Christmas Tree

For the past five years, Dan and I have had the tradition of carrying our Christmas tree home over our shoulders. Last year, I was 9 months pregnant, ready to pop at any moment. This year, we have a one year old who we wanted to include in our tradition.

Joel added a bit of "stress" to the situation. We discussed various options for how to get both a Christmas tree and our little bubby home. Do we use the wrap? No, Amanda's back hurts too much. How about the backpack? Won't the tree stump or leaves be in his face? Okay...how about the stroller? Can we push it one handed and still carry a tree? Ultimately, the stroller won out!

Joel really enjoyed shopping for the tree. He would giggle every time I held up a tree and asked, "Is this the one?" That kid really loves nature...and especially pine needles.

Eventually, we chose our tree, put it up on our shoulders and proceeded to the local Starbucks for a hot drink (yet, another one of those wonderful traditions). By this time, it was past Joel's bedtime and he was starting to loose it. (Which may have had something to do with the creepy man outside who kept asking us questions and trying to touch Joel....which neither one of us liked.) Dan finally came outside with our drink (which spilled all over the stroller) and we proceeded to city hall for our annual photo shoot.

Joel basically screamed the whole time. We gave him a bottle, which we kept trying to pull out for photos. (He didn't like that!) Finally, we just gave up and walked home, where we put the boy to bed and the tree outside for a few days.

A few days later (after Joel's birthday party), we decided to put up the tree. Joel likes to touch the leaves, but isn't eating them (bonus for us!!!)

We let Joel put the star up on the tree. Okay, he didn't really put it on.He tried many times, but we just couldn't get him to get it up over the top of the tree. This picture is Joel taking the star off of the tree. But it still looks cool. Later that night we decorated the tree while Joel slept. Every day, Joel seems to take a decoration off the tree, walk over and hand it to us. He just hasn't grasped the concept of "don't touch." But its such a joy to see him stand by the tree, staring at the lights. Reminds me of when he was just born, and Dan was holding him. Joel lifted his head to look at the lights and he was just 20 minutes old.