Holiday Happenings

 We've had a lot going on lately and have been enjoying the holiday season with some fun activities.  At the same time, both of may parents had major surgeries in the span of one week so life has been more hectic than usual.  The good news is that both surgeries went well and they're both on the road to recovery.

We ran to get our Christmas tree one evening while my poor dad was staying with us to recover for a few days after his surgery.  The plan was to grab a tree and some dinner and head back home.  When we got to the tree lot the owner invited us inside to see the trees they were in the process of flocking.  I'd never seen a flocked tree in person before and they were pretty amazing.  They had them in all different colors and G fell in love with a purple one with purple lights.  Brian and the boys were trying to convince me that we should get one of the pre-lit flocked trees, but they felt so un-traditional to me.  We spent quite a while looking at those flocked trees and then went outside to the tree lot....where all of the trees looked so plain and ordinary to me.  We ended up with a white flocked tree with blue lights folks.  And I love it.  Pictures to come.

They also had some little table top trees and G asked if he could spend his own money on a tree for his bedroom.  So at 8 years old, the boy bought his first Christmas tree and it turned out adorable with all of the boys ornaments on it.  He has it on his desk in his bedroom so that the lights can be seen out the window at night.  Such a sweet boy!

St. Nick came on the night of December 5th and left the boys all sorts of treats!  As is tradition, our Elf Moe came with St. Nick.  He goes back with Santa on Christmas and has been causing trouble at our house since his arrival.  Both boys methodically laid out all of their treasures from their stockings which included Christmas pajamas and monster slippers.

This is how Moe made his grand entrance this year.  :-)

The next day he spilled chocolate milk on the counter and in the refrigerator.  This morning the boys found our stockings in their underwear drawers and our underwear hung on the stocking hooks over the mantle.  Naughty elf!

My mom had open heart surgery on Thursday.  It's truly amazing what modern medicine is capable of.  Here she is nervous, but smiling, before surgery.  She came over the night before for some cake for my dad's birthday and for some surgery prep.  I washed and straightened her hair for her and she was happy it still looked nice the next day.  :-)

And 24 hours after surgery she'd smiling again and doing great!  She was moved to a room out of the ICU over the weekend and should be able to make it to the boys' Christmas program at church this coming Sunday.  Yay! 

A friend invited us to a lunch with Santa on Saturday afternoon.  It was a great event with games and crafts for the kids, a "balloon man," and cookie decorating.  I love the concentration here!

Yesterday we had our first real snow of the season in town.  It started when we were at church and kept on all day long.  It was fun to be able to sit inside by the fire and watch the Packers game, seeing on television what was happening right outside our windows.  G had fun outside with Henry again too!  

I just hope this snow sticks or we get a little more.  Christmas without snow just isn't right!