i {heart} real Christmas trees

growing up we ALWAYS had a real tree, it wasn't until we had all moved out that my mom decided to get a fake one (much to the dismay of some of her daughters)

i loved the search for the perfect tree each year at the neighboring tree farm and the fresh pine smell that filled the room when we set it up in the house. a family tradition that i would like to pass on to my kids.

so once again this year (a little earlier than our usual mid december outing since miss baby girl is due to arrive any day) we made the trek to a local tree farm to find the perfect tree.... and we found it :) i mean this one is perfection! fresh pine smell and all.

"I pick this one"
watching Daddy cut down the tree
"It's cold!"
decorating the next day!

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Happy Halloween?

One struggle we have as parents is deciding how to handle Halloween. For most it is a harmless holiday where you run around dressed up in funny costumes and get sick on candy. However, it's not that for everyone and that is where we struggle.

Growing up, both my husband and I didn't do much for Halloween. For me it was very rare to dress up and trick or treat but it wasn't like I was told that it wasn't okay either. We've sort of gotten away with doing nothing with our kids up until these past couple years when our oldest started school. Of course at school everyone talks about what they are going to dress up as and all the dreams of huge bags of candy begin to formulate in their little heads.

A local church offers an "alternative" called the Hallelujah Party. So for the past two years we have gone there with our kids. It is a mass chaos of kids playing games for "tickets" which can then be turned in for prizes and candy (selecting prizes seems to take about as long as the games for our oldest!) So that's great and all but it still doesn't answer the questions of a 7 and 4 year old, wondering why mommy and daddy don't like Halloween very much when the rest of the world seems to love it almost as much as Christmas.... Maybe by next year we will have some good answers ;)

We decided to go to the Hallelujah Party again this year. I had told the girls that we would go to the party but probably not dress up this time as I couldn't think of anything we had on hand for my oldest to wear. But, 1/2 an hour before the start of the party an idea popped in my head and when we left we took along with us to the party: a cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins, a flower girl for a wedding - though she identified herself as a "wedding girl" (she wore a dress I wore when I was a flower girl at the age of 3) and what I would call an old fashioned lady on a Saturday night, complete with pink hair curlers.