the tree is up 2010

Yeah.

It's up. The whole living room is glowy and beautiful.

Julia was frustrated by how slow the process is. First a girl must wait for her dad to come home from work.

Then the trailer has to be hooked up.

The drive is not short.

The tree was cut, shaken in the shaker, shoved in the trailer and we drove home.

We love the shaker. Every year we laugh about when Tim said this: "Oh, I hope all the squirrels will be coming out NOW."

We told this story again today. Hands in his pockets, he kicked at snow and smiled.

Then Dad did this and that out in the driveway, cutting and so forth, and finally the tree was dragged inside and put right side up.

AAAgh! Only three inches too tall. He cut it with a scissors. Perfect.

"Can we decorate it?"

No, not yet. First the lights.

This involved a trip to Target so I could buy replacement bulbs for all the dead ones.

Somewhere in all this we ate. I heated up leftovers from yesterday until 15 people were all fed. (Jay's buds Sumi and Larry are home from college this weekend. Gosh, it was good to see those guys.)

The heating and eating took a while.

But at long last, the ornaments could go on--her personal ones, the family box, all of it.

Oh gosh, to be six again.


I love her.

Her, and also her six-ness.

And Tim's eight-ness is pretty sweet too.




In this very long, somewhat difficult year, the little kids--Kari's craziness, Julia and Tim's exuberance have served to bounce us right over and over again.

And the results are impressive. We could not love their big brothers and sisters more.

b.g. was here tonight eating leftovers with the crowd. His animal noise repertoire is unique, not gonna lie. Llhama? He spits. He does the usual cow and monkey, in that superb one year old way, but for bunny, he kicks his feet. Dog is some funny kind of "roof" sound, but his first word was his dog's name, Bella, pronounced Bay-a. I kissed him a lotta times, right side up, upside down, which makes him laugh.



Life's feeling pretty dear this week. I can't shake that fire yet. Joe and Heidi are very good sports, but she's tired and down, and I completely understand. (We're putting up our tree, while her ornaments are getting de-smoked somewhere.) There's this very fierce piece of me that cares about nothing but her safety, and feels reassured by having her close.

I am so glad to wrap my arms around her and my grandbaby.

This is not fair vs. it could be so incredibly much worse.

Time for bed, with much love always, Val