Our Ornament Tradition

As I'm writing this, my throat is almost swollen shut (hack hack), my older boys are running around screaming and fighting with each other (Brodie is home sick from Kinder today) and the baby is finally (FINALLY) napping in his crib.   I'm on my third change of clothes for the day and it's just after lunch time.  I've abandoned even putting clothes on the baby because as soon as they're on, they're covered in spit up.  Poor little guy is not liking something in my diet and I have yet to figure out what it is.  

What. A. Morning.

On a happier note -   :)   I'm sitting on our couch facing our lit up mantle and tree and it is making me smile.
Yesterday Melanie over at Southern Comfort in a Northern Life posted about her tree and some of her more meaningful ornaments.   It reminded me a lot of our own tree, so I thought I'd do the same sort of post here today.

Our tree is very traditional, with red, green, and gold ribbon, silver and red balls, and a variety of ornaments we've collected over the years.

Each year we take the kiddos out to Hobby Lobby, and we let them each pick an ornament.  We also pick a family ornament for the year.

Pulling them out each Christmas really makes me happy and I like that each year our tree gets fuller and fuller.  I plan on eventually getting another tree for the front of the house that is more trendy and decorative, but we'll always use the same ornaments for this tree in the family room.   I can only imagine how full it will be when the boys are in high school or leaving for college.  :)

This is the ornament that started the tradition, and the funny thing is that we didn't even buy it.  It arrived in the mail from one of Brandon's relatives Christmas season of 2004.  We'd only been married a few months.  :)

Fast forward to this year- a house in honor of purchasing our second home earlier this Spring.   I think it actually looks a little bit like our house- if you squint and turn your head sideways.  haha.

Then there is this one in honor of my husband's job transfer that brought us from Austin to Clearlake.  No, my husband does not work for NASA, but when I think of Clearlake, I think of NASA.. and my boys LOVE their year long passes to Space Center Houston.  :)

Last year we spiced things up, and rather than celebrating the birth of Jesus at home, we packed things up (even the Christmas tree) and spent the holiday in the mountains of New Mexico enjoying the snow.  This little guy even looks like my husband.

LOL!

This little teddy bear is in honor of little Liam who turned four weeks old today.  :)

There's this glass lighthouse, which if you look closely, you'll see is broken along the bottom.  I was going to trash it    :(   after discovering the broken glass this year, but my husband insisted it go on the tree.  We bought this one to remember the 2 weeks we spent in Pensacola, FL right before my husband's deployment in 2006.  I was 7/8 months pregnant and insisted we climb to the top of this old historic lighthouse, only to get extremely sick upon reaching the top.  Brandon never lets me live that one down because he didn't want to climb it in the first place. haha.

The next two each stand for the theme of our babies nurseries.  Brodie- camping/wilderness (fish), Rylan- firetrucks.  I'm still looking for a nice sailboat one for Liam, which is why he got the bear this year.

This little crayon is from the year when we couldn't go to a restaurant without immediately hiding any crayons they provided for little ones.  Why?  Our little Rylan would chow down on them!  lol.  There were countless times I fished waxy mess out of his mouth.  Yuck.

Lastly, I bought this yellow ribbon flag ornament while my husband was in Iraq over Christmas.  :)

Our Christmas tree and Mantle, Christmas 2010.

Do you have any special traditions you carry on with your family?

-Courtney

Linking up to:

TDC's Christmas Tree Party
The Hooked on Holiday House Tour