Going On A Tree Hunt

Saturday we finally went to get a Christmas tree. We wanted to do this the weekend after Thanksgiving but because of the nearly neverending sickness plans were postponed. We drove 4 hours round trip to get the tree, half of that on windy mountain roads, that's about the last place you want a child getting sick. We started out our day a little later than we probably should have but it takes some time to get 3 adults, 7 kids and 1 teenager ready - not to mention figure out who's going in what car and double checking that all of the little ones have the car seat or booster seat they need. Once we were all loaded up in the cars, grabbed lunch & filled up on gas we hit the road and got to the Jemez area sometime between 3&4. The first place we stopped at was windy and we had no luck finding a tree. I had to hold Lydia the entire time and Michael insisted I hold his hand. By the time we got back to the car I was appreciate tree lots more and more. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful and fun but not exactly ideal with 7 younger kids, 3 of which needed to be held. So we got back into the cars and drove further up to the place my parent's usually get their tree. This time my dad & Christian (13 yo) got out to find a tree while the rest of us stayed in the warm cars. Pretty quickly they returned saying they found a few options so we all got out and walked about 5 min up. The tree was great so we started cutting. Well, my dad cut some then we had everyone pose like they were cutting the tree - the saw was stuck in there and then Christian finished it off. By this time the sun was going down as you can see in the pictures below. When we got back to the cars with the tree I realized my keys weren't in my back pocket. Fortunately we didn't have to walk too far back to find them - gotta love big white keychains! Before we left I was hoping there would be snow to play in but now I'm glad that there wasn't. The kids would have been much colder & wet and who knows if I would have found my keys. On the way home we stopped at a buffet for dinner and the kids went to bed as soon as we got home, it was around 9:30 by this time. My dad got the tree set up and filled in some empty spaces. Yes folks, he added branches to the tree. My great grandpa (his grandpa on his mother's side) used to do this every year. So he drilled a few holes where my stepmom said it looked uneven or empty and stuck in a branch from what they had to trim off the bottom to make the tree fit in the house. I'll post pictures of the tree decorated once it's done. Yesterday was my dad's 42nd birthday {math doesn't make much sense I know, that's a post for another day} so we still haven't decorated the tree. Maybe in the next couple of days :D I hope you all are having fun getting into the spirit of the season! Thanks for stopping by!