Old School Christmas Tree

According to old Hollywood movies people used to get and decorate their Christmas trees on Christmas Eve, or sometimes Santa himself would deliver it. How magical.

I personally prefer to have the tree up the whole month of December; however, in our life, things rarely go according to plan (someday I'll explain our family motto of "Completely Unprepared for Absolutely Everything"). So, its not really to surprising that being out of town in the beginning of December threw everything off. Add to that a big snow storm this past weekend and we found ourselves out on Christmas Eve looking for a Christmas tree.

The only "real" place (i.e. a plant nursery/tree lot) that still had trees was selling $80.00 trees for 40% off...I'm sorry, not a good enough deal for the Udys! So what if they were beautiful, they still shoud have been $20.00 - IMHO. So we finally gave in and headed to Wal-mart (not even the nice one in the next town over, but the trashy one down the street from us) for the tiny trees I'd seen leaning against the building for $10.00. And lo, they had been further discounted to...

...wait for it...

...$5.00!!

A Christmas miracle. (Okay - don't worry, we aren't that poor, we were planning to spend a lot more than that but still - FIVE DOLLARS! You can't loose!)

Before - Aaron is trying to put on a "poor me" face next to our shrimpy tree.

As you can see, it turned out wonderfully and I loved the idea that Tessa would wake up to a Christmas tree, lights, decorations AND presents. Yeah!

After - LOVE IT!

Christmas Surprise

I had an ultrasound on Tuesday, it was scheduled at the last minute so Aaron wasn't able to come. I didn't want to know the gender of our baby before he did, and so, since Christmas was right around the corner I had the u/s tech write down the gender and seal the paper in an envelope. Contrary to popular belief, I did look away from the screen when the tech got to "that part" and so I was as clueless as Aaron.

I carried the paper around in my purse for TWO WHOLE DAYS and it nagged at me the whole time. But I was a good girl and waited until Christmas to open it.

The note is now posted on our fridge and reads:

"Congratulations. Its a Girl."

We were both expecting a boy - but are thrilled to be having another girl. Yeah!

Grandpa's Trains

While we were visiting Idaho Falls, Grandpa's trains were a big hit. Believe it or not, I think he got bored with running them before Tessa got bored with watching them. I think a lot of fascination had to do with the train car that dumped M&Ms, but there was a lot of things she thought were magical.

Gift and ANOTHER endorsement

For Christmas my little sister Laura made me a book about our experience with Tessa's birth and hospital stay.

You can read it here

Laura is a consultant for Heritage Makers. Unlike other photo books and/or scrap booking systems Heritage Makers helps people to tell the story as much as on the pictures and layout.

I was really touched by the book she made us. Thanks Laura.

A Most Embarrassing Brag

I finished a quilt.



I'm not proud of myself.

I started it in 2006.

I actually gave it to my Mother-In-Law last year for Christmas, unfinished.

I took it home to finish it.

And it took me all year.

Talk about an anti-climatic gift.