Memories Made

We had some overnight guests the past couple days. My mom, sister, and her girls came down to finish up shopping, and to just have some good times together. When they walked in the door, the great unveiling of our tree got every one's attention! It's hard to miss a tree that is almost eleven feet tall!! Our youngest niece stood beside it, and slowly looked at it from bottom to top, and when she got her head all the way back, she just said 'Wow! That is a big tree!'

Yes, I know my tree is far from the Martha Stewart look, but I like it. It's full of ornaments that have been collected over the past forty years. My parents, and often grandparents, gave us an ornament every year. My parents still give us ornaments even now that we are all grown up and I look forward to them every year. When I moved out of the house, I took over around forty ornaments with me, which was great! Almost every ornament on our tree has a memory of some kind attached to it. I have a big gray pig that my mom made me out of corduroy the year we raised pigs and took them in 4-H. I have a large assortment of angels from my grandma. There are beaded candy canes from my nieces, and reindeer made from clothespins from the years we did 5th & 6th grade youth group. My hubby has a lot of Coke ornaments since he is a Coke collector, but with that collection are many ornaments he has collected over the past twenty years from my family that represent different things to him, as well. Our tree may not win prizes for best decorated, or most amazingly beautiful, but we like it. The angel on top was made by my mom for our first Christmas we were married. The top of our tree may not look like it has many ornaments, but there are quite a few smaller ones tucked in the branches.

After finishing up shopping, we drove over to the house on Glenwood in Post Falls that I talked about in an earlier post. The display left Hannah speechless, except for an occasional WOW! Liz just kept repeating that it was so beautiful, and it was crazy how pretty it was! My mom and sis were impressed as well, and I could sit there all night and watch the incredible light show!

After dinner, we came home and the girls had fun with our dog. She definitely loves when they visit! The three did get a little wild for a few minutes, and a few ornaments went flying through the air, along with a few needles, and one ornament got caught in our dog's tail and as she wagged her tail, a beaded bell that my mom made kept going back and forth, back and forth!

It was a great couple days, and as always, I cherish the memories we made the past couple days.