Christmas Tree Hunting 2009

Okay so this year we decided to do the real deal Christmas Tree Hunting...
We drove out to a big farm in the country (which let's be serious only took us 20 minutes to get there since we live in a tiny city!). We bundled up since it was in the 30's grabbed our saw and rode the hay wagon ride out to the field where the trees were! It was great fun even with the crying kids& snotty noses!

The Hunters!!


We looked and looked (I was rather picky--as I should have been) until we found it! The perfect one!

The kids loved helping Steve saw it down!





The perfect spectator! This is the view of her from the sling!

Then we dragged it out to the lane so that it could be picked up and hauled back in to the main barns where they shook it, bundled it, and loaded it onto your car!

While we waited we saw frosty, ate hot chocolate & cookies in the Barn, and played on the playground!

They even had a tiny barn that "Santa" visited (he was a great Santa by the way!) and gave out suckers and little prizes! Gordon was not going for it...we walked in and right away he leans over to me and says "that is NOT the REAL Santa. I'm not talking to him"...and he didn't until we were leaving and "santa" called his name....Gordon gave in and agreed to help out the "real" Santa by putting out cookies and milk and some snacks for the reindeer!

Good work guys....now lets get it home...which is a whole other story!

* a note: as we were loading up the car I was looking around all the other families packing their "tiny" trees onto their cars and thought...they're all the same price why would you pick such a small one?

Maggie was so happy to be in the warm car!

Little did we know that our scale was so off....surrounded by larger trees and endless sky, our eyes were a little bigger than our living room! I wish I had gotten a picture of it before we started pruning it back...as you can see we cut a whole lot off--the trash can is SO packed! (PS it took us until Midnight to get it all pruned back and into the stand and positioned...so needless to say we won't be decorating it tonight!)

*the middle picture is taken more than half way up our stairs....and not even level with the top!

Oh and we didn't even think to take off our gloves to touch the tree...so it wasn't until we were home and were handling the beast bare handed when we found it has quills not needles...or maybe needles is the appropriate word for these! I had them draw blood on 2 occasions! (after this I grabbed the info sheet that the farm hands out when you get ready to go and hunt your tree, of course there where I didn't read all the descriptions there is one that has "prickly" needles! Oops!

The one advantage to the tree being so sharp is that we won't have to worry about the kids messing with it!

We'll post some pictures when we get it decorated...of course most of our lights weren't working today so we're going to get some Monday!

Maggie's 4 months old!

Her 4 month stats are:

Height 24.75"
Weight 14 lbs 6 oz

and again she is 100% PERFECT!

I quickly laid her down to run and help someone and came back to this!! PS don't mind the laundry!

I can't believe she's already getting so big!

What does Virgina have?

A Turkey, one crazy Uncle, two darling Aunties, and five favorite Anderson cousins!!
We decided after a crazy few weeks at work for Steve (6 am to Midnight 4-5 days a week!!) We needed to get out of town so we could see him! We are so lucky to have some family close enough to drive to (if you call 8 hours close)!! We spent a weekend of cooking, eating, shopping, eating, movie watching/going, swimming, eating, playing legos, doing odd jobs, eating, and spending some good quality time with family!

The cooks!

The snacker & the crazy uncle/ photographer

The spread & the table decor!

The table setters!

Me & Avery...I taught her how to do the orange rolls this year!

Gordon & Duce writing their thankful notes

The kids table...that got a bit rowdy!

Our table was mildly more in control!


And then the next day...in classic "Thanksgiving Family get-together" style...somebody got sick!

In this case we had 2 pukers....good thing the "bug" was short lived and didn't pass beyond our two!
Oscar kicked off the puking with Eleanor to follow closely behind (oh and by the way Steve was home alone with all the kids while Erika, Shanda & I were shopping!)
Steve really was the Champ that day, he fed, cleaned, attended to sickies and Entertained 8 children for 4+ hours while EVERYONE was awake!!!

The girlie cousins!

Where did all these kids come from?
Steve was a Champ and watched/ took all the 8 older kids on 3 separate occasions!

We were sad to go but had to be back for school and the dreaded end of year work schedules!
I guess we'll see Steve again at Christmas time!