23 Days... Ornament Time

Today has been a hard day for me. I literally spent all morning sobbing over the sudden tragic death of a friend's son and haven't been right since. I went through this entire day just going through the motions and I honestly wanted to get back in bed pull the covers back up and pretend that I never got out of bed at all this morning.

And honestly, even as I sit to write this post I have no real desire to do it. It seems... tacky? tasteless? I know I shouldn't look at it that way, but I have such a hard time celebrating and finding joy in little things when people I know are faced with such hardships. BIG sigh...

But I promised my kids and myself that I would do this Christmas countdown with them. And they are too little to understand why Mommy was crying all over her laptop this morning and why she has been in a funk all day. All they know is there is a #23 on the door that needs to be flipped over and a special activity awaits. So here goes.



My girls have mini Christmas Trees in their BEDROOMS! We started this tradition last year and they love it. And every year we let them pick out one ornament to add to their tree. So off to Target we went... or in the kids case... RAN!



Here are the girls with their ornaments. Ryen picked Dora and Ella chose a Princess Tiara.



Here is Ella's tree with her new ornament on it and her ballerina from last year.



Here is Ryen's tree with her Dora (which is her only ornament since she was too little last year to pick one out)



And here they are with the lights off. Ella first:



and then Ryen's!