The Finished Product

Well, our Christmas Tree is now miraculously standing rather than lying on its front side in the middle of the living room floor...I am hopeful that we have fixed that little problem ~

redecorating a tree can only be fun so many times and then you start to wonder if it is worth it...but as I say that, I can't help but think of the fact that there are just some things that bring peace and happiness to me and our tree is always one of them...what an incredible sight in the evening with all the lights shining so brightly. After the kids are all asleep I love to sit on the couch with my hubby and just look at the tree, it is completely mesmerizing.
As much as I love the tree all lit up, I also love it during the day when you can see each ornament and the detail that goes into them. This year is even more fun for me, we chose to not hang up all of our regular ornaments and instead to have our kids make them from paper adding things that they are grateful and thankful for...
We really wanted our kids to focus on Gratitude and not so much on the gifts and such. The gifts are all well and good and yes they are fun, but there is so much more and it is our job to help them see that. It has been beautiful and I truly think it makes a difference. This is something we have typically done for Thanksgiving...we ususally draw a large Fall Tree with bare branches that we fill with various colored leaves listing our things we are thankful for.
Well, this year my hubby and I decided to change it up and carry this over into our Christmas Season... it's been great and it is so sweet to see the little treasures that ornament our tree!
The sweetest things are written on these little ornaments ~

thankful for Momma and Daddy

thankful for Jesus

Heavenly Father

Gospel

close (clothes) :)

Yummy Food

Grammy and Poppa

Grandma and Grandpa

Onie and Rocket (our horses)

angels

Motorcycles and Bikes

Barbies

my blanket and pillow

one of ourboys made a candy cane and in the white sections he listed each of our names, it's as sweet as can be

Each day there are new little treasures put up...makes me just smile as I look at the things that mean the most to them!

And you have to see the sweet gift my boys made for me this past weekend...they couldn't agree whether they should give it to me for Christmas or if I should get it early...Lucky me...they just couldn't wait!!! I'm so glad, because now I have the pleasure of enjoying it for the next few weeks.

Is that cute or what??? They took an old ladder and decorated it with lights, pine sprigs and "snow." Then they made some little shelves to hold some of my decorations. Can't wait to get it all set up. Maybe I'll add another photo when I have it all together. What sweet boys I have (and what a sweet mother-in-law who helped them come up with the idea...thanks!!!)

Before ending this little post on our Christmas Tree, I must tell on myself...

Sometimes, don't you wish you could just go crawl back in bed and start your day over? Well, that is exactly how I felt just a few days ago...

I came downstairs to see our beautiful tree, not looking quite so beautiful. All the ribbon was in one big heap on the floor. Two of our kids were downstairs and guess what I did? Yep, you are right, I did it, I accused them of pulling off the ribbon...I could not fathom WHY on earth they would do such a thing...but it had to be them, no one else had been downstairs ~ so this lousy mom accused two adorable little people of destroying the Christmas Tree...

It gets worse, when they denied it, I re-questioned them, adding that "I don't have a cat, I only have children, and YOU two are the only children that have been downstairs this morning, so unless your Dad had some strange little fit and yanked all the ribbon off the tree and left for work, it MUST have been one of YOU!!!"

Well, after looking at their completely innocent little faces...faces that seemed entirely crushed by my accusations, I thought I should give that hubby of mine a quick call to see if he was the guilty one...

He laughed when I told him what I had done and said, "Dear, the tree was laying in the middle of the floor when I came downstairs, I stood it up but didn't have time to put it back together before I had to leave for work."

I thanked him and then gathered my thoughts and prepared for a little touch of humility as I went to ask forgiveness of those sweet little kids of mine that I had just thought were little stinkers...sure glad kids are so kind and forgiving ~ they just kind of giggled and said, "Told you we didn't do it Mom."

The next morning we came down to the same sight, only this time, we found it laying in the middle of the floor...it was a moment of chuckles and giggles between myself and those two little people.

I LOVE BEING A MOM...days are always filled with some wonderful little surprise! Sometimes it's me surprising all the kids ~ they just think I'm a crazy lady ~ and I guess I can't deny that one...at times I am just a touch crazy and they always have to witness it!!! Maybe it's a good thing for kids to know their mom isn't perfect...and maybe even a better thing for their mom to have to suck it up, apologize and ask forgiveness for being such a dingbat. Guess we're just all in this together, learning and growing. Can't think of anything better than to be learning life's lessons with all these adorable little kiddos I've been blessed with.