This and That, but mostly Tree Hunt '09

Haven't posted for a long time.  Not sure why, just a little overwhelmed with pretty much every aspect of my life, (not sure why that is either), and throw a little cold and a few cramps on top of that and I'm basically useless!

Ok, not really useless.  I have been feeding my charges and everyone has clean socks and underwear, but beyond that I make no promises.

 The truth is that this season really gets to me.  We have gone super minimalist on the decorating this year, and also the spending.  Our tree is pretty, and I love our nativity.  We tree hunted a few weeks ago- our annual outing with the P- family.  (He works in co.rrections and I don't have permission to use their names/pics on here.)  It's a tradition that K, my mom, and I have done for 12 (?) years- before she was a P- or I was a Gibson!  It started out just the 3 of us, and now there are 10!  (And counting!)  This season was hilariously full of hiccups and follies (like me taking the keys when I left with K, which equalled my mom entertaining 3 little boys ages 6, 5, and 3 for 77 minutes at the tree farm.)  It will make a good story at some point.  (Too soon, Mom?)  It was so cold, 23 degrees, I think, so we picked our trees and got out of there pretty quickly.  (To quickly for a key exchange, apparently!)  It's funny that we thought it was so cold because the days that followed gave us lows in the single digits, and highs in the teens.  This picture of my family, THE ONLY PICTURE OF MY FAMILY THAT DAY, pretty much sums up how the morning went:

Awesome, right?  I mean, that is really a classic.  How hilarious is it that Maddy still looks perfect?  Where did we get that kid?  I didn't get a picture of my mom with my babies.  I didn't get a picture of all the kids together.  I didn't get a picture of Baby A's tongue that had a huge owie on it which may have contributed to him being very sad for most of the morning.  I did get this little gem though:

It's Carter, um hugging (?) the buffalo statue.  Without his boots on.  (It was 23 degrees!)  I love this place because of the awesome statues.  (Actually I love it because of the $15 trees, but the statues make for a good story setting.)  I didn't get a picture of the Wooly Mammoth or the big naked lady, but you can see the latter here, from last year. 


This is how Carter looked when we wouldn't cut down the tree he wanted.  It was 3 feet tall, and 3 feet wide.  He was really mad.

Garrett and E, fighting over a tree- Nana ended up getting it so they could both enjoy it!  The rest of the time they spent running down rows of trees 'spying' on us . . . and we spent our time yelling for them, making sure they weren't lost!

Cold, but we were glad it was dry!  Unlike 2 years ago.

Hmm, look at that.  I was going to post a bunch of random and unconnected pictures and stories about what we've been up to lately, but it turned in to all about the tree hunt.  More to come, then.  Maybe in a week.  (wink)