O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

...how lovely are your fake branches.

I'm one of those that balked at the thought of a fake tree in the past. What good is a tree if you can't smell that wonderful tree smell throughout the house? Well after some discussion, my mom talked me into it and brought home a 7 1/2 foot fake tree. It's actually quite real looking and the best part is that it's already strung with lights. We set it up in the living room, put some ornaments on and now the hard part is keeping the kids from removing them. How do you explain to two toddlers that all these little 'toys' dangling all over the tree are only for looking?

I decided to take on the task of making curtains for the living room. Somehow I managed to make one panel a whole 2 inches longer than the other panel. Luckily a friend here has a sewing machine and she knows how to sew so she helped me fix them so we now have window coverings! It is nice not living in a fishbowl anymore! We were holding out to buy blinds but decided they are just too expensive especially for a house we don't want to stay in.

We've had a couple snows in the last couple weeks. Andrew was so excited to wake up and see a couple inches of white snow everywhere. It has since warmed up a bit so we are now getting rain.

Andrew has taken on the job description of being a 2-year-old and has really made it clear that he's an independent person with strong opinions. We have to watch him closely around Lauren because he is now quite posessive with his toys and I don't know how far he'd go to stop Lauren from playing with them. He is still very interested in trains and the train table continues to be his favorite activity.

Lauren is just a pro at getting around the house, pulling herself to standing just about anywhere she can and she would be happy to follow Andrew everywhere he goes. Both Andrew and Lauren love to sing and sometimes I'll hear Andrew singing by himself. I have yet to make out the words but the cadence sounds like the ABC's.

The pace has picked up at Nick's work and he is in Knoxville & Kalamazoo this week. He returns home on Thursday only to head out again next week.