Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Decking the halls

This year we finally caved and bought an artificial tree. It's something we've been talking about doing for several years, and we finally made the leap. I must say, it was *so* easy to put up. Er... it looked like it was so easy for Chad to put up. And it's pre-lit, which meant no hours of wrestling with strings of lights... sweet! It's also a slimline, which means that we moved one end table in our living room, and the tree had a home - no rearranging the entire main floor on account of it. Gotta love that.As usually happens at our house, I took the kids out shopping last week and let them each pick out an ornament for 2008. Hmmm... I wonder what Liam chose??Yeah - Mr. Predictable. Mallory was pretty predictable, too. I thought I would get to pick out her ornament again this year since I got to choose one for Liam when he was 1, but it wasn't to be. She set eyes on a Pooh Bear ornament (after Liam was already running around with Spidey) and that was it - she would not set it down again. So home it came.I'm a big fan of the slightly dishevelled tree with lots of mismatched ornaments on it, but one thing I have been collecting for the past several years is these date-engraved locket ornaments from Pottery Barn. I put some of my favourite photos of the year in each one. It started before we had kids and is still going strong, but somehow I missed out on the 2006 ornament, and I'm still upset by it. I stalk eBay for one and I also hope that maybe one year, Pottery Barn will come out with a non-engraved ornament that I can then have engraved with the missing year. I can hope, right? This year my sister Steph was kind enough to pick the ornament up for me early in the season... 2008 is taken care of.Stockings go up after the tree is finished. I picked up these photo frame stocking holders last year after the holidays on clearance, and everyone asks about them. They're from the Superstore, but I don't know if they are carrying them again this year. At the same time as I got the stocking holders, I also picked up several strings of garland lights, intended for the stairs... but I don't think they're going up this year. I think, after a year spent planning, building, decorating, moving, and unpacking, that I am ready to keep it simple this year. There's always next year, right?The stockings themselves were handknit by Cheryle Hamilton (my sister's mother-in-law) when the kiddos were born, and they are still a big hit!So that's it. Today I am home with a 'sick kid' - Liam started complaining about a sore knee last night, and woke up in tears this morning, unwilling to put any weight on it. Ay yi yi. With 9 days left, it's not a great time to be missing work, but what can you do? So I'm home with both kids today, trying to get a doctor's appointment set up. The knee is hot to the touch so I'm thinking he's pulled a muscle in that area. Let's hope he gets better soon... having to miss his skating lesson tomorrow night is not going to go over well.

1 comments:

Kelly said...

Brad is home with Sydney today as I got "the call" from her school yesterday. She threw up in her classrom. She seems fine today, but I did not think the school would look to kindly on us if she threw up again.