Putting Up the Christmas Tree

Sunday evening we got out all of the Rubbermaid bins of Christmas things and spread them all over the house. :) We put up the tree, and this year we really let John and Lucy take the lead with this. John assembled most of the tree - all the parts he could reach. John strung the lights with just a little help from Kevin, and the kids put up almost all the ornaments and the garland. A great exercise in not having everything exactly the way I would have done it (ha ha), and also letting the kids have that ownership and joy in it.
Why is it that strings of Christmas lights only last for one year? Half of our lights - just purchased a year ago - were not working when we plugged them in Sunday. Sheesh! I know they're cheap but come on!

This first photo is John putting the lights on the tree.

This next one is John being all cute and showing off the ornament I bought last year at Disney World, to remember our completely awesome family vacation just before Ikey was born. Can I just say...I told myself we wouldn't go back to Disney World until Isaac was out of diapers, that I didn't want to deal with diapers on that kind of vacation. But, Isaac has ended up being the world's most peaceful and easygoing baby, and I want to go back to Disney World again in 2009. We had such a great time there, I just can't wait to go back. We shall see!

This is Lucy with our Fighting Illini ornament, another favorite.Here's Lucy with a very important job: putting the star on top of the tree, with daddy's help of course!

Finally, John admires a job well done.