Deck the Halls...

Last night we started putting up our Christmas decorations!  SO FUN!  (I feel like the decorations just put me in the holiday spirit, and don't take away from Thanksgiving at all...but that's just me so if you can't stand the thought of decorations up before Thanksgiving, then sorry!)  Our house was a complete disaster area for awhile, but the fun of decorating the tree and helping Brynn put her little tree together was worth it!  Her little face got so excited when we would turn the strands of lights on, and she somewhat "got" the concept of decorating the tree!  (Well...for her, decorating meant laying the ornaments on the tree, which meant they would inevitably fall off onto the floor, but only two broke!  HA!)

Yes, Pawpaw that is the green tree you made many years ago on the floor next to me!  We still have it, put it
up every year, and love it!  And Brynn seems to LOVE it too this year!

I couldn't help but put this hat on her!  

This tree is now her night-light...her little face just lights up when she sees it!

Does anyone else's hubby light to decorate the tree shirtless?  I guess he feels like he needs to
be more macho since he's the one putting all the lights on?  I guess that should be a girl job, but
I think the lights are hard to do, and he does such a good job.
And of course I secretly know that if I ask him to do the lights, then he'll inevitably to take his
shirt off to do the job...HAHA!

"I HI-NING"
She is REALLY into hiding these days.  Now she wants to crawl under the tree and hide.  And she
wanted to help Daddy put the lights on.

This picture does NOT do justice to the terrible mess that was ALL over our house!

 Once the upstairs decorations were pretty much up (I thought we'd get to the downstairs to, but that was NOT going to happen...whew...we were exhausted!) I send Brynn and Ryan to the store to get some stuff for a meal we were making for some friend's who just had a new baby.  They also picked up our traditional Sunday night supper...a $5 Little Ceaser's pizza!  HA!  I had enough time to vacuum up all the tree needles all over the floor and put up all the MESS!  When they got back we had a normal looking house to enjoy again!

She has really enjoyed playing with her Little People nativity set!
We have really been trying to talk about how Baby Jesus is the real reason we celebrate Christmas
and put up the tree, etc.

Then later today while Ryan was at work, Brynn and I tackled the downstairs tree...our Mizzou tree.  We had SO MUCH FUN putting it together.  She loves to copy whatever I'm doing, so she was "fluffing" the branches, trying to spread out lights and tinsel, etc.  She is just a hoot!  It has been so fun putting up the decorations with her this year!