Our Tannebaum (Version 1)

I've always wanted to have two trees: one to do all designer,
and another for our family ornaments. But realistically, it didn't make sense. After all, living in Wisconsin and then Louisiana meant that we wouldn't even be home for the heart of Christmas season, and I never really was able to get into decorating when I knew we'd just have to come home and take it down right away. We did have a "family" tree with our family ornaments, of course, and decorating it with the kids was a tradition for when we got back home after our Thanksgiving visits.

But after Christmas last year, we found a tree 85% off at Target. It looked pretty on the box, so we went for it. After all, we had a second-hand tree now, and it wasn't looking too good with each passing year. So when we moved, we gave away our old tree and brought this one with us.

I've been really excited about Christmas this year, so while Ben was out of town recently (yeah, he never would have let me get away with it while he was here) I set up our new tree. It was pretty, alright, but I soon realized that there was no way it had sufficient girth for all our gifts and ornaments. But I didn't despair. Actually, I was pretty happy about it. That meant I could go all decorator on this skinny tree, and we'd just have to get another one for the presents and family ornaments!

So behold my pretty tree. This was my first try at this, and I am sooooo happy with the results. I bought the ribbon from Costco for like $7/50 yards (a GREAT deal, and I made the bow and did the cascading ribbon myself. Then I went to Wal-Mart and bought the ornaments for like $20. So total, this is less than a $50 experiment, but I think it looks way better than that. I just had to share -- I've never had a house big enough for two trees or a room formal enough for a "dressy" tree. I am so happy!

The coolest park ever...

Wow, for a little town, Hernando sure has some pretty great stuff. I really do love it here -- it has so much character and a real sense of community. There are trees and older homes intersperse with newer developments. And there is seriously the coolest public park I can imagine a city of less than 15,000 people ever having. Conger Park is one of the public parks here, and wow, is it ever awesome. We'd heard about it, but we'd never checked it out before. Today I took the kids and they had a really fantastic time. It has a puppet theatre, a set of chimes (we learned to play ABC/Twinkle Twinkle and Somewhere Over the Rainbow on them), and really imaginative, cool little obstacles. The sets themselves look like castles or trains or other imaginative structures, and there's so much color and detail...well, you can see for yourself!

The "other blog"

I can't remember if I mentioned this on here before, but I recently took a paid blogging position over at BabyCenter, which is a widely read portal for all things baby and child. Because this blog is mostly for friends and family and that one is more about the general world of parenting, there isn't a lot of overlap on things I *would* post here, but end up putting over there for the sake of getting a post going. But last night I found myself writing a post I thought you guys might like to read, as well.

It's about Will's latest "I-Can't-Believe-He-Just-Said-That" moment. Let's just say it involves questions about the reproductive process:
The little genius problem (at our house, at least)

If you're curious and would like to check out my other posts, there's a nav bar on the right hand side of the main page, and toward the bottom, it has a "Posts by author" link. I'm the first one listed.

Me and my girl

Today I was laying in the floor reading my book, and Laila came and laid down next to me, pretending to read right along. Then she started singing the ABCs and trying to point out letters in the book. It was so cute. Ben grabbed the camera, so he got some photos that prove I really do exists. I'm like the Yeti -- you hear the stories, but you never see me on camera. But these were really too cute of Laila not to share. :)