Homemade for Christmas

The kids had been bugging us since the day after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas tree. Having been married to the Christmas Scrooge, I mean Rikk, the last eight years, I knew that wasn't going to happen! Rikk HATES Christmas and I don't know why, just cause...maybe it's because his birthday is 4 days after it...who knows.

Anyway...when he finally agreed to set up the tree, we went out to the garage to get the ornaments (or "ordaments" as Rikk and Walker say) so that the kids and I could get unwrapping them and what not while Rikk got the tree out and up. Well, there were no ornaments in the garage...they are all down in Anchorage in a storage unit. Oops!

So we decided that we would make our own ornaments this year. I have a container with about 20 different Christmas cookie cutters. I traced a set for each of us on poster board, we all decorated our own with markers, I cut them out, added some ribbon to hang them, laminated them and cut them out again. They turned out REALLY cute and we all really like them. I think that they are going to be our only ornaments from here on out. And it was really neat to see everyone's decorations and what they thought each ornament should look like. We didn't have one that looked like another! We thought about stringing some popcorn but knew that would just end up being a snack for Kyler, so we made some garland out of construction paper.

Hunter coloring his ornaments

Me cutting one of the MANY ornaments

So we got the ornaments done and Rikk went into the crawl space to get out the tree...NO TREE!!! DOH! We suggested to the kids two options and told them that they could choose which we were going to do. The first option was making a Christmas tree out of butcher paper and hanging it on the wall. They thought that was a pretty cool idea. The second option was calling Nana and Papa and asking them if we could borrow their tree to put up at our house, to which we got an unanimous "Call Nana and Papa NOW!!!" So mom and dad were very kind and let us use their tree, which made three little boys VERY happy!

Rikk made these ornaments for Kooper and Conner

Rikk putting the tree up

Kyler helping to decorate the tree

Hunter decorating the tree

Walker decorating the tree

Kyler putting the angel on top

(Hunter made it at school, it really kinda looks like a butterfly!)

The finished product minus our homemade stockings

That's right, we even made homemade stockings. My mom had a neat idea of just using big brown grocery bags and having the kids each decorate their own. They turned out so neat, I wish we had gotten a picture and that they hadn't been thrown away. And if you look at the tree there are envelopes on it. Hunter and Walker made something for each of us and put it in an envelope. It was anything from a picture to a coupon to do something for us. What sweet thoughtful little boys we have! The kids, Rikk and I had such a great time together coloring, putting the tree together and decorating, it was really nice to spend so much time together as a family.