Christmas Traditions

Oh, that's right. I have a blog.

We had an epic adventure recently finding a Christmas tree. In our neck of the woods, it involves going out to the forest and chopping one down. Needless to say the trees aren't exactly picture-card perfect, but they are real.

We tromped out one particularly snowy day with toddler and doggie in tow to find the perfect tree. We ended up with a large blue spruce. In fact, when we came over, we realized the tree was actually taller than the garage (oops), so creative pruning was in order. Eventually it was able to fit into the house.

As another on-going Christmas tradition that we started this year, we took to the ice with our local arena's free Skate with Santa afternoon, and J got to take his first glide around with his daddy.

J loved the ice (quel surprise) and Daddy had a good time showing this future skating star the ropes. The event itself was awesome, and we bumped into several of our other young friends trying out the ice with their families too.

Unfortunately, on Christmas, we all came down with the flu, so suffice to say, we didn't take many pictures as we looked like zombies.

Due to our illness, things sure took us a lot longer than intended to put together - all of J's toys were "some assembly required!" We need to plan better for this for next year by having our toys/books etc for him wrapped and assembled before December so when the ones come in from our generous families we can be prepared and put those together too.

Doug received a few tools, a new gaming keyboard, a few video games and DVD's, some clothing, a few books and other things I'm probably forgetting.

I was overjoyed to recieve kobo ebook gift certificates, an AeroGarden (more on this), a cargo liner for my car (which I'm jazzed about), lots of clothes, books, and an ActiFry.

Together, we received a TV that we are hoping comes today at Sears. Our TV broke approximately 3 months ago and we've been doing without. I only miss it when I'm folding laundry and watching movies with Doug, but I admit it will be nice to have it back.

BUT more on the AEROGarden 7.... I started the seeds on December 27, so it's been about 2 weeks, and so far here is the result:

I'm growing an assortment of herbs and so far the Lemon Basil has just taken off and is growing the strongest.

I'm really excited to start seeds in it this year around March. There is a special seed starting tray for it, and I'm really enjoying watching everything grow while it is -15 C outside, it's nice to keep the green thumb alive!