Christmas has begun!

We went out in the cold today to cut down a tree and visit Santa. I've been really looking forward to doing this and it was so fun! On the way out we even saw a huge herd of elk reindeer out in a wheat field. The kids were looking for Rudolph.

We got to the tree farm and began our search. Nathan and Aria both wanted to hold the saw. Nathan got it first.



The kids loved all the teensy little trees.



Aria is so pretty.





Looking, looking...





Gabe liked this one because it had so much room for presents underneath.



The kids all took turns cutting.



Dave hauled it back for us. Aria took her turn carrying the saw.



They put all the trees on this machine that shakes them down and gets all the dead needles/debris out of the trees. This is the pile of nests that had fallen out.



Then it was off to Santa. Clara was not impressed.





We ran into Rachel, Sean and Mae at Harvest House so they came back with us to see Santa again. (they had been leaving when we got there.) Mae did good with her first visit to Santa but the second one with my kids wasn't quite so good. As we were leaving she said "I cried with Clara."



Then it was home to decorate. I love how it fills the whole bay window. This is my favorite tree so far. Except maybe for the Charlie Brown tree we had our first year of marriage.



Clara spent the whole time yanking the ornaments off the tree.



But when it was all said and done she was amazed.