Traditions

If you have kids you know that that first year can be a little fuzzy.

With twins well, all I can say is I'm really glad I took a plethora of pictures. I barely remember any of it!

After the boys were born our first outing without them was to buy our Christmas tree. My mom came to the house while we ran to the local hardware store and purchased our tree from a Boy Scout Pack.

I think we were out of the house a total of 45 minutes.

My mom laughed at us when we returned.

The next year we went to a local tree farm with the boys in their double jogging stroller. It was a little hilly and tough to navigate but the large wheels on the stroller made it easier.

We were out of there very quickly. It was nice but not very memorable.

The following year we found Spruce Grove Tree Farm.

There was a tractor with trailer and hay bales in it that took us to and from the areas where the trees were ready.

There was an old fashioned sleigh for pictures, hot chocolate in the office and wreaths for sale in the barn.

Frank, the owner, is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He was so excited to have the kids there and made us feel like family.

We didn't just show up, cut down a tree and go home.

We had an experience.

We've returned to Spruce Grove every year since and it just gets better and better.

This year the kids even got to try using the saw. It was so exciting for them to actually take part in cutting down the tree!

Daniel even yelled, "TIMBER!"

Well he got to about "Ti.." when it was down but it was exciting none-the-less.

I don't remember when, but years ago Frank added a fire pit and free marshmallows for toasting.

In fact, every year get's better and better. This year he added a small scale model train that the kids could ride, a huge tree swing as well as food for sale along with the usual popcorn and hot chocolate.

The sleigh has been moved to a place of prominence. The barn now has one of each species of evergreen available for sale and an employee reviews the trees with the customers so you know which field to go to. Wreaths are now in a temporary outbuilding along with other seasonal decor for sale.

Santa, with a real beard, was there for pictures and it didn't cost a dime!

Three years ago our nephew and his new wife came to go tree hunting with us. They didn't know that they were going to buy one but decided that they had to have the perfect tree for their first Christmas as Mr. & Mrs.

They have been coming back every year since.

As we were sitting around the fire pit today, my niece sighed. I looked at her and asked if she was ok and she said, "This is just such a cool place."

I agree.

We were there for two hours.

What was an experience is now a tradition.

We all have traditions. Some are carried out with enthusiasm others with eye-rolls.

I love traditions. Not just "that's the way we've always done it" stuff that comes with requisite eye-rolling but true traditions.

On Christmas morning we open stockings (ours are wrapped) then have breakfast before opening the presents. It keeps the day from rushing into a blur of torn wrapping paper. As a kid, I didn't like waiting to open my gifts.

As an adult, I love it.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older and know that time is fleeting.

I want to enjoy time with family, play games, go to aquariums, shows, movies, etc. and talk about how much fun we had.

Honestly, I just want to slow down.

There was a time in my life where stuff was my driving force. I thought that's what we were supposed to do.

Now I care about quality not quantity.

I don't want stuff that needs regular dusting, I want memories like the ones we made today.

We agreed we need to do this every year... forever.

It's a tradition.

Flat Surface Disease

I am referring to last week as the Week of Death.

No, really...In addition to being the anniversary of my father's passing we had a friend lose his father, another friend lose her husband and a client of mine lost his wife.

The week was bookended with funerals and had a wake in the middle. It was terrible. Not as bad for me as it was for the families but just such an unhappy week all the way around.

As if the "week of death" wasn't enough to contend with, our little stuntman botched a backward dismount off the sofa and split his head open on the foot of the coffee table!

We're making him practice that dismount until he can stick it!

Ugh!

And as if taking your one year old son to the ER for stitches isn't stressful enough, I called my mom and ended up hearing, "It's not to late to put those bumper things on the coffee table."

Yeah, um...thanks!

Here's the kicker...He hit the foot of the coffee table, not the top. No one, not a single well-meaning, over-protective friend or family member has been concerned about the feet on anything...until now.

Even so, we couldn't put those bumpers on them, the kids would peel them off in about five minutes or we'd be yelling "Aah, aah, aah!" at them to leave them alone.

C'mon!

I already say "NO" enough. I just don't need to add a temptation for them or anymore stress for me!

As soon as the kids began crawling we bought a used center armoire entertainment unit so the kids couldn't play with the electronics. It works great until we open the doors to watch TV!

They are like moths to a flame!

They can be across the house and the moment the doors are open they come as fast as they can. We now have the doors open all the time and an indoor fence around the entertainment center to keep them away from it. This is the fence I was going to use to put around the Christmas tree.

Thank God for friends with slightly older children!

We borrowed another indoor fence and now have the tree enclosed in it.

The stuntman hasn't been interested in the tree since the day it went up - wait until he figures out that trees can be climbed! The engineer likes to pet the branches. We purposely hung the unbreakable stuff where they could reach it in case they tried. They haven't gone for the ornaments just like to touch the actual branches.

We cut down our own tree this year. It was a pretty Norman Rockwell-esque experience with the boys in the double-wide stroller walking thru the tree farm until we found just the right one! Hubby hit his knees and cut it down while I ran around snapping pictures from every direction. I had hubby stand next to the stroller with the tree while I took pictures and the children looked at him like, "Why the heck is dad holding that big green thing?!" (They don't really know what trees are yet.)

It was all fun and games until it was time to head back and pay for the tree...hubby had to drag the thing all the way back. It was quite a distance. Of course, the tree we found was about as far from the car as we could get...hubby is very picky when it comes to the Christmas tree.

We really do have a beautiful tree - minus the fence of course.

Neither one of us is a "ball" person.

What I mean by this is that we don't use ball ornaments to decorate the tree. We have themes for our ornaments: fishing and sailing (hubby), cows and angels (me) and baby's first Christmas - from last year. At roughly six weeks old they had no idea that there was anything more than feeding and sleep  but we have the ornaments to prove it!

Hubby usually leaves decorating the tree up to me - he's picky about the tree, I'm picky about the lights and ornaments. This year that was not the case. As with many tasks these days, we knocked it out in two hours because the boys were napping. There just wasn't time to be picky!

What one can accomplish in that two-hour timeframe is nothing short of amazing.

This was the case on Thanksgiving.

While I cooked hubby cleaned the entire house, including bathrooms, in two hours!

Although we have our usual chores hubby does trash, car washing, lawn mowing, guys things etc. and I do most household things like laundry and cooking, the cleaning usually falls into the "whoever has the time" category.

I am not OCD about the way things are cleaned. I just care that they are clean. I don't keep a spotless household - my kids have great immune systems - but it's neat and somewhat tidy.

I used to get all freaked out by the idea of my parents coming to visit and would spend days and days cleaning. I don't know why. Growing up we had a magnet on the refrigerator that said, "Dust: The protective covering of fine furniture!"

Needless to say, my mom is not a neat freak. Things are clean but she suffers from "Flat Surface Disease" and an unfortunate affinity for catalogs.

If there is a flat surface in her house, you will find a pile of catalogs, some of which are years old.

It seems I inherited the FSD gene and have to stay ever vigilant to keep things from piling up. The worst part is that the hubby has FSD too. Right now treatment comes in the form of the "office." We try to keep the piles contained and once a quarter I go in and file everything that needs to be and discard the rest.

In the meantime, we keep the door closed.

We call it the "office" because it has office furniture and the printers in it but it's really become the catch-all for things we're not sure what to do with but know that they don't go in the basement - a name that is really too long so "office" it is.

Sometimes, I wish that my parents had been a little more strict when it came to keeping a tidier house but then I think that in the end it really doesn't matter. No one really cares unless it's really disgusting to the point of being life-threatening and I know that having my parents at sporting events and concerts was much more important than whether or not the dining room had been dusted!