From garden to sitting room

We always put up the tree around my birthday, so this weekend was it. We had this tree out back in a raised bed garden (NOT a great idea) and we were told it needed to come out. So we decided to leave it till now and use it as our Christmas tree!

Rich helped the girls cut it down (we will dig out the stump in the spring), and he and I brought it into the house. It's a lovely blue spruce. Lovely in looks, but SOOOO prickly! Next year we will have to pick a softer needle...

So we got it in, got it set up, got the lights on, and the girls started decorating- and the tree came DOWN!!! Rich and I were downstairs sorting through some decorations- we ran upstairs and rescued the girls- then I put a sturdy cup hook into the bookcase behind the tree while Rich held on, and we secured the tree so (hopefully) it won't fall again. Though Molly (the cat) seems to think it the tree was put up for her personal playing pleasure- so maybe it can't be secure enough... lol

Here is how the tree looked outside, untrimmed. And here it is, all decorated, ready for Christmas. Oh, and here is our Art tree- a ficus I somehow killed soon after I brought it home from the store. I have seen similar things sold as art and so we decided it can stay...

Week of Music

Well, Chloe had her band concert and Heidi was in the Denver Parade of Lights; it was a busy week of music! Gotta love the holidays!

The marching bands were judged on music, lighting (yep, lighting!), and overall performance, and Columbine won first place in lighting and came in third in overall. Way to go, Columbine! You ROCK!

I have some video clips of Chloe but as it always takes some time to upload them, I will do that later. Chloe performed in the Intermediate Band (6th grade) and the Jazz Band, as well as a part of a quartet. There were five or six elementary schools combined for this concert and the bands were HUGE. The Jazz Band is optional, once a week at the middle school and there are only about 15 kids I guess. They played "Wipeout" and it was GREAT! lol

For now, here are some photos of the girls! The photo of Chloe wearing the Fedora is the Jazz Band and the Santa hat is the grade sixes.

Heidi is in the last photo, and she is second from the right, holding her flute.

Next week is the Monster Band concert at the high school- more than 80 kids in one band... next semester, Heidi will play in the Wind Symphony- a band she had to audition for and she practiced day and night! The band is mostly seniors and she was pretty excited to make it!