It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

We are spending Christmas this year in St. George with Clay's side of our family. Last year, we spent Christmas in California, so we didn't bother to decorate our apartment much. We decided that we really want Zane to have a Christmas tree and some holiday cheer around him for his first Christmas.

Last night we took a trip to Hobby Lobby. How much do I love that store? SOO MUCH! All of their Christmas stuff is 50% off pretty much all the time. We picked out a tiny (read: cheap) Christmas tree, a sparkly tree topper and a couple of ornaments. All together it cost us less than $20 buy the tree and all the decorations. After putting the tree together, we decided that it needs a little more fun color and some lights, but we are so happy that we put up our tree!

I also picked out some stockings at Hobby Lobby. I'll take pictures of those as I dig out my holiday decor and get everything hung up. I let Zane choose his own stocking. I held up two stockings and he chose a dinosaur one. I held up the dinosaur one with another stocking and he thought about it for a few minutes before choosing the same stocking. Dinosaur stocking it is! A grandma in the store watched the process as we were doing it, and she was amazed that Zane would pick his own stocking!

When Clay first pulled the tree out of the box, Zane wasn't sure what to think about it.

He tested it out by banging on it, and trying to eat it.

He didn't like how the tree felt. He liked it even less when Clay let the tree fall toward him. 

Clay helped him make peace with the tree, but stayed on edge for the rest of the night.

I tried as hard as I could to get some cute family pictures with the self-timer. Most of them didn't work out very well. I did like this next one, though.

We tried to get Zane to help put the star on the tree. He wasn't really interested.

When we finished decorating, I asked Clay to hold up the tree. After I took the picture, he looked worried and said, "That picture is going up on the blog, isn't it?" YUP! It may make next year's calendar as well. What do you think, Jen?

After we put Zane to bed, I made some delicious homemade pear-apple cider. Oh-so-delicious! I had to open all the windows and our patio door to make it cool enough in the house to want to drink cider (it was 75 degrees during the day yesterday). We are definately feeling some Chrismas Cheer! 

In a few hours, I am having some friends over for lunch and to make some cute little Christmas decorations. I'm excited to have more decorations to add to our little home.