Still Catching Up ~ December

Just continuing to catch up on the past few months. Following are some highlights from our December.

Sometime mid-December we went to the christmas tree lot and picked out our tree. Caleb and Patrick are standing in front of the tree that we ultimately chose after debating back and forth about getting a Fraizer Fur or Colorado Pine - Patrick wanted the traditional Fraizer Fur while I wanted the tall, gangly Colorado Pine. We compromised and got some type of pine tree from Pacific Northwest. And it was the fullest, prettiest tree I have seen. And then we got it home... First we couldn't fit it into our christmas tree stand so Patrick literally, this is not an exaggeration, spent TWO HOURS hacking at the trunk to get it into the stand. Our wonderful neighbor, Steve, helped carry it into the house and get it standing. That's when we realized our perfect tree had the most crooked trunk we have ever seen. I think it bent at almost a 45 degree angle. No matter what we did we could not get the tree to stand up straight. So we positioned it to lean toward the corner (just in case it fell over!) and stared at it for two days. Do we take it back to the lot? Do we keep it? We decided to keep it and figured this will just be a year we look back on an laugh about our crooked, 7 foot tall, $90 christmas tree! Thankfully, it never fell over, but we had to put it by the curb on the first trash day after christmas. Turned out that despite Patrick's hard efforts to get the trunk to fit in the stand, the trunk wasn't in far enough to get water and the tree had become a major fire hazard.

My apologies for not having a picture of the tree standing crooked in our living room.

Daniel playing on the bear at the mall the day we took him and Caleb to see Santa Claus. I don't have a picture of that either because it was quite a traumatic experience for both boys. Patrick commented that a couple kids waiting in line seemed a little too old to be visiting Santa. After our experience with both boys screaming and wriggling their way off Santa's lap (and seeing several other parents deal with the same situation) we came to the conclusion that you take your children when they are 9 or 10 because that's when they stop being afraid of Santa.

I can't help, but notice Daniel is the only one with his finger in his nose. Probably the "Tallman" in him. All these children are standing in line to swing at the pinata at our friend's Posada - a latino Holiday tradition.

We had a lot of fun snowfall in December!

And Christmas arrived with Grandmama and Grandaddy Wilson and a fresh fall of snow! So far we are 2-0 of White Christmases in Colorado!

Seeing both sets of grandparents within a month! These boys are spoiled.

Opening stockings on Christmas morning. Daniel loved he and Caleb's matching PJs. I was so happy to see something in my stocking this year. It was empty last year. :-(

Is wrong for the mommy and wife to fill her own stocking?

The boys are playing with a Fisher Price Little People nativity set. I love this set because it means I don't have to let them play with the one my grandmother made and was passed to me by my mom.

Caleb's favorite gift -- a $2 toy flip phone.

Daniel's big gift from Mommy and Daddy - a not $2 train table for all his Thomas toys.

But the real hit of the day was Uncle Howard's racecar track. It was also a self-entertaining toy and that made Mommy happy!!

Daniel enjoying the Christmas snowfall. I think this picture was taken the day after Christmas because both boys started running fevers and got a severe case of the pitifuls by mid-morning on Christmas day. We had to cancel having Christmas dinner with some friends, but had a relaxing day at home. I came down with strep throat that night. Patrick got a sinus infection a few days later and that is how our 2007 ended! We were in bed by 10pm on New Year's Eve. Quite sad...