Our growing family ...

O u r F a m i l y T r e e

I love tradition ~ more specifically, I love FAMILY traditions ~ and our family Christmas tree is a special favorite of mine. I started putting a tiny tree JUST for family in our dining room way back in 2005 (I think) when we had six grandchildren. Special picture ornaments and name ornaments are really all that is on this little tree honoring each member of our family.

And our family GREW by two members this year: one by birth and the other by marriage! We now have 24.3 members in our family! I'll explain the .3 a little later!
Liam Calvin officially entered our family in March 2010 ... he was in the hopper last Christmas, but since I didn't have an ultrasound picture of him, I didn't put him on the tree! Look at his rich and beautiful RED hair! Since I couldn't find a name ornament for him, I was able to add it to this little snowman/bell ornament (it's hard to see his name in this photograph).

Kelly-O joined our family when she married our Dylan this July. Since Kelly is a more common name, I've been able to find TWO ornaments already with her name on it! I love the matching snowguys with their names and have positioned them on the tree nice and close ... like newlyweds ought to be!
Here are our three beautiful grandchildren from Austin: Karis, Olivia, and Jackson.
And these are Liam's darling siblings in Bandera: Nathan, Nia and Lottie!
And these are the precious grandchildren in El Paso: Christopher, Emma, and Matthew!
Little Jeremiah was the newcomer to our tree last year ... but I couldn't find a name ornament for him anywhere at all! Thankfully, a little shop was selling all kinds of cute ornaments and they offered to put his name on this train for me.
The .3 person in our family is due to join Jeremiah next spring sometime. We don't know if this will be a granddaughter or a grandson ... but I am ALL ready. I think if it is a boy, I'll put his picture in the snowman frame; but if it is a girl, she will definitely have the angel for her picture ornament.
We have names of all of the adults in our family too ... but I didn't take pictures of all 13 names ...

I even have one for G-E-O-R-G-E, which is what I call Mr. Jones when he is annoying.
But I do have matching snowguys for us too! I LOVE this little tree. It is now a 4' tree and I've had to put it in the opposite corner of our dining room on the lower table because it would NOT fit where I had the smaller one last year. That's OK. I love that our family keeps growing ...