We Got Our Christmas Tree Today

 Picking out a Christmas tree is always a huge family tradition for us.  The eight year old was especially excited about it this year.  We had a good hearty breakfast then headed out to find a tree.  When we started out, it was a blizzard.  The snow was so heavy that we had a really hard time seeing the trees.  It was worse than the photo shows.

 But within a few minutes, it cleared up and the sun came out, and for most of the day we had nice, sunny weather.  The first thing the boys did was to get in a snowball fight ... instigated by the eight year old, but gladly joined in by Dad. ;)  Our older two would have enjoyed this.

 A shovel is never a good sight when out in the snow.  Or maybe I should say it was a good thing to see, considering we got stuck (briefly) while turning around.  It only took a tiny bit of shoveling.  I came prepared.  I brought a book for just this purpose.  But by the time I put the snow suits and mittens on the younger two and snapped a couple pictures, we were no longer stuck.  So the book was unnecessary.  But given past experiences, I think I'll keep one with me in the future too. ;)

 This was the baby's first real time to get to play in the snow.  He was too little last year.  I got him all suited up, but then realized we had forgotten to grab his snow boots, which I had sitting by the door.  Ugh.  He didn't seem to mind.

 He wasn't sure what to think at first, but once we got going, he loved it.  In fact, he stayed out the whole time, and I even packed him up the very steep hill, and he loved it.

 One advantage to living in extreme rural Wyoming is that your kids can play in the road with no danger of being run over.  In fact, all day long, no other vehicles were on this road while we were there.

 The older two made snow angels... or in the four year old's case, more of a snow scramble :)  There was a lot of wiggling, but no discernible shape in the end.

 We checked out several trees, but this one didn't pass hubby's inspection.  He's VERY picky about Christmas trees.  I would have picked one in the first 10 minutes... but the last time they let me pick one, it was so bad that my husband and daughter actually wired extra branches onto it.  So, yeah.  I'm no longer allowed to pick the tree.

 Honestly after all the fire safety trainings I've been through for my daycare licensing, I would have been happy with a fake tree, but the eight year old had his heart set on a real one, and on the tradition of going to find one.  It is a great fun family event, and always very memorable.

 We climbed clear up the hillside - which as I mentioned was very steep.  We originally left the four year old below, but he wanted to come up, so I had the eight year old watch the baby while I went back for him.  But he refused to walk in the deep snow, so I had to carry him the whole way.  We kept falling because it was so steep, which would make me drop him in the snow.  He didn't like that at all.  He was really mad at me and when we got all the way up the hill he just wanted to go back to the truck.  The eight year old had an area pretty well packed down, so I sat the four year old down, which he did not like at all.  Meanwhile the baby was trying to crawl down the steep hillside, and making good progress at it.

 Dad thought he had found a possible tree and wanted us to come see it.  Well, that meant I had to get both the baby and the four year old over there.  Neither of them would try to walk or let me set them down, so I ended up with one under each arm, trudging through nearly a foot of snow.  Finally Dad got back over to us and packed the four year old down to the truck.  See the snowman?  People who had been there before us made that.

 This is my let - including my completely soaked denim skirt and my foot.  Or you'll have to trust me that my foot is down there.  You can't see the top of my boots either ... which means snow kept going down my boot.  It took me a couple of hours to warm up once we got home...

 This is my favorite picture from the day.  After Dad took the four year old down to the truck, I was trying to pack the baby up another hill to see another tree.  It was so steep that the only way I could get up the hill was to toss the baby into a snowbank up ahead of me, then crawl a couple steps, pick him up and toss him again.  He thought it was great fun.  It worked well too - he couldn't get anywhere, and it looked incredibly comfortable - almost like a form fitting recliner :)  Every time I was trying to carry him and climb, I would fall and we would both end up in the snow.  He would good-naturedly sigh, then say, "up!"  He must have thought I was nuts.

 I let Dad pack him down the hill.  I was afraid I would fall forward and really hurt him.  We both ended up on our butts more times than we could count, but we were having a good time... apart from being soaked ... and apart from the fact that my skirt was a little bit too big and every time i would try to step uphill, I would step on it, and nearly remove it from it's proper place.  Aah, memories.  Someday I will laugh at this.

 You can see in this picture how far above the truck we were - and not more too far as the crow flies, so maybe you can get an idea of how steep this was.

We got back to the truck, and drove on looking for the "perfect" tree.  Thankfully we found it right near the road!

 The eight year old wanted to cut it down himself.  Haha.  We let him try... for quite awhile.  Good life lesson.  Not everything that you think you know how to do is as easy as you think it will be...

 Anyway, it finally got chopped down, and we carried it down to the truck.

 We loaded it up and strapped it down, and headed home.

And here's the best part.  On the way home, all three boys fell sound asleep ;)

We haven't put the tree in the house yet.  I'm going to have to go out to the shed to get all our decorations and we were exhausted enough already.  Maybe we'll get it up tomorrow or maybe it will be later.  I have to go to Jackson Hole tomorrow after church for soymilk and to hit the dollar store for stocking stuffers.

After all the tree gathering, we headed over to Bugga's to watch the Nebraska - Wisconsin game.  I think I could have played better defense than Nebraska, who apparently forgot to bring their defensive players to the game.  Oh well.  Better luck next year.  At least K State won.  That was a game worth watching... which is what we did in lieu of witnessing the massacre of Nebraska.  (Actually Bugga has two televisions, so we muted the Nebraska game and put it on the small one, and watched the K-State game on the big screen. :)