Decorating and a Celebrity

We spent much of the weekend finally decorating for Christmas - I say finally because we have been looking at a huge "naked" tree all week! Finally got the lights on it on Saturday (took me 3 hours!! - It's a 10 foot tree) and then we finished decorating it with ornaments today. It always feels like a lot of work, but I always LOVE it when we're done. We don't follow any "theme" with our tree - it's just full of stuff we love - things that are special and have memories to all 4 of us. Some of our favorites are at the bottom of this post.

In other news, which I wanted to post last week but didn't get around to it - we had big excitement around here last Monday when we realized Jack had a "story" with an illustration published in the local newspaper on Thanksgiving!! The newspaper asked the local elementary schools to submit directions from the students on "How to Cook a Turkey." Zion's lunchladies sifted through the entries at our school, and submitted the ones they thought were "worthy," and then the newspaper chose 50 from the community to be published - one of which was Jack's! We missed it somehow on Thanksgiving, but when Jack returned to school on Monday, his teacher had it proudly displayed in their room - I felt awful that we missed it!! Anyway, Grandpa immediately went down to the paper and bought 6 copies. Here's Jack with his picture (it's on the left side of the paper) - looks pretty proud, no?

I'm sure you can't see the type, so here's what it says - "My Grandpa went hunting. He shot three turkeys because we have a BIG family. Grandma and Mom cook it for 50 hours at 50 degrees. Then they put butter and salt on it. We also have corn on the cob." Okay, so he has his facts a little mixed up - Grandpa was quick to point out to the GF&P officer in his office that the shooting ocurred DURING turkey season last spring - not now, in the off-season! :) And mom doesn't really have anything to do with cooking the turkey - that's all Grandma's doing, so I thought I should give credit where it's due! Anyway, it was funny for us to see what he came up with.

We're headed into our last fairly "normal" week before Christmas - starting next weekend, the calendar really gets crazy. Hope to enjoy some peaceful moments before then! Closing with a few of our favorite ornaments - obviously this one would be MARK'S:

This one is Jack and Noah's - it's lights flash along with the music it plays -

And this one is probably the oldest on the tree - this is one of mine from when I was a little girl - I remember getting SO excited every year when this one came out of the box. He's been chewed on by a family dog, and he's kinda funny looking, but I was attached to him, and he's been on every tree I've ever had! Look familiar, mom and dad?!?