christmas cheer!

it's december 21st and christmas festivities are in full swing at the brower home!

when we got back from our thanksgiving trip to Ohio, we decided to start a new tradition of cutting down our own christmas tree rather than picking one up from lowes. we found a tree farm a little ways away and made a great day of it! it was so fun in fact, that i made a video of the adventure.

christmas tree hunt! from Lisa Brower on Vimeo.

we've also been eagerly awaiting each new day so we can open one of our treats from the christmas advent aunt rik sent us from germany. it's true what they say, german chocolate is some of the best!

chris and i went to an ugly christmas sweater party at chris' boss's house on the 4th and had a great time. i mean, wouldn't you if you had a sweater like chris?

here's our version of an "awkward family photo"

chris had actually ordered an entirely different sweater. he showed me a picture of the one he ordered and i almost died. he claims to not have noticed how manly this unicorn was when he ordered it.

 i think it was a miracle that they sent us the wrong sweater cause i really didn't want to have to sew some shorts or a bow or some sort of censor over the unicorn!

we've been out delivering bottles of cheer again this year. 24 bottles so far to be exact. it's still our favorite way to say merry christmas to our friends nearby because its so easy and takes all the stress out of delivering goodies. this year i made tags that said "Merry Christmas Ya'll, Love the Browers". thats right, i spelled y'all wrong. after delivering a few with the typo, my ocd got the best of me and i had to remake them. guess i'm not a true southerner yet.

our elf skippy is back at it this year. he had a fall last year and was in a body cast, but when he showed up this year all he had left was a leg cast. well, i guess the doc cleared him and took the cast off. his first night free he found our fudge to celebrate.

charlie had a preschool christmas concert. he stood right in the middle of the group, towering over most of them, with a very stoic look on his face and his hands in his pockets. he said all his lines, but no smiles or hand actions made an appearance. afterwards he said, "when i got up there, i saw too many people and i got scared." cute little (but big) guy. 

we did catch one little snippet of him when they were first lining up on stage. all the kids were waving to their parents, so we were dancing around in the back to get charlie to loosen up. he finally flashed a quick double peace sign, his signature move. we laughed so hard.

 chris put the lights on the house the day we got our christmas tree. the next day, both our neighbors put up their lights, which happened to be a little more festive than ours, covering not only their roofline, but bushes as well. after school charlie said, " i don't like our house anymore." after asking him why he told me "because everyone else's houses have more lights". i laughed and mentioned it to chris on the phone because i thought it was funny. well, chris is not one to be out done, so that night he brought home several more boxes of lights and we now have just as many lights as our neighbors, including rainbow lights over the bushes, and charlie is a very happy kid!

the weather has been great so far! the night chris brought home the lights, we were all outside in jeans and short sleeves. well, all of us except charlie. he was in nothin' but undies.

at the ward christmas party with dani.

i think she's getting a little too big for santa's lap... and they know it too!

charlie got to play the coveted roll of "the cow" during the primary nativity reenactment yesterday.

and because its not a post without a little owen update...

this is owen's new trick he picked up while watching me exercise and stretch

:)

he's also had a really bad cold, but has been in pretty good spirits nonetheless.

only 3 days till christmas eve!!!