Traditions

Every Halloween, we take the kids trick or treating and then we come home, curl up next to the TV, eat caramel apples and watch “The Wizard of Oz.”
This year, my son didn’t have a trick or treating bucket. His sister had a pink glittery fancy one, and I felt bad sending him out with just a grocery sack.
“See how pretty sister’s is? Isn’t it lovely? Here… yours is what we use to throw trash in. Have a good time!”
So I whipped out our duct tape and made him a bag. It is SO white trash, but I do a mean white trash -and he loved it. That’s all that really counts.

“The Wizard of Oz” is so well-loved that it quit working for us, but the caramel apples were delicious all the same. My son -the little apple bandit -could hardly wait to eat his.
“Mom. Can I have a carnival apple?”
“Mom. Get my apple… pleeeeease?”
“Mom, can I have it?”
“Mom, are they ready?”
“Mom, do you need help getting up?”

Well you know what they say about squeaky wheels…

My husband got suddenly festive and decided to carve a pumpkin. He gutted two small pumpkins for me to make dinner in and then he gutted a HUGE one for himself. A few days later, he feasted on a giant batch of baked pumpkin seeds.

A few days after Halloween, we pulled our Christmas decor out and got to work. Now that I’ve baby’s clothes and gear washed and ready to go AND Christmas decorations up, she’s sure to come late. Right?

While we were pulling Christmas ornaments out, I decided to finally put pictures a few ornaments we bought years ago. They’re tiny little hanging frames, and they’ve been picture-less since we bought them.
I filled one with a picture of our first Christmas together. Why didn’t anyone tell me I was marrying a little KID? I can’t believe how young we look:

My great-grandmother used to make ornaments using the rings that go around mason jar lids. A few years ago, my aunt decided to set up a family tree in the local Festival of Trees. Each member of the family made their own ornament, customizing it to their own tastes. As we pulled them out the other night, my son was upset.
HE didn’t have one (he wasn’t born at the time we did the family tree).
So with a glue gun, google, and some design help from my son… a new ornament was made:

“Where’s your ornament?” My husband asked.
“Lost, I think,” I said.
“Well you need one,” he insisted. And of course if the boy was getting one, The Baby ought to have one too, right?
“Of course right,” ~Yenta

I wanted her ornament to look a little angelic -white and sparkled. It ended up taking over an hour to make! I couldn’t believe it. My ornament took maybe two minutes:

I updated the pictures in my husband’s and my daughter’s.
We are a happy family:

Our Nativity always looks like it’s floating in the fiber fill:

And our tree:

Apparently we have a new ornament tradition! It makes me laugh.
Last night we had a Family Home Evening lesson on traditions: what they are and why we have them. We made more ornaments together, and we cut up snowflakes out of paper to put on our big tree and the little tree in the kids room.
What little tree, you ask?
This one!

The only tree we could afford for the first 5 years of our marriage (bought with a gift card we received as a wedding gift). Again: no one told me I was marrying a kid.
But I’m glad I did. Here’s us sharing our first Thanksgiving together:

Just a couple of poor, skinny kids…