Pictures

Eating popcorn (or copy-corn as Zoe calls it!) one night of Thanksgiving break.Little Mr. Cutie Pants helping Jason with the lights last night.
Abram's gash to the head. It looks a lot better here than in real life.
Isaiah was the attacher of the ornament hooks. This kid loves little detailed jobs like that. He would put on a hook and hand it to his sister over and over.
Claire went to work on the back side of the tree.While Zoe worked on the front.
Ta-da!
I put our six stocking holders up last night but didn't get out our stockings because I realized I didn't have any for the African kids. So, I bought three $1 stockings this morning that will do for now (until Grammy - the maker of all stockings in the family - can make one for each of them). They were quite content with them. Isaiah cracked me up with his:

As I was lying on the couch tonight holding Isaiah so he would fall asleep, I was looking at our Christmas tree, realizing it so symbolizes our life right now . . .

For one, it is FULL of ornaments (from the picture you cannot tell nearly how full it is). Much like how full our life now feels. And it is not very orderly. In fact, it is quite chaotic in places. In some spots there are two ornaments right up against each other. In my former life, this would have never happened - evenly spaced ornaments were a must! But, having two ornaments where only one should belong reminds me of how Zoe has been running around here for over a week with only one earring in and I haven't even cared. There are more important things going on in our family.

On my own, I would have never chosen to decorate my tree like this. But, surprisingly, I really, really love it and I think it looks beautiful, despite the chaos.

Sort of like my life right now.