It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Last weekend we went to Eckert's, an apple/pumpkin/tree farm in Illinois, to get our tree. Santa was there, and the whole place was decorated for Christmas, so we took some pictures. Inspired by the holiday atmosphere there, our house is now decorated inside and out! 

Posing in his cute hat

We thought Thomas would be okay with Santa since he willingly goes to people he's never met before. It must have been the beard...the minute we sat him down with Santa, the pouty lip came out and he started crying. So I got to be in the picture too, and even then he wasn't so sure about the man in the red suit!

Thomas and his gingerbread friend

"Twenty-five thousand Italian twinkle lights..." Courtesy of a fantastic sale at Target after Christmas last year, our outside decorations have stepped up several notches. Ed (and Tucker) did their best to make our house look like the Griswold's in National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. This picture doesn't do it justice--our house lights up the entire block and is fantastic to look at! Now we just need some snow.

Our tree

Knowing Thomas would not be gentle with a tree or ornaments, we decided to outsmart him by getting a shorter tree and setting it on a table, out of reach. Little did we know that Thomas would dislike pine needles as much as grass and leaves--he's not interested in touching it!

Ed helped Thomas put an ornament on the tree. This is about as close as he wants to get to the pine needles.