Decorating for Christmas, take 2!

Our poor Christmas tree. Isis and the kids knocked it over several times over the past week, and it just couldn't last one more day. We've had it for several years now, so it's had a good, long life. We decided to just go for a real tree, since we really did need to replace it, and I'm so glad we did! The smell is divine, it looks amazing and it really feels like Christmas in the desert with a real tree.

Asher and Cambria just weren't into decorating the tree this year, so we decided to decorate this one last night after they went to bed. We had such a fun time with Kyrie, and I know she really enjoyed taking part in helping us without the other kids. She put almost every ornament on all by herself, and I think it looks so great!

Kyrie is really into Christmas this year. She told me we didn't have enough decorations up. We didn't -- we just had the tree -- but I just haven't been feeling much of the Christmas spirit lately. So I decided I was going to make a bigger effort for Kyrie's sake, and we went out and bought a lot of new decorations. We put those up after we decorated the tree last night.

The only place we have to hang stockings is on our banister. I'm not too thrilled about having to put them there, but the kids have gotten a kick out of seeing them every time we go up and down the stairs.

I had forgotten I had these in storage.
Kyrie thought it was so cool when I brought them out.

After all the decorating was done, we put Kyrie to bed, and Derk and I decided to wrap presents. We were up quite late doing it, but we had a nice time just talking and wrapping. (Okay, so I did most of the wrapping. Anyone who knows Derk knows he does. not. wrap. presents. Ever.) It feels great to have all that out of the way and will afford us some extra sleep on Christmas Eve!