Decorating the Tree

So we spent the afternoon decorating the Christmas tree. Alison couldn't wait, so I brought up the bins with the ornaments and she started pulling them out setting everything up so when Kris got home from work we could start.




Even Sarah decided to set her ornaments up:

We ended up spending about an hour and a half doing their ornaments, I started putting on mine and Kris's. As you can see with the tree in the corner, we lose a good portion of ornament hanging area, so with all the ornaments the girls have, we (Kris and I) left off at least half of ours.




And finally, after a little more than two hours, Alison ended the decorating by hiding the pickle.


Here is the finished tree... Not bad. I think we've had better, but I'll live with it.

Maybe it'll look better with snow outside and presents underneath.

The Lights

Anyone who knows me knows I am fanatical about putting lights on my Christmas tree. Usually I put them on as I am putting the tree together, but this year due to time constraints, I had put the tree up on Thanksgiving night, Black Friday the lights went on, and now today we will be putting the ornaments on the tree.

This year, I ended up pulling the lights out of the bin and before I even started wrapping the tree, I had 6 strings that were completely out. How do lights go bad just sitting in a bin when they were working when they went in is beyond me. Sort of like wondering where your socks go when they get lost in the dryer.

So before starting I had to go out and get some new lights. I think that should be an annual thing, just buy 10 new strings every year. But once the lights were ready, the stringing began.

This is what 1000 lights looks like.


...and after 1600 lights...

...with 2000 lights...

...2400 Lights and counting....

...and finally... 2700 mini white lights.

I had to go back and look at my previous tree entries and I think that I have topped my all-time grand total for lights on the tree. I'm not sure if that is something to be proud of or not.

So the ornaments will be going on today... check back for pictures of this year's tree.

Countdown

With Thanksgiving over, it is time to get out the Christmas decorations... Let the countdown start!

Indian Invite Part 2

Since I got the other video to load, here is Sarah's other routine:

7th Grade Cheer from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Sarah is in the back on the left side. She ends up being a base on the left later on.

Attempt at Videos

This is my first attempt at uploading a home video. I searched around and decided on Vimeo.com. hopefully this will work. This is Sarah's Junior Indians routine from the Indian Invite last weekend. Sarah is in the front row all the way on the right, second from the end.

Indian Invite from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Sarah's Conference

We had teacher conferences with Sarah's teachers this evening. We were blocked off for ten minutes per teacher, but we were only set to see four of them. Sarah said we didn't need to see a couple of them.

We started off with her science teacher, followed by Spanish, Language Arts, and Math. We got a little behind when it was time for the language teacher, but luckily we didn't need the full time with any of her teachers. I think the worst grade she was getting was a 95, so needless to say Kris and I are very pleased with Sarah's performance.

Indian Invite

Sarah had her first Cheer competition last Saturday, the Indian Invitational. Last year she was there for the Jr. High dance team. This year it was solely cheerleaders, no poms at all. And on top of that, she did a routine for Jr. Indians cheer (which is the football cheer squads) and for North Jr. High. They weren't judged, they were listed as only an exhibition, which makes sense since The Falls was hosting it. I thought it was a little simple, but Sarah said their coach was starting them slow and they would be adding elements to their routine for future competitions.

Sarah is in the upper left corner if you can't tell.

This was her Junior Indians routine:




Ali took a couple of pictures during her North routine while I shot video.



Video to come shortly as soon as I can figure out how to upload it.