November 28 – “Trimming the Tree”

One other thing that we did get started on while The Josh Family was here.  We got the tree set up and ready to decorate.  We bought an artificial tree again after the Hurricane because I don't do so well allergy wise with real trees.  We used to get a real tree and I would carve something for Chris out of that little piece they cut off the bottom of the trunk so it can soak up enough water to keep it from dying until sometime in January.     Nathan and April and Josh and Christi did most of the assembling work, although I did see the receiving some "help" now and then from Caleb and Cailyn.  It's amazing how much help two almost-two-year-olds can be.  Oh, and Josh and Nathan entertained us all afternoon with their new telephones.  Josh has an I-Phone and Nathan has a clone of some kind.  Someone would ask a question, and they would race to see who could get the answer first.  I think Nathan won most of the battles, because he has an app where he can talk into the phone and it translates it into text.  Nathan figured out a way to get his phone to play the Christmas songs that we traditionally listen to while decorating – The Beach Boys Christmas Album and of course The Chipmunks.  Chris liked both phones, because she has always wanted a phone that would respond when you touch the screen.  I have to admit, I think that is pretty cool, too.  It reminds me of that life-sized computer screen on NCIS Los Angeles.   Once they got the tree set up, they went right into putting lights on it.  Chris likes lots of lights, so they had their work cut out for them.  Only two could work at a time, so they had to figure out a tag team approach.  It seemed to work well, though.  Chris gave it her seal of approval and we all took a break.   After Nathan and April left to get Cailyn to bed, we moved on to putting the ornaments on.  One glass ornament that "lived" through Ike didn't make it.  The top had rusted badly, so when it was lifted up, it simply fell apart and crashed to the ground, exploding into a million pieces.  Caleb was great with the "balls" as long as his Daddy could keep him from tossing them across the room.   My favorite part of the decorating time was when they put the crocheted angel on top.  Zak discovered it, so we told him to get his Daddy to help him put it up.  Josh knelt down and Zak crawled on his shoulders.  And up they went.  But Zak wouldn't let go of Josh long enough to get the angel on, though he did get it close.  When Josh lifted him off, of course his little brother wanted a turn.  Caleb had no idea what we were trying to accomplish, but he crawled up there in Josh's shoulders and rode around for a few minutes.  But alas, we still had no tree topper in place.  But Zakary had the obvious answer.  "Mommy, you do it."  Well, that's all it took for me to get in on the cheering squad for that one.  After a few minutes of "encouragement," Christi climbed up on Josh's shoulders and finished the job.  I sure hope those pictures turned out good.   Oh.  I never did find a copy of Antz.  I solved the problem, though.  I treated everybody to my own personal acapella rendition.  I figured if they could get away with it on Laverne and Shirley, then I could too.   Romans 14:9 says, "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living."   Father, right now thank you for being active on the "Living" part of that verse.  Pleas stick around longer.  Amen.