Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend is truely the start of a fun and busy holiday season.  Adam and I climb up into the attic to get down all the Christmas decorations.  Scott spends time trying not to fall off the ladder while hanging Christmas lights on the house and decorating the yard.  I pull out the all the fun stuff for inside the house - nativity scenes, advent calendars, Santa pictures from the past few years, stockings and snowmen. 

For the past 4 years I've taken Adam, and now Jackson to see Santa on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I found a few years ago that the mall may be crazy with shoppers, but there is never a line to see Santa on Black Friday.  We can always just walk up and Santa can take as much time as he wants.  The best thing about this year was that Adam was excited to go see Santa and had been talking about what he was going to ask for.  In the end, all he asked Santa for was a present for Jackson.  Then he said a couple of more things, although I don't think anyone understood him!  He was happy to sit on his lap.  Jackson wasn't quite sure, but seeing Adam, he let me put him up there as well.  He kept glancing over at Santa, not quite sure what to think.  It was pretty cute.  Since there was no line, they took pictures and let me look at them and delete them and try again.  I think we ended up trying 4 times before we finally got a picture where Adam has a good smile and Jackson is actually looking at the camera instead of looking at Santa.  No smile for Jackson, but I still think it's a cute picture.

Saturday of the long weekend, we took off for a Christmas tree hunt.  We ended up in Carnation at a tree farm that we've been to several times in the past.  It was a rainy and muddy day, but we had fun tromping around in the mud to find the perfect tree.  It was fun to have Grandma and Grandpa join us. 

Here are Scott and Adam posing by the tree before they cut it down.

 I remember every year growing up my dad would give each of us kids a chance to saw away at the trunk of the tree.  Adam was dying to give that saw a try!

 Jackson wanted to try too!

 Here we are all posing by the tree.  It was a cold day.

 I love this picture!  Adam is such a strong boy!

We piled back into the car and got mud all over, but that's ok.  We had a fun time tromping through the mud.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to spend time with my boys doing things that hopefully they will remember fondly when they get older!