Pomerleau Family Blog: 2016

We started off our Christmas festivities this year by going to get a Christmas tree the Sunday after Brandon's birthday party. We planned on going to SleighBell's, a huge Christmas store/Christmas tree farm that had Santa and all the bells and whistles to see both Santa and get our Christmas tree. We got there a little after they opened and had no lines to see Santa. Brandon and Olivia both told Santa what they wanted for Christmas and had a little bit of time with him. Brandon said he wanted Star Wars lego set and Olivia said she wanted a Barbie Dream house. I got some cute photos of them with Santa and I didn't have to pay for the photos taken by Sleighbell's (an added bonus). After we saw Santa, we enjoyed some hot cocoa and then walked around the Christmas store which is huge! The kids enjoyed seeing all the ornaments and the various vintage snow villages on display. We then were going to pick out a tree but then saw that there was quite a line and it was quite spendy to get trees there so we opted to leave and go get the tree later in the afternoon once Olivia had her swim lessons so she would not be late.

I happened to find a little family owned Christmas tree farm just a few miles from our house off of Scholls Ferry Rd. We loaded in the car and headed out there and we completely lucked out on the weather which had been rainy most of the day. We had a clearing and was able to have some really nice weather while we hunted down our perfect tree. This was our first time cutting down our own Christmas tree and it was really fun. The kids got really into it and wanted to find the "perfect" tree for our house. We looked up and down and then found the perfect tree! It ended up being quite high but we were able to take some off of the top and bottom and make it fit with our 10 ft high living room ceilings. The farm owner's son was super nice and went out on his Gator to get the tree for us and put it on his Gator and took it back to the farm where they were able to shake it and bale it and help us put it on our car. It was a bit challenging to get the tree off of the car and into the house but Sean and I managed to that. Then became the even more challenging task of getting lights on such a tall and big tree and then decorating it! I had to get our huge ladder to do both! The kids and Sean helped out with both and we got it done and it looked beautiful. We had to trim the top a few times to get the angel to fit but she finally did. I finished off decorating the back of our house with some bush lights and the front of the house with some bush lights and then did the two trees near the front of our house with lights. I finished off by wrapping lights around our trellises and the posts near our garage. I also put our reindeer and the sled and this time made sure it was secured with better stakes and ties. I loved our Christmasy house this year and we made it extra special knowing that we were going to host Christmas this year at our house.

Out tree hunting on a beautiful day

Brandon won his Minecraft Axe at his birthday arcade games the day before

Sean and the kids shot at our Christmas tree before we cut it down

Sean cutting down the tree

Getting the tree ready to lug back to the farm

Brandon "cutting" the tree!

Watch out its Brandon!

The kids and I near the tree

Another shot of Brandon with the tree

Such beautiful scenery at the farm

Brandon at the Christmas tree farm

The Christmas tree and its hugeness!

Putting up lights and trimming the tree

Final lights and decorations and a Christmas tree train!

The kids in awe of the tree!

Brandon helping to decorate

Olivia helping with the decorations

Kids enjoying the tree

Christmas train going around the tree

Livie Santa!

The next weekend, we had baby Luke's first birthday party on Saturday and then Brandon had two birthday parties for his close friends on Sunday. Luke's birthday party was a cute Winter Onederland themed birthday party. Olivia and Brandon both enjoyed going to Luke's party and watch him turn one and try some cake! They had some fun cookie decorating which Olivia particularly liked and took advantage of with extra frosting and sprinkler stealing!

Celebrating Luke being one!

Lukie enjoying some cake

Addie and Liv enjoying cupcakes

Decorating cookies

Liv watching Luke open up presents

The next day, Brandon had two birthday parties he was invited to so Olivia and I decided to hit up Macy's SantaLand one last time as they were closing the downtown Portland Macy's next year and the fate of SantaLand was up in the air. We got to SantaLand a bit later than we had hoped and there was a bit of a line this year but luckily we befriended a family ahead of us and they held our line so we could spend some time shopping and picking out an ornament for Olivia and Brandon and myself this year (a tradition we enjoy) and also see the other cute displays of SantaLand. We finally got Santa and Olivia was super excited to see him and tell him that she wanted more My Little Ponies and get her picture taken. Afterwards we hit up a local candy store near our parking spot downtown since Santa did not give out any candy canes. The candy store ended up taking forever to check out and we were late to Olivia's final swim lessons by 20 minutes. We ended up having a blast anyways and it was a very festive and fun Mother/Daughter date together.