Our Family

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Decorations Are Up

The last couple years I haven't been able to start my decorating for an entire week after the tree was up.  I have been doing this holiday shopping event and it takes so much time and prep that I literally get nothing else done for the entire week.  Once it is over, let the decorating begin!  

This year while Mack napped I let the boys help me decorate.  I have a serious case of OCD, so it was really hard to watch them.  I did instruct them to only hang one ornament per branch, but when I would turn around Carter had like three or four to a branch.  I didn't even wait until they were in bed to rearrange the ornaments. Andy told me I was a bad mom.  They didn't care.  I just moved the ones that were too crowded and tried my best to leave as many as  I could.  When we started decorating the top of the tree they handed me an ornament with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus and said it needed to be at the top and in the middle.  When I asked why, they said because that is the true meaning of Christmas!  So sweet!!  I feel like I have made lots of mistakes as a mom, but if my boys realized the true meaning of Jesus then none of the other stuff matters.  We do Santa in our house and this goes to show that it doesn't take away from what the kids understand as being the true meaning.  They are smarter than you give them credit for and if you just teach them the real meaning then the other stuff is just for fun.  They totally believe in Santa and I love hearing their theories on what Santa does and how he delivers toys.  It is so cute!  

Last week after everything was decorated I attempted to get a good card picture, notice I said attempted.  Well you can see in this post how the card turned out.  Shutterfly had a deal where if you posted your card on your blog or website then they would give you $10 off your next purchase.  So I of course did that!   

I wasn't super happy with the pictures.  I read some tutorials about taking good pictures in front of the tree, but the problem is when you don't use flash and have a wiggly 2 year old that equals lots of blurry pictures.  I even used the tripod and bribed him with a lollipop.  I got a couple good ones, but when looking for a good card design I found one with spaces for lots of pictures.  I went with that one and did a year in review type card.  Here are all of our pictures from that night and I am enjoying using an upgraded Picasa!

Carter and Andy were such good sports with helping me get my camera right.



I don't know what is up with Cale.  He wouldn't smile right.  


I should have used this one.  I think it is my favorite.


Another silly Cale face and looks like Carter may have joined in.


This is the one I used.


My super sweet boys


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