One activity we did when Grandma recently visited was going to Amana and seeing the Christmas Tree Forest. Pretty much it's a frigid Festival of Trees located in one of the "small historic German villages" of Iowa. I will say this: I have never been in such a cold barn!!! M preferred the Halloween tree above all else. (Even if it was horrifically ugly.)
GQ would not sit in the sleigh. As you can see, he also insisted on wearing his Buzz Lightyear wings.
Luckily for our kids, the ward party came complete with a visiting Santa. I was glad since the mall Santas don't even acknowledge children unless you've paid your $25. I thought GQ would be scared, but all he needed was the promise of a candy cane.
I was not surprised that M did not want to sit on his lap.
Here is our excursion to Ace Hardware to get a Christmas tree. Not quite the "holiday moment" I'd been imagining. But seriously, I ended up liking it better. The people there were very nice, it was a warm evening, and it only took us thirty minutes to get the tree picked and tied on the van.
E's class party. The first picture was the only moment when we were "allowed to help." From then on, we had to back off while E did the decorating. I kept telling her she should put on more candy... thinking that like any other child she would overload her house with frosting and sweets. Not so much.
As of today, she has mostly eaten all of it. And I have stolen nothing because she didn't put any good candy like M&M's or Red Hots.
Here are my attempts at decorating and using Instagram:
The stockings were made by my sister-in-law.
Our tree. I only moved ornaments if there were four on the same branch. Other than that, the kids decorated it. I did the lights: which consisted of wrapping them around the tree and shoving them into the branches with work gloves on so that I wouldn't be impaled by the sharp needles. I am such a master lights-person. I am sure people would love to pay me to do theirs.
Classic GQ pose.
