Our Christmas tree

We got a real tree this year for the first time in a couple of years. For the past few years we haven't even been putting up a big tree because we are normally gone for almost three weeks around Christmas so it just doesn't make much sense. But this year our Christmas vacation is much shorter so we decided to get a real one again. We went with Chris's whole family to the tree farm and picked out our tree. It was so much fun but of course Sam slept through almost the whole thing.



We got the tree home in one piece and spent Sunday afternoon getting it set up and decorated. I just love Christmas trees, everything about having it in our home makes me happy. I really don't even mind the mess from setting it up because the needles that get sucked into the vacuum make it smell good every time I turn the vacuum on!
And here is Samantha standing up against the box from the ornaments. She is pulling herself up now, all on her own! It is quite a huge change for her and something that seemed to happen over night. She was barely crawling when we were in St. Louis a week ago and now she is crawling, climbing and standing up. The bad part about this is that she seems to be falling and hurting herself all the time now. I am not sure how to keep her from pulling up on things until she is steady enough to really stand on her own (unless I really just don't ever leave her side!!).

Here is a very funny/cute video of Sam crawling over Chris. It may not seem like it in the video but she LOVES doing this.