Monday, December 3, 2012

The most wonderful time of the year

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I Love Christmas!  I love everything about it.  One of the things I love the most is the memories I get to make for my kids.  I love to continue with old traditions and I love to start new ones.  

One tradition that I have carried into my family that stems from my childhood is the Christmas tree.  I am very specific about my Christmas tree.  It has to be real and it has to be bought, put up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving.  Do not ask me to do anything that day because it is reserved for my family and I can't really think of anything that would get in the way of that.

This year we did try something a little bit different.  We went to a new place that had you pick out and cut down your own tree (& it didn't hurt that they were only $25 any tree ;).  We have never done this before and it was really fun.





We actually have had 10-12 foot trees since we have lived in our new house.  But this place didn't have super tall trees.  We had walked all around the tree farm and couldn't really find one we liked.  We were just about to leave and try another place when Chad spotted this beauty....




Emmett was already in the car to go and we got him out and the family voted unanimously that this was our tree.  So Emmett and Molly got the cart....




We cut the tree.....



And when I say "we" I mean "Chad"!

Then we loaded it up on the cart....



And everyone ditched Emmett.....



And we put it in the truck....



And got it home!




It really is a beautiful tree.  It is a bit shorter than what we are used to.  But man, it got decorated so quickly and we didn't have to get the big ladder out. I told my kids Christmas isn't about how big your tree is.  It helps that we saved about $70 from last year :)

The day after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the whole year and now you know why!!

A Progressive-Cini Dinner!

What happens when you put three sisters in a house painting for FOUR days?!?!?   They make plans!  And that is just what we did.

We came up with the first annual "Pieracini Progressive Dinner"!  We were talking about Christmas decorations and how we would love to make it to all of our sibling's houses to see them all decorated.  So Marsha (the brains of the family :) came up with the idea!  And I would have to say it was a hit.

We started at Scott and Marsha's house for appetizers.  Then we went onto Shannon's house for salad and bread.  I left my camera in the car and didn't get any pictures there. :(

Then we headed to LC and the first stop was our house for the main course.  We had cube steak, mashed potatoes and corn.  Chad did an awesome job.  That's right, Chad made everything.  Can I just say how amazing my husband is.  I planned this whole thing and he made the whole dinner.  Now don't get the wrong idea, I didn't sit around on the couch.  I got the house ready.  We make a great team!





Then we went onto Kara & Kyle's house for dessert.  There were plenty of them :)




I think a good time was had by all and everyone some ate too much.  Scott made the comment that he couldn't do this all the time and Marsha reassured him it would only be once a year.






We can't wait until Nick & Alisha can join us next year and as always we wish Andrew & Michelle lived closer so they could join us for these kinds of things!

I am a very lucky lady to have such a wonderful family!