We've Got Christmas Lights!

Five years ago I bought a bunch of Christmas lights to put on our house. They were on clearance, so I stood in the store guesstimating how many I thought we'd need to get the entire front of our house. Guess who's a good guesstimator? Oh yeah - it's me! Check it out:

Admittedly there is a small area the icicle lights didn't cover, but we could have easily stretched them to cover that area - it's just that that area was done last and at that point the light-hanger-uper (Lee) is not worried about a small area without lights. :) I'm just so excited that I got the right amount of lights (can you tell?)! In case the picture doesn't show well enough - we have a string of small blue lights above a string of icicle lights. Who's the BYU fan, huh? :)

Back to the whole five year's ago part... This was our first time ever putting the lights up. I had the best of intentions of doing it every year because I absolutely love having Christmas lights on the house, but I just never ended up getting around to it. This year I enlisted Lee's help and...ta-da!  Here's a photo of my totally awesome husband making it happen:

While Lee and I were working on the outside lights, Brynne took it upon herself to open all the Christmas boxes and start getting decorations out. She had a little help from a not-so-little dog. :)

Another thing that was new for this year is our huge Christmas tree!! We have always had a 5 1/2-foot tree (probably 3 1/2-foot circumference on bottom). This summer Lee's dad brought us their Christmas tree that they were looking to pass along. The tree is 9 feet tall and has a 6-foot circumference. I will admit I was really worried about fitting it in our tiny family room that is really only 10-feet wide, but it turns out I love it! Here is Brynne showing off the tree:

This was the first year in a long time that we had to worry about a little one playing with glass ornaments. Most of the ornaments are up high, but we did find some to leave along the bottom for Melissa. The bottom actually does have lights, we just have a really loose outlet that doesn't hold onto the plug very well. Since we took these pictures, Brynne has rigged the lights so they actually stay on most of the time. Hooray for Brynne! :) Here a picture of Melissa and me in front of the tree. Notice the TV had to be turned so we could see it. Hey - small price to pay for such a nice tree. Thanks Trout and Lo! :)