Our Weekend - Oh, Christmas Tree

I was able to take some vacation this past week before loosing those days at the end of the year. I spent my time catching up on "Fall/Spring" cleaning (it's been awhile since the walls have been washed), hanging Christmas decorations up in the house, bringing Jake to pick up his new glasses, taking Jake out for lunch, meeting up with cousin Shannon for lunch, baking cookies, playing dress up, and hide-n-go-seek. I think after the days I took off, my New Year's resolution will be to take off 1 day a month. I so enjoyed my time off with no schedules!


Cute story I must share ... While out for lunch on Thursday, an older gentleman walked passed Jake and I in our booth. He stopped and mentioned that he over heard me telling Jake how happy I was to have him as my lunch date. He thought it was one of the sweetest things he's heard. It put a big smile on my face knowing a complete stranger would point out the good in someone. I guess it taught me to pay it forward; the next time I see something good being said/done I will make sure to acknowledge it.
While I was enjoying my vacation at home, Kendall was actually gone all week for work in San Antonio, TX. We thought about making it a small family vacation, but the more we thought about it, we decided to hold off. He was busy with meetings all day and ritzy dinners at night. Don't think bringing a 4 year old to a "black tie" restaurant would have been the proper thing to do. And the thought of entertaining Jake all day long alone at the hotel didn't sound like a vacation to me.

For lunch on Saturday, I met up with my best friend DeLisa and her family in St Cloud. Our meeting place, Red Lobster! Yummo! We normally meet there every year on DeLisa's birthday, but with both of our busy schedules it didn't happen. {So we're a few weeks behind.} It was great catching up with her. After filling up on butter and shrimp, I made a quick stop at Target before heading for home. I found a few more presents to check off my list for Christmas.

On Saturday night, Adrien offered to watch Jake so Kendall and I could have a date night. We decided on a movie and our movie of choice, "Tower Heist." It was an okay movie; we gave it a B+. It had a few funny parts, but kind of slow moving. Don't go wasting your money at the theatre. We are so grateful for our time out together because it doesn't happen very often.

Yesterday, we kept up with our family tradition and went Christmas tree hunting. I made sure we were well prepared by bringing a tape measure. Those trees look smaller outside than they really are. The 1st year we went out, the tree was over 11 feet tall. It was touching the peek in our living room. It was fun decorating the tree and the best part is, we kept it around 7 feet tall.

Last night we cut out a few paper snowflakes to dress up our patio door. Then I decided to make a chain of cut out strips of red and green paper to help with the Christmas count down. Jake insisted he help me with the "sticky tape!" 20 days to go until the big day! Our house is now complete inside and out with Christmas cheer!