Together is our favorite place to be

I have been debated about putting up and decorating the Christmas tree since we will be having a baby so soon and its a lot of work. John was right though, its really important for the kids and making those memories and traditions that make the holidays special. I was still a little hesitant because Johns not an ornament man. Lucky for me though Caleb loves it and hes awesome! He and I had so much fun putting all the ornaments up and after we were done I took a picture of the him with the final product and Davis really wanted in so it turned into a little photo shoot. These kids love to be in the spotlight.

In fact as a funny side note, today in Costco I put Davis in the big part of the cart and he stood up at the end of it with Caleb walking next to him. These guys were acting like the Costco aisles were their personal parade. Davis had the perfect wave down and they were saying "hi" to everyone we walked by and waving to the crowds. They got the reaction they were looking for too, the whole store was eating them up!

Updated: I'm SO glad we put the tree up. Last night I had to get up with Caleb to do a breathing treatment so we turned the tree lights on in our all dark house. For ten minutes he got to point to ornaments and I would tell him where they came from and it was such a tender moment with him. My grandma and mom were very into giving us ornaments growing up and at the time I didn't really appreciate it but last night I was moved by all of the thoughtful ornaments I had been given, our first year of marriage, moving into the home we built, ornaments for the years the kids were born, the talking ornament that is pushed about 100 times a day. All of the ornaments that my grandma Irene (who passed away) gave me too are now priceless and she gave me one a year until I was 18. I started collecting ornaments from the places I have traveled and so you have ornaments from our honeymoon and Romania and then the ornaments John and I bought our first year of marriage to match the star we bought. Plus my sister in laws Lisa, Kate, and I have an ornament exchange every year at Christmas and I love the special, fun, and crazy ornaments that I have collected through that exchange (ex: Last year Lisa gave me a violin ornament that didn't even fit in the gift bag, when Caleb got it out from the box of ornaments he exclaimed, "you have got to be kidding me!". The cool part is that it looks good on the tree!)

You can trace a lot of my life through the ornaments I have been given or purchased over the years and I thought about how if there was ever a fire in our house I would never have thought to grab our ornaments but they really mean a lot to me. I'm glad Caleb loves them too and hope to carry on the same ornament tradition so that when our kids are grown they will have a beautiful collection that means a lot to them too.