Decking the Halls, Part I

Can it really be that time of year again? Where does the time go? 

So it's time to deck the halls, which includes both a Christmas tree and a birthday tree. Bree is now as tall as her birthday tree! She'll tell you that with her curls, though, she's a bit taller. :) 

In past years, Bree would take ornaments from the Christmas tree and put them on her birthday tree. Which was no big deal, but I've been looking for non-holiday specific ornaments for her birthday tree. We happened to be out shopping on Black Friday and hit a sale at Macy's - they had a "princess" tree with ornaments on sale! So Bree picked out some new ornaments specifically for her birthday tree.

She has two ornaments of poodles doing shopping activities. While this is winter-themed, I told Bree that the poodle was on her way to a birthday party.

This ornament is a lady talking on a cell phone wearing a party dress. We also found a pink purse ornament, hanging to the right of the lady.

And a high-heeled shoe, of course! (She's not giving up the snowflake, which is fine.)

Aunt Amy bought Bree this beautiful pink bird ornament when she was visiting in October. We took a quick trip to "the Christmas store" (aka Michael's) and they already had their holiday merchandise out.

Ever since being followed by the peacock at the zoo, Bree has had a fascination with peacocks and peacock feathers. While this was not from the same tree as the "princess" ornaments, it was on a peacock themed tree at Macy's. So we're using this in lieu of a tree-topper for Bree's tree.

I took some other pictures of Bree standing next to her birthday tree but for some reason they didn't save to the memory card. Weird. It might have something to do with the fact that when I went to take some more pictures I got the message "memory disk full." Seems like Bree took about 100 pictures of Sly, the tv and her dolls, leaving me no more room. I thought I only deleted the ones she took, but apparently I erased everything after these.

Last weekend I put the lights on the house. Getting up on the ladder is my second favorite thing to do this time of year (right after raking leaves). Bree kept asking me to do it after work, volunteering to hold a flashlight for me so I could do it in the dark. Despite that very generous offer, I waited until the weekend to do it. It didn't exactly go off without a hitch, but every year I get a little bit better at it. Last year I broke the stakes that anchored the inflatable snowman so I might put that up after my folks get here and I can get some technical advice as to how to anchor the snowman so he doesn't look tipsy. Last year we'd pull up in the driveway to find the snowman laying on his side in the yard. So I'm saving myself the 10 minutes I spent every night trying to pick up and right an inflatable snowman. :)

I'm going to go back and try to re-take the photos I thought I took earlier. But, the lights are hung, the trees are up and decorated, and all that's left is to hang the stockings and place some Christmas-y decorations around the house. I'm getting there!