sweet home colorado: O Christmas Tree

Last Sunday, we continued our every other year when we don't have an infant or I'm not hugely pregnant tradition of cutting down our own Christmas Tree. We headed out with the whole fam for a beautiful day in God's amazing creation.

The kids all had a great time exploring the land!

We snapped a few family photos before heading out to hunt.

We didn't really get a perfect one, but such is life these days, let's be real people!

We borrowed this back pack from Gwen & Tim. It was perfect for lugging our little guy around through the trees. I'm thankful he is at least 5 pounds lighter than Nolan and Heath were when we did the same thing with them at just short of a year of age.

Heath loved carrying the saw around. He held it like a gun and pretended to shoot things. No matter how hard I try to say "no guns", "no shooting", boys will be boys!

Nolan eating a donut and checking out trees with Oma.

The whole crew on the hunt.

We decided right off the bat that no tree is perfect. We've learned this lesson in past years. So we knew we wouldn't spend forever hunting for something that just doesn't exist. When Mark spotted this one after just about 20 minutes we were happy. It was pretty full on top, and if we cut off the sparse bottom at a height that would actually fit in our house, it would be just the right size.

The boys liked it too, so we decided it was "the one"!

Nolan and Heath both helped saw a bit.

Then Mark finished the job!

We were the first to find our tree, so we just hung out in the trees and played a bit before making our way back to the car.

The two pictures above just crack me up. Typical Heath faces when wielding a stick, bat, or light saber.

As we were hunting, a group of friendly people rode up on Christmas horses. They passed out candy canes to the kids.

Payton looked so happy petting Indy.

Mark ready to haul the tree back to the car.

Heading back to the car with his candy cane snack.

The Syers fam was the next to return with their tree in tow. The kids tailgated, snacked, and hung out in the car together.

Bruce & Barb and Brad & Jayne took awhile longer to find their trees and make it back. When they did we enjoyed a yummy lunch in the trunks of our cars, chatted, and watched the kids explore together. It was a fun outing with great weather. We hope this will be our tradition every year from now on...no more babies for this fam!

We drove home and put the kids down for a nap. While they ~~slept~~ or rather, messed around in their rooms for a few hours, Mark put the lights on the tree and I got the house cleaned up and ready to decorate. When the boys woke up they were SO excited to start!

Nolan did a great job and loved remembering certain, special ornaments.

Heath did an excellent job for just being 3. He got really into it and was really independent.

The Broncos game was on, so they were sporting their Broncos gear. Nolan wanted to hang the Broncos ornament too!

They both decided that they each needed their own branch to hang their favorite ornaments on. This was Heath's.

I liked letting them decorate the tree the way that they wanted to. But their branches were getting a bit too heavy, so we had to disperse some ornaments when we were done.

Brooks helped out with a few ornaments as well.

Love his sweet face checking out the tree.

And here she is in all her glory! A perfectly imperfect tree!

And a few more decorations...

Mark picked the perfect day last week to hang up our outside lights. It was 65 degrees and sunny. It was fun for him to figure out how to decorate our new home. He did a great job and it was actually pretty easy- two straight rows and a little garland around the porch.

This picture is a little dark, but we put garland and our "12 Days of Christmas" ornaments on our staircase in the front entry way. I also have a good spot for my Willow Tree Nativity Scene now.