Christmas Tree - Condensed

Since we extricated ourselves from my parent's basement, we've been trying to fit into a new space. One of the first things we knew would have to go is our old Christmas tree. It was over 7 feet tall and wouldn't fit in our new living room with its much shorter ceiling. So we got a new and, as it turns out, much tinier tree. There's a serious difference between a 7+ foot tree and a 4 foot tree.

We had to get a new angel anyway and it gave me the chance to try the "full" ornament style rather than the typical spacey style I've used in years past. Speaking of years past, my previous trees can be seen as follows: 2012, 2011, 2010. Before those years, I had a non-themed decorated tree, which I didn't typically take pictures of. A glimpse of my 2008 tree.

So, here is our condensed tree. This will be our tree for at least the next couple of Christmases. We'll get another big one once we have a taller ceiling. :) Then, this one will become the "kid" tree, filled with child-crafted decorations that can be handled without fear of resulting broken glass.

My normal-sized ornaments seem huge on this tree!

My theme this year is keys.

I got all the keys in a vintage-style key lot on Ebay. There were 150 of them all together, though I only used about 50 for the tree.

This angel ornament is, by far, one of the oldest on the tree. I got it about 20 years ago.

This mouse is Ben's oldest. It must be more than 20 years old, now.

Some year in the future, the keys will be painted white and rehung for another themed tree. After that, they'll go on presents for decorations. I'm also thinking some jewelry might be in order.

We're gearing up for a Christmas that reflects our tree: simple, full and meaningful.

I love the holidays!

Passing on Traditions

I had a vague memory recently that lead to warm remembrances and a desire to share that experience with my children. I never knew what they were called when I was a kid, but I found them on Pinterest or some such just a couple of months ago.

Pomanders.

Pomanders can be made in a lot of ways, but at Christmas-time, they're made of oranges and cloves.

Ben and I made things easy for the kids, pre-stringing the ribbon and poking holes for the cloves.

Henry's face... hahah!

Ben's baseball pomander. 

Just behind, you can see my overly-enthusiastic Paperwhites that decided they didn't want to wait for Christmas to bloom!

Audrey was completely focused and finished her pomander all on her own.

Audrey's whispered "ouch... ouch.. ow.. ouch" at every thorny clove brought out my sympathy as well as amusement.

Henry ended up needing help from me, but he was a trooper, anyway.

Patches wanted to know what we were engaged in that could possibly take the attention off of her!

We've strung them up throughout the house. Let's see how long it takes for the aroma to infuse our little abode!

Father's Day Questionnaire

With Ben away at WLC (Sergeant school), one of the events he has been unable to celebrate at home this year is Father's Day. So, I put together some cute questionnaires for my kids to answer, and then I mailed them out to him. He received them this morning, so I am finally free to post them up here. :)

I found the questions on Pinterest, but just copied them down and designed my own simple form and added a nifty clipart Soldier down at the bottom. I think I tracked down the original idea to Make it Perfect's blog, so I wanted to make sure I acknowledged that. 

Just to make sure Ben could read them, I filled out the kids' answers, but let them sign the bottom, themselves. 

Ben called me this morning and said that he really enjoyed them. I'm just glad that we could send him something to make him smile while he's away.

The kids are also fixed on getting him a present (Audrey is very firm on a specific idea). We will be going to the store sometime this week to pick out something for him. There won't be enough time to mail it out to him, so we will wrap it up and have him open them when he comes home.

Our anniversary is also this week (double whammy). I've already got some ideas percolating, but I won't be able to share them here until after he receives them here at home, so stay tuned for those in a couple of weeks.

O Christmas Tree

I'm running a bit late this year on my holiday blogs. Actually, I pretty much just scrapped every thought I had in that direction about three weeks ago.

I put up my tree just after Thanksgiving, like a good girl. I had everything ready and did the Advent with the kids just like I planned. However, my Soldier wasn't home, so a lot of the day to day stuff got chucked out in favor of surviving long enough as a good mother until he walked off the plane.

My usual white/silver/clear tree decorations changed a bit this year. In the past several years, I have had a themed decoration on the tree. You can see previous years' trees here and here. For my theme this year, I made some assemble-yourself gingerbread people. They added a splash of color as well as a child-friendly element of unbreakable-ness.

The gingerbread people will be recycled next year as gift tags, because I'm crafty and earth-responsible that way.

The new mingled with the old. We still have some of the first ornaments we ever bought back when we were newly married. Some are looking a little worse for wear, but they all come together nicely. Most of them are glass or at least very delicate and I hold my breath every year for the tragic possibilities of irreparable destruction.

Many of or shaped or special ornaments are symbols of Christmas.

Santa brings us a new ornament every year. This year, straying from the traditional symbol, he commemorated our first Christmas as an Army Family.

We are slowly collecting nativities. We've been fortunate thus far that only one set is horribly breakable. The other two sets can be handled by the kids with little worry of broken glass or porcelain. 

At the top of the Christmas Advent House, Santa watches the whole scene.

I do have pictures of Christmas morning. Those will be coming soon.

I hope you had a wonderful, warm and safe Christmas surrounded by those you love.

Merry Christmas!

Easter

This year marks the first when my kids have been able to have their first at home Easter egg hunt OUTSIDE. In the past, they have been too small, the weather too cold or wet, or Mother Nature was perverse enough to send two feet of snow on Easter Morning. We've had to do our hunts inside or the Easter Bunny simply left a basket for them on the table. Good thing my kids never really cared how they got their Easter surprise.

This year, I shook my fist at Mother Nature and informed her that if she insisted on poor weather again this year, I would simply have to massacre the daffodils that were springing up in the yard. I think she heard me because this morning was completely gorgeous.

Audrey with her bunny ears and Henry showing me what a completely horrible job I did on combing his hair.

The Easter Bunny wasn't tricky this year. He must have known that we don't need plastic eggs getting chopped up under the lawn mower or weed hacker.

Audrey filled up her basket very quickly and, instead of piling them precariously in her basket, gave the others she found to her brother! Ben commented that the kids seemed to be satisfied with how many eggs were in their baskets before they had found all of them. Two good signs! 

Henry's little bum kept poking out of his pants. That's what comes of having no hips! ;)

So much fun!

We went inside and opened up all the eggs. The Easter Bunny didn't bring tons of candy this year. Mostly little trinkets and toys were what filled the eggs. I'm all for that!

After lunch: I think we shall make some TP roll bird feeders!! I love Spring!

How about you? Did you have a spectacular Easter?