First Days of Advent

I like to document these here so I can remember what we did as I plan for the next year. Some of our activities during the first part of the month :

Choosing out a live tree:

 Here's our winning tree: I wanted something sparse and unique to show off our ornaments and I think these trees are really pretty (we think it's a Norwegian pine...but maybe a balsam fir? It smelled incredible at any rate!)

 Paper-strip Christmas trees. We did these last year and they are easy and fun with all different kinds of papers. We had 3 Horsleys here while their parents were in Chicago. We only kept Maddie for the day and returned her to the babysitters for b-ball practice that night but we kept Brigg and Connor for a holiday sleepover! They were such good boys for me :)

 The "tree of life" over in Draper City Park with Tom and Jess:

And a visit to Temple Square on a lovely but unusually warm December night: