Deckin' the Halls

For the past six months, our life has been consumed by one thing. The dreaded basement remodel. What we anticipated being a six week project turned into week after week after WEEK of dust, noise, an entire family (and 5 pets) crammed into one tiny bedroom, random service men pounding away at all hours, more dust, more noise, power outages, water outages, construction delays, yadda yadda yadda... you get the idea. With the holidays rapidly approaching, we upped our game and worked around the clock to put the finishing touches to make it ready for carpet. This week, it finally came! (Photos to come sometime, maybe, after we've recovered.)

After an entire day yesterday spent cleaning up dust, packing up the tools and distributing family members to their individual bedrooms (hallelujah!), we felt ready to celebrate. Our cozy new home needed a little dressing up for the season.

I sent The Bigs off to school, tucked the little guy into his crib for a nap and relished in the "Magic Window" of rare silence. It gave me just enough time to make this little wreath I've been hungry to make for weeks now. Thank you, Pinterest - for the inspiration!!

After dinner it was time to decorate the tree. Isaac donned his Christmas jammies within minutes of arriving home from school. Love that attitude!

I must admit that it was nice to have such big helpers this year. Abby and Isaac decorated the entire tree by themselves...and loved every minute of it!

Keeping with tradition, Abby and Isaac carefully laid each of our "Special" ornaments out in chronological order and we told the history of our family through each ornament.

Soren, more interested in raiding the snack cupboard and terrorizing the parakeet during the actual decorating of the tree - perked right up when Abby and Isaac announced that they were ready for the crown jewel...the star! The Littlest Lowry was quite eager to help! (Although his idea of putting the star "on" the tree was chucking the thing from his tiny, slobbery fist with as much gusto as he could muster).

At bedtime, we sat beneath the tree in our jammies, read Christmas stories, sang carols, and then I tucked each little person into their OWN beds in their OWN rooms and said a silent prayer of rejoicing that Ben and I are no longer sleeping on the floor. As I tucked Abby in, we were quiet for a moment when we heard Soren stirring next door. Worried that he may be waking up, we held our breath and crossed our fingers. We heard the rustle of his sheets and he tossed and turned, then heard him say his favorite new word, "BUM" as he drifted back to sleep.

Oh, how I adore my crazy little family.