Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

We decided that decorating for Christmas was going to be too much because we would be moving before Christmas and I didn't want to put the tree up and decorate the house for 2 weeks. Katelyn is really into Christmas this year - Santa, the tree, and baby Jesus - so we decided we needed to do something as far as the tree was concerned. We were planning on celebrating Christmas a couple weeks early before we left GA BUT where were we going to put the presents that Santa brought?! Jack had the great idea we would go out behind our house in the woods and find a "Charlie Brown" tree so we at least had something. I thought it was a great idea!! And of course Katelyn was all on board for going to find a tree.

On the hunt for the "perfect" Christmas tree!

We FOUND it!!

This was as much decorating as the poor little guy got.
The little thing could hardly hold the 100 string of lights that we put on it so we decided against any ornaments! Katelyn was pretty proud of her tree!

My 2 favorite people with our little little tree!!
Merry Christmas y'all!!

Children's Message

Katelyn was really starting to get comfortable with our church in GA. She would go up to the Children's Message by herself and even ask to go to play in the nursery! Sounds good to me!! Of course, it would be time for us to move. Hopefully we can find another church as great as our church home we had in GA! I'll definitely miss it!!

BN Christmas Party

Our Battalion (2-3 BSTB) had a "Holiday" Party on December 1 at Holbrook Pond Recreation Center on post. It was catered by Shane's Rib Shack - deliciousness! Katelyn had fun running around, playing on the playground and jumping in the bounce house.

She was pretty excited to see Santa for the 2nd time and had been talking about him since I told her that afternoon we were going to see him at the "Party." However, when she actually saw him and realized he didn't look like the Santa she saw in the Mall she was a bit skeptical of him. Reluctantly, she sat on his lap but she was not very talkative. I guess I would be skeptical of a Santa with a Kevlar helmet on too!!

There was a silent auction to raise money for the FRG. The only people that got nominated were the BN Commander and the BN S3. Unfortunately no one knew prior to the party that this was going to be going on so most people didn't have much extra cash on them so the Battalion Commander only brought in $8 and the BN S3 only raised $1! Pretty sad but still funny none the less! Katelyn seemed pretty confused during this whole thing as to what was going on!

I'm not sure that there are many other places that you can have an outdoor Christmas party on December 1, but the weather was perfect!

Christmas Cookies

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low key. In fact, we didn't even have turkey. It was just the 3 of us, so we decided to just smoke a chicken. We didn't really want to be eating turkey until we moved out of here! I can't wait for next Thanksgiving when we can spend it with more family again!

Yesterday, Katelyn and I made some sugar cookies - well we cut out sugar cookies. Jack bought some colored cookie dough from a fundraiser for a soldier at work. Boy, making cookies with a 2 year old is a lot of work!! If only I had counted how many times she said "I do it!" or "I do it allll by myself!" Within the first 2 minutes we had flour everywhere and all over her face and shirt. Oh well, I suppose the clean up was worth it because she sure seemed to have fun. It was very hard for her to be patient while the cookies were baking though and I'm not sure how many times we had to re roll the cookie dough back out because, well, she didn't really quite understand how to get the most out of the dough. ha! What should I expect, she's only 2?!?!

Whiskers

Katelyn likes feeling Daddy's face when his "itchies" are getting a little long. Of course, this doesn't get to happen very often. Maybe over leave while we move?!?!

Preparing for Winter

Don't ya love this get up!?
I guess she was getting ready for the winter weather while still trying to stay cool in GA!
Crazy girl!

Christmas Pictures 2011

We went to JCP to have Katelyn's Christmas pictures taken and she was very cooperative and was really hamming it up for quite a few. Finally!! Last year's photos were pretty much a disaster!!