Deck the Halls

Thanks to much help on the part of "the boys," we were able to get all the Christmas decorations put up this past weekend. Phew! Well...at least all the ones we were willing to put up. Our lack of space combined with Evan's "almost crawling" and rolling all over the place precluded us from putting up the big Christmas tree this year, but we still decorated a tabletop tree with all of Nathan's ornaments. We included a few new additions this year: more LED white lights for the outside and some festive ornaments for our tree out front. The LED lights do look white as long as you don't have non-LED lights next to them, in which case they look blue. :) Here are a couple of pictures of our tree outside. Brendan insists I call these "large ornaments" rather than "big balls."



We also had the pleasure of hosting my friend Sam, her mom Debbie, and her son Jake for a visit this week. Debbie and my mom grew up on the same street, and after losing touch for some years, they stumbled upon each other in the parking lot of the preschool where they had, unbeknownst to each other, enrolled their same-age daughters. Sam and I have remained in touch off and on throughout the years, but we've become considerably closer and stayed in touch since becoming wives and mommies. Sam and Debbie are at the very top of my Favorite Persons list. (If you're reading this, I'm sure you are, too, dear reader!) Sam makes you feel comfortable the instant you're in her presence. Not many people have that charm. While they live in Northern California, we've been lucky enough to receive several visits from them, since fortunately Southern California is home to both Sam's grandma and Mickey Mouse. I hope Sam doesn't mind my posting this picture of Nathan and Jake this week. So cute!