Day 2 of getting in the Christmas Spirit

So tonight, after a long day with the kids....and yes....it was a LONG day. (I think it might have something to do with the fact that Sean and I are breaking into colds and not feeling so good....the kids can sense the "weakness" and gang up on us.) Anyhow...I thought I might try and put the Christmas tree up in an attempt to get them doing something other than chasing each other around the house very loudly. We had 1 hour until bedtime, they were half clothed, but I gave it my best shot. They of course had a ball. "Ya, the Christmas tree!!!" We did have a fun time assembling it (We always bought real trees until Dallas' first Christmas and Boston was 20 months old...thought we might hold off for a little while.) Boston said, "Thank you mommy for all the beautiful colored lights...they are my FAVORITE." When we were putting up lights outside yesterday he wanted so badly to put the multi-colored lights outside, but they were indoor lights and I didn't have any outdoor multi colored lights. And for some reason that was all he wanted. So he was thrilled when our Christmas tree was adorned with multi colored lights! As I'm still working on the tree Boston runs to the garage, "I know where they are mommy! I'll get them." I'm thinking, "you know where WHAT is." And in he walked with the bin of generic ornaments (I bought these on Dallas' first Christmas as well. Boston was getting older and I knew I would be distracted with a new born baby so I bought these unbreakable ornaments to hang instead of my cherished ones, just in case of breakage.) He was so proud of himself. So they hung all of those and then I went and got all the Disney ones and they had a great time hanging those. It was funny to see how they new a lot more of the characters on the ornaments this year. They were especially excited to find two Peter Pan ones and each got to hang one. Maybe tomorrow I'll find the energy to bring out all our family ornaments. But for tonight, they had a great time and we accomplished one more Christmas thing!

Looking at all the ornaments. Asher in the background..."Oh I want to touch those so bad!"

"Wow, they are so colorful!"

When I went to the garage to find the star to put on top Boston was so excited. He said, "Thank you so much for finding our star mommy! It's just so beautiful." And it makes all the disobeying of the entire day just melt away....that's what it's all about. Sean had a horrible headache and feel asleep on the couch in the middle of all of it
Notice how all of the ornaments are hanging near the bottom....in the morning it probably won't be that way anymore. (Perfectionist in me)

The boys wanted me to take a picture of them in front of the tree, half dressed an all. Of course they could care less. They were just so cute and proud of their tree!

I also brought out a few other Christmas items along with The Boys Christmas Box (I put all their christmas toys, books and nativity set in here.) The hit was the Fisher Price nativity set, which we bought last year but they never really fully understood. Boston was really into it this year. I read him the story and he acted it out with all the characters. It was so much fun to watch him get it and understand. As he was unpacking it he yelled to me, "Look mommy, it's baby Jesus!" Some other hit items were gifts from Aunt Margie. Of course she always knows the perfect gifts to send the boys. They were especially intreged with last years toy Santa the moves and tells "The Night Before Christmas" story. It's about 10 minutes long and they would sit there, in a trance, watching Santa tell them the story. Dallas even stayed longer and gave Santa a hug and kiss for the story.

My freshman year in college my roommate Michelle and I bought some Christmas crafts to do to decorate our tree. I still had one kit left over that we never used and Boston found it. It was a kit to make these ornaments you had in the window as sun catchers. He had a great time painting them today.