"It's a Christmas Miracle!"

The kids have been soooo excited about Christmas this year! Ages 4.5 & 6.5 are pretty high on the Christmas excitement meter! Selah was bouncing off the walls from the moment she woke up Saturday morning saying, "Today we get our tree, Jude! Today we get our tree!" She was a ball of joy all day long. Jude was even saying things like, "This is going to be the greatest Christmas ever!" :)

I was happy when I woke up and saw that it was blue skies! It was a great day to get a tree. Now, if your tree experiences are anything like ours then you know the routine: find tree, (some years) cut it down, haul it home, prepare the stand, vacuum up the trail of pine needles, use tense-nice voices while trying to straighten the tree for half an hour, ;) and then finally you can decorate it! Well, this year something unexpected happened. The kids in all of their excitement begged to pick out the tree. That sounded like fun, and we were prepared for whatever they picked. Much to our surprise they picked the cutest little 5 ft. tree. Josh and I looked at each other with one eyebrow up. My family always got huge trees when I was growing up, and for a second I hesitated thinking, "you can't buy a small tree", but why not? It was so cute! And from their little vantage point this tree probably looked quite big to them. So we said Yes with a big smile and told the kids we loved it! When we prepared to load it, Josh saw that it was already in a stand! We totally laughed again when we realized it would also fit in the back of our vehicle, instead of needing to tie it to the roof like we'd planned. So, when we got home Josh walked it straight into the house, no dropped needles, and set it right down where we wanted it with zero adjusting and said with that cute big smile of his, "It's a Christmas miracle!" It was so easy it almost felt wrong.. ;) The whole thing was done in record time. We had a lot of fun listening to music, making a popcorn garland per Selah's request, decorating the tree, eating lunch, putting Benj down for his nap, and baking that day. Here are a few photos...

The kids were so excited to put their owl ornaments on the tree, before the lights were even on. :)

Selah is in love with horses. She loves her pony, Ruby, and has asked for a handful of horse items for Christmas. While decorating the tree she was thrilled to come across two horse ornaments that I had from my childhood.

That night we made g-free cinnamon rolls and enjoyed them around the table with just the tree lights and a hall light on. The kids loved it and we all talked about fond past Christmas memories. Selah is in this phase where she often says, "When I was three..." and then she recalls a great memory. It's pretty cute. I loved hearing the things that stand out in our kids' minds. Josh shared childhood Christmas stories that I hadn't even heard! I remember always having cinnamon buns and hot cocoa on the night we decorated the tree when I was a kid, and it's fun to carry on the tradition with our family.