Decking our halls

Here's something I've learned in the last week. It takes more stuff to deck the halls of a house than to deck the halls of an apartment. We've put everything we've got out, but I definitely think we need more. I have an aunt who literally has every foot of her house covered in Christmas decor starting the day after Thanksgiving. She's got 3 or 4 trees every year, dozens of stuffed animals, wooden trees, Norwegian trolls, Santa/Mrs. Claus, reindeer, etc, etc. She wraps up her pictures frames with Christmas wrapping paper, she takes books off the shelves in order to have enough room. She lines her kitchen cabinets with Christmas dishes.... it's amazing. My goal is to one day have even half as much stuff as she does, but until then, we've got our own little, growing collection. I haven't taken pictures of most of it, but here's some of it. 

 

We decided to stick our tree on a table this year so the girls would be less tempted. As you can tell by the bottom branch, the table didn't really work. The girls still tug away. Josh had the idea to block it off with our kitchen table bench and that worked until Sophie decided to nose dive over it. All I can say is that this is going to be a long month...  I really do love our tree though. The ornaments are from our wedding and this is the first year that we've actually had a legitimate tree topper. The second year we were married (the first married Christmas we had we didn't have a tree since we got married six days before Christmas) we threw on a teddy bear that we bought on our honeymoon and last year, we stuck on one of the little hats we got in the NICU. So this year, I was happy to get a star. The tree seems complete. :)

 I've been wanting to get a Nativity set for a couple of years now and I finally got the perfect one. The Little People Nativity is not only great because my girls can play with it, but the people look like they could be members of our family. I mean, check out the angel! 

Looks just like Lillian.

The only other decor picture I have is of our Charlie Brown tree. We got it a few years ago and I absolutely looooove it. 

 

Love it. 

Yesterday, we hung lights on our house and Josh found a few random string of lights. The girls are obsessed with Christmas lights, so we plugged in a strand and let them have at it. Possibly not the safest thing, buuuuut... they're still breathing. :)

 Don't mind the one sock, naked Sophie.

Sorry Lillian, but I love this picture SO much.

 Any photoshoot with my girls wouldn't be complete without a good fight... 

Christmas decorations not pictures. Our stockings/stocking holders. The Christmas village. Random Santa bell thing that hangs on doorknobs. Present mirror/window clings, Random wooden "Welcome" sighn with Santa, a snowman and a bird. Snowflake cookie jar. And of course, my dancing turkey that sings, "Deck The Halls" he's been featured on this blog multiple times though, so I don't feel bad not getting a picture. 

We also went to Temple Square on Monday night. I didn't take too many pictures, because I always do and it never really changes (see here and here for pictures from the past few years). But here's our newest family pic.

Sophie obviously wasn't interested in looking at the camera...

 So that's that. A random Christmasy post of things that all happened in November. Really though, winter is so bleak that it NEEDS to be celebrated for more than just one month. And sorry, but if you don't agree, you are simply wrong. ;)

Thankful

I wasn't going to write a "this is what I'm thankful for" post. I really wasn't. It's not that I'm not thankful, but sometimes listing the things that I'm thankful for on the interwebs makes those things feel less special. But as I was thinking about and looking at pictures from the past year, I got quite a lump in my throat.  Last Thanksgiving, my life was drastically different. I finally gave up the hope of breastfeeding my babies. I was still waking up at least twice from midnight to 6 am. I lived in an apartment complex that was unfriendly and unwelcoming. Josh was working a job where (I think) his skills were completely being taken advantage of and he wasn't getting the credit (or pay) that he deserved. I was missing Logan. I was missing my job. I was unmotvated and gaining weight.

But yet, I had so much to be grateful for.

Twelve months later, I wish I could illustrate how different I feel. I realize that not breastfeeding is nothing to ever feel guilty about. If I wake up during the night, it's usually only once. I live in a very, very friendly and inviting area. In fact, Tuesday night was spent meeting a few new people and going shopping, laughing and chatting until midnight with two new, amazing friends that I would consider to be among the 'best' of them. Josh still isn't working his brains like he'd want to, but he's getting paid a good wage and works for a great company with a lot of promotional potential. As much as I still love and miss Logan, my old job and the people I worked for/with, I'm completely content and happy with where we're at. And I'm a lot more motivated and I'm actually loosing weight. Not a ton, but a pound here and a pound there is making me feel pretty great considering I gained over 20 last winter.

Besides all of that, I have my basic things such as my family, religion, a roof over my head, food in my fridge (although, there isn't much of that because Josh cleaned out our fridge and it was pathetic how much rotten crap we had to get rid of. Oops...) and I could go on and on and on.

And just because I feel that every good post needs a picture, here's one. I chose this one because it made me laugh out loud and I thought it was perfect balance to this super cheesy post.  And really, I laughed so hard at it that it's my newest profile picture on facebook. This is so, so typical...

 Image by Lindsey Orton

Ok, so now that we've eaten our pumpkin pie, can I come out of the Christmas closet now? I better be able to because I've been secretly acting like it's Christmas for well over a month now. 

:)

One last thing. You must see The Muppets right now. Stop blog stalking and go see it. I literally laughed myself to tears twice and had a perma-grin the rest of the time. I almost fist pumped, but I thought that was a little weird, so I refrained. I'm not even kidding you guys, it was probably my favorite movie I've EVER seen. Just thinking about the first part that made me cry makes me crack up. 

Best movie in the history of movies.