Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

This post is long overdue, but I cant get into all the Christmas memories without posting this one first! To catch back up, after we got Elem is very own little tree for his room, we went the very next day to get a real one for our living room. This is one of my most favorite things to do. We always had a fake tree growing up, except for a few years so I really wanted to add this to our Christmas tradition list. So far we have done good and gone 2 years in a row so we are on the right track. We packed up Elem, Sage, and ourselves all into the jeep, and headed to the farm. It takes about 20 minutes or so to get there, but Elem was great and the ride seemed to go real quick. As soon as we got there we jumped out and started looking form the very first tree. elem was excited to be outside, but it was really cold so he was a little confused on what we were doing. he liked all the trees and he thought it was funny how Sage was running around everywhere, but again, the concept was just a little over his head, since he didnt know what we were going to do once we picked out that perfect tree!

So is it just me, or when you get to the Christmas Tree farm, do all the trees seem so much smaller. We searched and searched, and I kept picking out like 10 and 12 foot trees, because they just looked nicer, but no way in the world would they look good in our house. They would be grazing the ceiling and taking up 1/3 of our living room, so I needed to stay in the 7 or 8 foot range to keep it looking pretty. Seth kept reminding me of this with every tree I picked out! I also tended to get a little side tracked trying to get pictures of Elem before he got tired of me snapping them, and then trying to keep up with Sage, holding onto the camera, and then not to mention jeeping myself warm. Oh and then holding Elem every other second. So I did the best I could on photos! Elem and mommy on a mission to find the best tree.

Daddy and Elem still on that same mission-and that statement could go on and on and on.

Elem's favorite part of the tree farm seemed to be the good old stumps. :) Hey they gotta be special to somebody right? All over the place, he just kept going towards them. And stepping on them, and then jumping off. he loved the stumps-bless him.

Same schpill, different day-get one good mommy and me pic Elem Zane. Here we have the jacket in the face on the third attempt mind you. So this is the best we get. And he was also freezing-I love cold noses though, they are so cute.

And finally, we found her-the perfect tree. And as long as she took to find, she was down in .4 seconds! Which also became Elem's most favorite part of the day, as soon as he saw her fall. he was so excited!

he immediately started smiling and his eyes got huge!Of course, then he turned to the very next tree and looked at it and said, "I wan more", "i wan more". Too funny, but not so funny once we had to tell him out of all the trees in front of him, this was the only one we were going to cut down! He kept the same look of excitement on his face, until he realized that we were serious and really weren't backing down on this one.

Daddy quickly headed to the car, and came to pick us all up, mommy, Elem, the tree, and last but not least, Sage-who came decked out in her pink fur coat for the Christmasy event.

We headed out to the edge of the farm where they shake your tree for you and wrap it up nice and tight. Elem, Sage, and I chilled and watched from afar on Santas sleigh while daddy helped to load it onto the Jeep. My cute little boy.In his lumber jack hat and all.

After all was said and done we had a great time. It was cold, yes, but wont it always be? Its December for goodness sakes! It's fun to get to get outside and do something as a family and something different. As a mom you are always looking for something new and exciting to do with your kid, something they will remember, and something hopefully they will have fun, and learn while doing. And this is just one of those things! And a great memory as well. I love the Christmas tree farm and I love all the memories that come with it. This is one tradition Seth and I plan to keep in our family for a long time to come. Now once back to the house, we put Elem to bed and moved the tree right in, planning to decorate it when he woke up, as a family. That pan was slightly changed, and the tree decorating was done in more of a 3 or 4 day stretch to be quite honest. It was REALLy hard to decorate with Elem, more so than I had imagined. But I should have known from decorating his little tree, what challenges might come with the giant tree. :) But it was fun too, even though the process was a bit longer than anticipated. and wouldnt you know, on Christmas Eve I realized I didnt really have a good pic of Elem in front of the tree with the presents, so I tried to bribe him with candy to sit right down in front. Now, this plan worked quite well at first, but not for long in between each piece of candy. He of course was trying to get just one more piece before he went back to the spot. He is so mobile there was really not much more I could do, so regarding the tree, the is the best pic I got! As you can see Elem's back is turned and he is digging through the presents, but still, the tree was the focus here, tree was the focus! Oh and yes Elem was included in the decorating but he really couldnt do all that much but just hand them to me and then I would hang them up. So...in order to avoid as many crashed ornaments over the holiday season as possible, we tended not to decorate with ornaments towards the bottom of the tree-you can probably tell it is a little bare down there.
Oh Chirstmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree-