Goings on

I was so impatient getting Christmas up this year, because the past few years have been in limbo around Christmas time. We closed on our house 3 years ago and barely got our tree up the week before. Year after that my brother was married Dec 28th so I was in Utah, and Christmas was celebrated early and simply. Last year our house flooded and again found myself in Utah for several weeks, and came home to a hotel for a few days while we waited on floors to be finished. Then it was like moving in again, everything had to be unpacked and put back, Christmas was barely celebrated.

So this year, I had every intention of putting it up early before our trip to Utah, so that it would be up and celebrated beginning after Thanksgiving, as I usually like to have done! Ha! That didn't happen either. I was fighting hard to get over pnemonia so I could go on the trip, and then we caught a stomach bug from flying home. So after much chaos in the Moore household, we put it up. The outside stuff is yet to be completed, but it's almost there too!

But since Max is now walking (yay!) and grabbing everything (boo!) I was not going to deal with broken ornaments, and pulled decorations 50 times a day. When Maren was my only baby I had time to sit more with her, and redirect her. Max is left to his own demise to play during different times of the day, so I know better! I've heard people say- but have never really known anyone- to decorate just the top half of the tree. So yes, that is what we did. And no extra lights this year either for Mr Grabby hands to pull strands and possibly pull the tree down too. Just the basics.

But it's still purdy! The kids love the icicle lights over the porch, and the magical calm ambiance the soft lights bring. They curl up under the tree in their jammies and whisper to each other, and I could care less if there was only one ornament on the tree, my kids GET what Christmas is about, and they think it's the most beautiful tree they have ever seen. Sweet success!

And to this Utah girl, what's a holiday season without a little snow? We saw a possibility in the forecast, a girl can always hope! So we were singing "We need a little Christmas, right this very minute" last night as I cooked dinner. I didn't think the universe would take that literally. And I didn't expect it to come in this form:

That's our air condensor unit outside. Iced over. The ducts in our house have been so clogged since the construction dust last year ripping out all of our floors and cutting into drywall. And we haven't had the ducts cleaned. So appearantly the unit was pulling cold air from outside, but couldn't push through for warm air inside! And it started to produce frost, and covered the machine from the inside-out. I'm actually thankful I have a small house where my oven was sufficient enough to heat it up, we managed to stay warm. But this snow has got to go!