Sweet Children

Yesterday was lovely. After school, Issa helped me pack and wrap all of our mailed gifts and take them to the post office. She was so excited to help, and I was so excited to send a little holiday cheer to people we won't see at Christmas. Then, we picked up Evan and headed to the library.

 

Have I mentioned I love our library? We arrived to find it completely decked out for Christmas. I did notice there were some oddities, like a bed set up in a corner. Hmmmm...random. We also noticed that the displays were all filled with holiday books with big signs to check them out. I love this library. Then, we stopped by to say hello to Miss Kate, our favorite librarian, and she said she had a special scavenger hunt for us. Needless to say, my kiddos were on it!

 

She handed them a copy of "The Night Before Christmas," with certain phrases in bold. Each of those items were somewhere in the library. Got it! The bed now made sense. We had such fun exploring the decorations and reading the poem. Such a great idea!

 

When we came home, Evan insisted we bury Papa Frog immediately. It was the one sad point of the evening. I asked if we could wait for Daddy, but Evan didn't want Papa buried in the dark. I started digging, but the ground was rock hard and frozen; it was slow going. Issa made a little headstone, and Evan raised concerns about the ground being so cold. Issa gathered little pine branches to put under and on top of him in a very sweet big sisterly moment. Daddy pulled in the driveway and rescued me by finishing the digging. The kids arranged the branches and coffin, and Issa said the absolutely sweetest prayer, more for her brother than anything else. Both Brad and I melted, and poor Evan sobbed as we finished burying his frog. It was a wonderful reminder how very sweet my children are and how very much I love them.

 

After the tears subsided, we headed out to get our tree...and I remembered the camera this year!

 The fire department had a great selection again, and the kids had a blast exploring:

 Of course, Mr. Eddie let us see the firetrucks:

 I think Issa might need to grow a bit before she drives:

 We headed back out to make our final selection, and Mr. Eddie and another fireman tied it to the top of the van:

 Let me tell you, firemen don't play when it comes to knots. That tree was not coming off, but Daddy got it and headed in:

 So, it might have been a little bigger than we thought. Once Brad started moving, there was no stopping. Hence, this is the pic I got of the tree going in the house:

 We got it in the stand without any sawing, though:

The big reveal will have to wait until we get it decorated, but this might be my very favorite tree yet!