It's Beginning to Look...

...a lot like Christmas, finally.
It took me longer than normal to get the tree up this year, but I finally finished putting it together yesterday, complete with the hand-strung popcorn and cranberry strings. Here it is in all it's glory:

We now officially have no space left in our living room. But that's okay. Notice the lack of tree skirt; that's my project for tomorrow. I actually bought the fabric last year but was never able to get to it. Here's hoping it comes together this year.
Joel can attest to the fact that I get pretty particular about decorating the tree. I'll stand back and adjust things so there's a good distribution of color and what not. Our tree is even more full this year because my mom gave me all these pretty Santa ornaments last year. I think they added very well to the overall theme.

We also had a white, Christmasy Saturday. We woke up to about eight inches of snow, and I spent the next few hours debating about how to introduce a two-month-old to the snow appropriately. In the end, I just bundled him up as much as I could and kept him out there for just a couple minutes.

Luckily we had this snuggly fleece outfit, a great hand-me-down from Dane's cousin Alena.
Here's Daddy, brushing the snow off:



My hair wasn't looking so great that day, but whatever.
Later that day, Dane met Santa! I was way more excited than Dane was, but I really enjoyed taking his picture.

Apparently, Santa doesn't look at the camera unless you're buying their portrait packages. Stupid. But Dane behaved very well with Santa, as I knew he would.