Getting Ready for Christmas

Last weekend, we made a quick trip to the oh-so-authentic Christmas tree patch on 19th Avenue in the city. We've cut our own tree down in Half Moon Bay in the past, but we were looking for a fast and easy transaction this year. We had to fit the Christmas tree shopping between seeing Santa at SI, two dinner parties at our house, one dinner party at a friend's, and seeing Mop off to the airport. And, all of the usual chaos that comes along with four girls under the age of four, of course. So, 19th Avenue it was.

It was even stroller-friendly. Here, Megan and Bridget demonstrate how our double stroller easily converts to a quadruple stroller:

Tessa (in red) and Annie (asleep) were super excited to get their first tree:

It's all about multi-tasking in our house. So, once we got the tree, we decided to split up. While I drove Mop to the airport with the girls in tow, Matt had the task of setting up the Christmas tree by himself. Hey, you take your "me time" when you can get it around here. If it means manual labor, fine - as long as you don't have kids underfoot and babies crying! By the time I got back with the girls, the tree was set up and we zipped over to SI for our first Santa sighting this year.

The girls were in awe as he walked in the door:

And, Megan and cousin Joey continued to be enamored with him as he high-fived them, hugged them,

and gave them presents!!

Bridget, meanwhile, clung to Matt for dear life,

barely reaching out to accept her present:

And, we got a family shot with the big guy too. We can thank Bridget for taking Tessa's socks off right before the picture.

Back at home, we've been attempting to get a cute Christmas card picture. Here are some outtakes from the past few days.

And, finally, this is all the kids really care about:

Specifically, do Barbies fit in there?