Traditions and Catching up

 WARNING! LOOOOONG post! I love this first picture! this is what Thanksgiving weekend looked like at my mom's house. I slept on the couch where you can see tiny Ruth laying, and there were 9 kids on the floor, it was wall to wall blankets and wall to wall fun!

 The next week we went and cut down our Christmas tree! We went one evening hoping to get it all done before the rain and the dark. We beat the rain... kind of, and almost the dark...

 We had a truck full of trees 3 for our house and several to give away. It was lots of fun! This is our favorite tree farm they have great big trees! It is a tradition for us to go chop it down ourselves!

 Another one of our Christmas traditions is to go to the tree lighting at WOU. There is a parade free hot chocolate, glow sticks and of course a giant Christmas tree to be lit at the end of the parade! OOOOHHHHH almost like being in New York!

 After they light the tree there is a concert in the Warner Center. Brock's school choir sang. They did a great job! This was the beginning of recital/ concert week for us! (Even though it is on Friday, but from this concert to tonight I will have gone and seen each 5 of my kids perform something different times...)

 Saturday night Larry and I put our Christmas tree up and the lights on, then Sunday evening after the First Presidency Christmas devotional we put all the decorations on.

 Ruth LOVES the tree. It has been up almost a week and she still points at it every morning and each time she gets up from a nap, she blows kisses goodnight to the angel. Luckily she is being good about not tearing it apart! Which is more then I could hope for!

 Everyone enjoyed putting on their favorite ornaments.

 Larry and I don't do the "theme" tree or the color coordinated tree... We have a memory tree. Each year we get ornaments that represent things that happened, or places we have been Sunday when we were done I felt like playing with my camera and took some pictures of some of my favorites. I thought I would share a few.

 These two mice are holding a cookie and a cookie cutter and it says "friend of my heart" on the cookie. This is the one we got the Christmas we were engaged. Awwww.

 This shell angel we bough in Hawaii the year we went to visit friends in 2005.

 This is the one we bought our first year we were married.

 The one above is the one we got our first trip to the Great Wolf Lodge. The one below is from when Larry and I went to Las Vegas when my little sister got married.

 The dog bone is for Dotty our dog

 The ballet slippers of course are from the year the girls started dancing and then I started teaching dance...

 The Nativity is just one I loved from a lady that hand paints them. I bought it the year I bought the bazaar.

 Brock has a "best friend" who is a little people. He loved him since he was 3. Grandma bought him this one I think.

 This silver bells one may be the first one my Great Aunt Amanda gave me. It has always been one of my favorites. They sound pretty when they chime together!

 The brown dog is from our first dog Snickers (those of you who know us will notice there is NO ornament from the horrible dog we had one Christmas Rodney. Although I can't set up the Christmas tree with out thinking about that DUMB dog!)

 Another Ballet one they love. Hanging next to a snowflake made out of one of Larry's white shirts on his mission. Long story short, he ruined his shirt in a bike accident, they found a scrub tree to put up in their mission apartment, didn't have ornaments, so made some. There is a tin foil ball on our tree somewhere that came from the same tree when he was on his mission.)

 This bear is another one of my favorites that my great Aunt gave me. (She sent me a new one every year, which is why I do the same for all my nieces.)

 This cute 1 is from Ruth's first Christmas.

 Tigger... well anyone who has known me since high school will know... to long of a story... but there was a time when my nickname was tigger, or Tiger!

 We got the flag the year 9/11 happened

 This WOU snowman simply because I went to WOU.

 This Koala bear is another from my childhood but what makes it extra special is if you look close you can tell it has been in the mouth of a dog.. My brother got a dog for Christmas the year I was a JR in high school.... self explanatory, good think I loved that puppy!

 Ethan's first Christmas

 The year we bought our first house.

 The bears are from when we went to Yellow Stone

 And Brock's first Christmas. They girls have one too... I just didn't find them while I was taking pictures....

 This is the second performance to watch this week. The girls dance recital. I don't have great pictures because my camera died. When will I ever learn to plug it in the night before not half and hour before big events... maybe when I am not the one running the show...  They all did a great job and I think Ruth thinks she was the star of the show!!! It was pretty cute!

 Performance number 3. Brock's choir sang at the state capitol this morning. Performance number 4 will be tonight when I go to Amelia, Brock and Ethan's piano recital.