Chris the tree (and more)

Marissa is now six months old. She is sitting, growing teeth, playing peek-a-boo, giving hugs, drooling a lot, eating anything she is given, and as always rolling all over the place, including under the futon (a favorite spot of hers for some reason). She is truly a happy baby. In her baby blessing it mentioned being happy several times and she is really showing it. It is just so amazing to think about what effect one child can make in our home. She is such a joy for all of us. I don't know how else to describe it, but she is definitely supposed to be in our family and is such a blessing to everyone.

We put up our Christmas tree this week. Looking back I guess we should have spent a bit more time choosing it, but we were in a hurry and were juggling kids (not literally). So it's tall, skinny and a bit lopsided... but somehow that description fits our family. If I try to turn it to hide a weird bald spot, there's another one on the other side. There's really no way to make it look good... I've tried. It's the kind of tree you would expect to find a few days before Christmas when everything else is taken, not the beginning of December! What a bust! Then we attempted to put our newly acquired star on. We ended up chopping off the top to fit the dang thing on and since it's not lit it makes it look even weirder. At least we get some good laughs every day looking at it. Erin named it Chris (it being a CHRIStmas tree and all), but it's a girl Chris because she wears a skirt. I love the smell of the freshly cut tree in our house. It almost makes up for the disaster that surrounds it right now. Why is it so hard to keep this place clean? (I know the answer to that: 3 little kids, school, callings, life, favorite TV shows, hobbies, blogging, laziness, messed up priorities, etc.--but it's still a kind of bothersome).

It's also been a bit nippy lately. A couple of days ago I finally broke down and bought the kids some long sleeved shirts. It was like 64 degrees so we gave our overworked AC a rest and opened some windows. Today it's back to the usual 79 degrees, which is not bad either. I really don't mean to rub it in for anyone that may need to wear a coat right now, I only want to express gratitude for the beauty that surrounds me during Florida winters because the summers are so bad sometimes. After months of feeling like you need yet another shower just by walking to your car or being trapped inside because it's too hot outside or getting humidity headaches if you do go out, it is so glorious to send the kids outside to play or spend a couple of hours at the park without worrying about heat stroke or sunburn. Yes, I do love Florida and am grateful for all that I can enjoy here.

Here you can see Marissa sitting, one of the new long sleeved shirts and part of the weird tree (see, my random blog entry does all tie together in the end:)