Cozy memory

All right, I'm working on a big giant post, that will probably be posted in parts, about the history of how our family came together. Until I get that done though, I really feel I need to start posting SOMETHING to this blog!

I thought it would be nice to post a small snapshot of a fun memory, to give people an idea of how we live.

Last Wednesday, we finally put the ornaments on our tree. We got the tree a week and a half before that, and it stood, smelling beeyoootiful in it's piney goodness, for about a week.

Then, Mary Elizabeth and Ian put the lights up last Tuesday and last Wednesday, we put the ornaments on.

We celebrate Yule, so our tree doesn't have a star or an angel on top. We've talked about what would be the best topper for the tree, and have agreed that a Sun topper would be great, but we don't have one right now. Instead, our tree top is bare, but the rest of the tree is a cornucopia of lights and all kinds of interesting ornaments. I love pulling the ornaments out of the boxes and reacquainting myself with old friends that I haven't seen in a year!

Some of my favorites: the Muppet ornaments (Kermit, Miss Piggy, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Gonzo, etc), the Star Wars ornaments, and the Harry Potter ornaments (yes, we are big giant geeks!). I also took some of my favorite childhood toys and, rather than let them go to waste sitting in a box, I made them into ornaments to hang on the tree. So, there is a rubber stegosaurus that I took EVERYWHERE with me when I was a kid. I slept with it, I took it to school, I loved it and called it George basically. There is also a truck I used to enjoy. Alex has some fun ornaments from his childhood. My favorite is a painted one that is actually a map of pre-90's Berlin. It has a line painted for the Wall. On one side, a hammer and sickle is painted. On the other side, an American flag, a British flag, and a French flag. I love that one! We also go to World Market every year and get new ornaments for each person. I have a ceramic sushi one from last year, mmmmm. This year, I got a piggy one.

The kids got a little rambunctious and we had to explain to the almost 3 year old over and over that the ornaments are for looking, not for touching or playing with. I seem to remember having to explain that to the 6 year old too a couple times. The mulled wine definitely helped the adults maintain our patient tones, heh.

All in all, it was a warm happy scene to me. One of those "You just built a cozy memory that will last forever!" kind of scenes. I love our family!

So, we meant to post on this blog regularly and that hasn't really happened since we are too busy living our busy lives! I'm going to try to post an update and get us to where we are now.

We have all been living together for the past year-and-a-half. Things have gone REALLY well. I have been involved in several other "living-together" poly arrangements in the past and this one has been by far the smoothest .

We have our weekly meeting to discuss schedules and cooking and anything else that we can fit into an hour. At the end of the meeting we all have a chance to talk about our biggest challenge for the week and voice our appreciation for others in the family.

We have decided to buy a house together! The house we are living in is a rental and we just really need more space! We have found a house that we like and talked to lenders and all that fun stuff. We will be moving the first week in May!