The perfect Christmas tree

On Friday we went to find the perfect Christmas tree. This year we went to Hubert's tree farm where you cut your own tree. I know it is not the woods, but I love my full pruned Christmas tree. We met up with the Mills and walked around this huge farm quite a bit trying to decide what type of tree to get and which one was the best. It was pretty cold especially to start with so after much deliberation we finally just picked a skinny full one as we were cold and hungry. I loved our tree last year and was initially disappointed that we just picked one that wasn't the "perfect" tree. But as we rode home I realized I was being silly. It is just a tree it is not the real reason for the season.


What are we doing? We have already looked at a bunch of trees.

Hunter, Olivia, and Hannah, not really wanting to pose for this picture.

"I cut it" Last year when we picked out a tree Olivia would go up to each tree with the saw and say "I cut it" It was pretty cute and this year she actually got to help cut the tree down. Got the "perfect" one
Time to decorate.

We have gotten these good of pictures of her in awhile...she was really into decorating the tree.

So cute, I just love this time of year.

Take a picture of this ornament dad.
Nose nuzzle.
The finished tree.

That evening we got the tree all set up and while Claire was up sleeping we decorated the tree. We always wear our santa hats when we decorate and we played Christmas music while we worked. Olivia loved helping this year and she was pretty good at getting them up, although a few fell off because the branch wasn't strong enough. She kept saying, "I will put this one up high" We had a step stool that she could climb up and put the ornaments up higher so Claire wouldn't be able to reach them. Consequently they all got put on the same few branchs that she could reach. She loved looking at all the ornaments though and especially loved the few that were her special ones. Earlier in the evening I had gotten out her special box with Christmas books, DVDs, and ornaments, and manager set. She had so much fun playing with her "new" stuff and watching the videos that she hadn't seen in over a year. Olivia is now very excited for Christmas and Santa coming. She keeps telling me we need to make cookies for Santa. We had such a great time decorating that we lost track of time and before we knew it it was 10:30 and time for bed. What a great day and evening.

Here is a video of the tree cutting.

Here is a video of decorating.

Count your blessings

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in our home. We often travel for Thanksgiving but it was really nice to stay home as we will be traveling for Christmas and then off to Japan. So we had our good friends from the shipyard the Chermaks over and a friend Josh (whose wife is in Japan and he is headed there today) and later that evening for dessert the Mills stopped in. I of course was cooking most of the morning and the afternoon was so relaxing and nice to visit that I completely forgot to take any pictures. Olivia had so much fun playing with Kaitelyn and later Hannah and Hunter. We had a very enjoyable day.

At the end of the day Hans and I talked with Olivia as we were getting ready for bed about our many blessings and what we are thankful for. She was thankful for mom and dad, and Claire and all her friends. We are so truly blessed in this life to have family, friends, a wonderful home, food on our table and so much more. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are as excited as I am about Christmas being right around the corner.

Round Two...Poor baby

Well unfortunately, since Olivia got the chicken pox so did Claire. The incubation period is 2 weeks and sure enough about 2 weeks after Olivia got the pox so did Claire. She got them way worse then Olivia did though. Olivia only had 12 and itched maybe 10 minutes. Claire had over 100 and we had two rough nights. She didn't really scratch at them much she just had a tough time sleeping. Otherwise she didn't seem to bothered by them. She is now all scabbed up and healing. I hope they heal quickly as I want to get Christmas pictures taken soon. These are the pictures from when they first started you will see in other pictures how they look now that they are scabbing.

Olivia loves to cut paper these days. I think I am going to have to buy stock in paper as she either wants to color on it or cut it all up. Oh well it keeps her entertained for hours.

Keeping Busy

So every year I make a family calendar and at this time of year I am always taking silly photos to put specifically in the calendar. So here are a couple of the "turkey" picuters to put on Thanksgiving. I was also happy because I was able to get Olivia to wear a matching outfit to Claire even though it was pants and she didn't throw a huge fit. YAY! She has actually been quite agreeable the last few days which has been really nice.

Hey big girl!

Nice smile, you didn't give me the cheesy one.

Another climbing the stairs photo. Olivia now thinks it is fun to have her picture taken while climbing the stairs with Claire.

There is not much new going on in our lives. I have been ultra busy preparing for Christmas. I am super ahead of schedule compared to normal, with most our Christmas shopping done, over half the presents wrapped and the Christmas letter already written and ready to print out. But I still have a long to do list and not much time to prepare as we have a crazy holiday season planned and then leaving for Japan on the 2nd of January. We already have our tickets booked so it is official that we will be leaving for Japan in a little over a month.

Little Climber

Claire has become our little climber in the last few days. It is now her absolute favorite thing to do. Last night I took a few pictures of her climbing up the stairs. She can get all the way up, it is the coming down she doesn't get. Can you see the pure joy and excitement in her face of how much she loves to go up the stairs? It is pretty fun to watch her as she just gets so excited and proud of herself for what she can do. "I made it"

"See I told you I could do it"

" Working my way up with sissy's help"

"I'm almost half way there"

"Yes mom, I am crawling up the stairs again."

Good morning girls!

I love when they sit in this chair together hang out in the morning it is so cute.

Here is a cute story from this morning. Claire was following me around crying and Olivia came in and got down on her level and told her, "Claire I have to go to school today so that I can learn. I just need to learn things ok." Then she came in and told me, "Claire told me she is going to miss me while I am at school." So cute, I love to see them relating and sweet Olivia can be to her little sister.

Fun Fall Pics

Mmmm.... leaves

A nice day for a fall walk through the leaves

Cheese! Can you see my chicken pox?

See this one mom!

" Take a picture of my leaves mom."

Mmmm...more leaves.

Quit calling my name, I am inspecting these leaves.

Hey cuties!

Why can't you both look at me and smile at the same time?

Look at the pretty leaves...

Today I took the girls outside to get some fun fall pictures with the leaves. As always it is very difficult to get both the girls to smile and look at the camera at the same time, but we had fun trying. After taking pictures it was so nice out that we walked down to our mail box to get the mail. Olivia has been cooped up in the house for the last 4 days as we found some chicken pox on her on Friday. I went out and got all prepared for battling the itchies of a 3 year old, but it turned out that she only got a total of about 12 chicken pox and only had one night where she was kind of itchy. She is completely better now and I am waiting for Claire to get them next. One down one to go.

Dancing with Daddy

Here are some videos of Olivia and daddy dancing during Dancing with the Stars. This is probably our favorite family show. Olivia always has to have her flowers and high heeled dress up shoes to wear while she dances. Don't pay attention to the messy house.

Having Fun

For halloween we went trick-or-treating on Ridgetop with Olivia's good friend Jada. This is the only picture I got from that night as I didn't take the camera with us. But Jada was a bunny, Olivia was again a garden fairy and Claire was a ladybug. Olivia had a blast. She was so funny after each house they would both say, "Let's go to the next one." When I asked Olivia what her favorite part was it was ringing the doorbell. Which they only had one big fight over. Jada is always too nice to Olivia though and lets her ring the doorbell. They got pretty good at saying tirck-or-treat and thank you. And they both filled their buckets so they had a very successful night.

Hans and Olivia have a new game that Hans invented called fumblerooskies. It is where they run around the house with our soft football and Hans creates fumbles and they both have to dive for the football and try to get it. Olivia absolutely loves it and requests to play it often. One night Hans asked me to tape them playing so I did and now Olivia wants me to tape them everytime they play. It is pretty cute. Olivia loves watching herself on video and we have spent lots of time watching our old videos. We have a lot of fun doing this with her and just seeing how much she has changed even from last year. When you are with them everyday you tend to not see how much changes but watching old videos really shows it.