraid that's going to have to wait until Christmas Eve. For now I've got a ton of cookie baking to do!

It's looked like Christmas for quite some time...

Homemade stockings:

Can you tell it's been bananas around here?

Work is a bit busy for me right now. Okay, not just a bit - a lot. I've been focused on getting our course content finished and ready for the launch in January and things are sliding a bit at home, which just makes me stress a bit more. I can't stand piles of laundry and messy floors and yet here I am with Mt Laundry and floors in desperate need of cleaning. Ah well, at least the kids are happy, right? And by the time I get home I have zero interest in picking up my camera, so I've been relying on my iPhone's camera, which isn't half bad. We did manage to get our Christmas tree yesterday and I'm working on making a tree skirt for it, so there will be pictures of that. Promise. For now, here are some of the shots I've taken on my phone.

Stasa has her own tree. And it's pink. Of course.


I made new stockings for everyone so they would all match. I really wanted jingle bells on them, but I wasn't really liking the way they looked with bells. But you better believe I have plans for those bells - oh have I got plans.


While Tom was at the Redskins game, we hung out and the Lexi made a mess, which Stasa then tried to clean.


Yesterday was picture day at daycare - the one day I got to pick out both of their outfits. I really hope there's at least one cute shot of both girls - and yes, I know I take a gajillion pictures of them all of the time, but I *had* to get school pictures, too. Necessity.


And to wrap up - just a few random shots from the past week or so.
(btw, how awesome is this? Taken with my PHONE!)

Our Christmas Tree

And some of our favorite ornaments:






Stasa helped put some ornaments on and insisted on putting this teensy tiny one that actually goes on a miniature tree, but we left it since it was one of the few she successfully got to stay on the tree by herself.