And then I caught the bug...

Both literally and figuratively. Josh was the first to catch the stomach bug (as evidence by all the extra garland he bought during his sick day.) Then, Thursday night was Ethan's turn. I'll spare all the gory details, but watching a 3 year-old puke is one of the saddest things. By Saturday night, I was hit as well. Luckily, it was only 24 hours and we were back in action.

While nursing my sick child back to health (aka making him take a nap) and forcing his brother to get vaccinated (which resulted in more napping,) I had the day off. As I enjoyed my lunch in my quiet house, I started flipping through a catalog. Before I realized it, I was finished with Home Decorator's Collection and halfway through Pottery Barn. And it hit me: the tree was all wrong. The dining room table was still decked out in fall colors. My kitchen table still had pumpkins in the middle. Clearly, we were nowhere near looking like any of the pictures I had just seen. So, obviously, I had to move every single ornament on the tree to a new position. Then, I realized all of my bows had been squished in storage. So, of course I had to re-loop those as well. Before I knew it, the kids were up, two hours were gone and my fingers hurt from all the bow tying. I had to be stopped, so we retreated to my parents.

Unfortunately, Josh was back when we returned. "We need to put up the second tree," he explained. Apparently, my tree trimming had unveiled a spark of enthusiasm and he decided to strike while the iron was hot. After some back and forth, (and rearranging of the furniture, only to end up back in its original position,) the tree in the dining room was up. And of course, I would have no idea how many more decorations to buy unless I actually decorated this tree. (And yes, I may have been spotted through the window by my neighbor driving by, who stopped and told us how crazy we are.) Here's how she stands now (don't judge, she's not entirely finished and Ethan assured me that this one, "Mommy's Tree" is prettier than "Daddy's Tree.")

And to make an even longer story shorter, Josh had to get started on the lights outside (he just HAD to!!) so that just in case all of the neighbors didn't already think we were insane, they are now fully alerted by our house glowing brightly against the dark sky:

(I apologize for the fog. Apparently my phone did not realize that you don't need a flash when capturing Clark Griswold's home...)