the tree and stuff

i know. it's january 10th, and i'm posting about a christmas tree.

but listen, i have all these photos that i took.  and i took them for a reason: to remember.

not necessarily to document our beautiful holiday home.  because, just shootin it straight here.....we only had like 3 decorations up.

1. a tree

2. a plastic toddler nativity set

3. a collection of spray painted, sparkly pinecones in apothecary jars.

i know.  and i wonder why i didn't have any bloggers asking me to guest-post a "holiday home tour".

ha. 

haha.

...

our first attempt at decorating for christmas 2012 was a failure.

mr leif hauled out our hand me down, pre lit tree.  which should be handy-dandy, you know, because it's pre-lit.

but with many attempts made, we couldn't seem to connect the three different sections of lights together.  and frustration grew.

so, we collectively decided the tree needed to go back into the box, and back into the garage for a bit.

we tried again a week later, and things went much more smoothly :)

romes went to town decorating with dad.

i've gotten pretty good and smiling and accepting what might not be "what i had in mind" for things like tree decorating.  but how much more enjoyable is it when i just let them do their thing?

so much.

and heck, then i didn't have to mess around trying to put all the ornaments on nicely.

mr leif put most of the ornaments up top and clustered to the front.

and romy played around with a handful of them towards the bottom, rearranging them on a daily basis.

and taaaa-daaaa.

 daddy tried to explain the birth of jesus to romes.

 and, consequently, roman thought mary needed a "lift" to the stable.

much better than a donkey in my pregnant perspective!

 and there you have it, a massive collection of spraypainted and sparkly pinecones on the mantle.

a christmas tree.

and a nativity scene.

those three things concluded our christmas decor.

and......our tree is still up.

i took this photo just this morning!

isn't she a shining beaut!

it probably needs to be taken down.

but those twinkling lights at night?  they're too hard to say goodbye too.

i'm thinking we'll give it another week.