The advent and The elf--day 10

Advent day 10 (15 days til Christmas)
Today Dustin and I drove back to Springfield to finish up our adoption certification training.  Kaelan, Addie and Autumn stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's while we were gone. Tristan had spent the night at a friend's birthday party and was fast asleep at Grandma's after staying up all.......night......long........!!!!! With Tristan being gone this morning that left Addie and Kaelan to find our friend Gus.....he was hiding in my egg nog bowl!

 Addie also got to scratch off the day's advent card before hurrying out the door to Grandma's.

 Now, I have to admit that Addie has been pretty upset and confused recently as to why our house is one of the only ones that she has been in lately that does not already have a tree yet, so she was estatic when we read the card this morning.  After gathering the kids from mom and dad's we headed over to Lowes (yes, boring old Lowes) to get our tree.  Tristan opted to stay in the car and sleep (poor guy started to cry every time he opened his eyes he was so tired)  Kaelan and Addie picked the 2nd tree Dustin held up and since I had vowed not to stress over the tree I said yes.......

It isn't a bad tree...just one with a lot of "character."  It has wimpy branches, a severely crooked trunk and the bottom 1 1/2 feet of branches are either bare, dead or nonexistent!  The kids love it so it is perfect, besides a dark house and lots of lights on the branches always helps!

And there is nothing quite so great as hearing a little one's "AAAAAHHHHHH" as they come around the corner to find a bright, sparkly thing standing there just waiting to be adored.