Christmas Tree!

Pete, Hannah, and I got home yesterday form Mom and Dad's to a freezing cold house. It was less the 10 degrees warmer in the house than outside. I brought Hannah in from the car without a coat, but had to put one on her to stay inside. Apparently Pete left the air conditioner on while we were gone. (He also arrived at my parent's house with 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, several tshirts and short sleeved button downs, flip flops and Crocs. No socks and no long sleeved shirts or jacket. Sorry Pete, but you know it's true!) I have not stopped teasing him about this. He always WAY over packs. This one time that I told him it was going to be cold so he needed warm clothes he didn't over pack. Go figure.

Anyway, it was not quite freezing but still very cold in our house so Hannah and I wore jackets and hats for a while. It takes a long time to warm up from ~57 degrees! While we waited we got the Christmas tree out and set it up. Several years ago I bought a 7ft prelit tree at a post Christmas sale for $30. I was very proud of my tree. When we put it together yesterday, however, not all of the lights came on. The very top and most of the bottom were out. After lots of wiggling of lights, wires, and plugs we found that the bottom was plugged in wrong and got those working. However, the top 8 inches or so would not work. I have no idea why but I finally decided to just forget it.

Naturally, the part if the tree I'm talking about is the few inches that are cut off in this picture, but trust me, no lights.

So we decorated the tree. We only put a few breakable ornaments on and those are up high. Down low we have mostly felt and a few wood ornaments. We showed Hannah four felt ornaments I bought last year after Christmas just for her. They are two stocking and two mittens. She moves them all around. So far she hasn't messed with the others, or with the tree itself. She is a little confused though because the tree skirt is also felt and has felt stockings on it. She can't figure out why she can't pick those up and put them back on the tree.

After the tree was done I decided to bake pumpkin bread. I had 2 pie pumpkins that I had planned to make pumpkin pie from, but with all the sickness that never happened and we had Mrs Smith's pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. So I started preparing the pumpkins. It took a lot longer than I planned to make this pumpkin bread. In fact, part way thru Pete got tired of waiting for me to be done and went to his sister's house to help her with some things. Hannah and I kept baking.

Here is our bread being baked. The actual baking time took longer than expected as well. So long that Hannah went to bed before it was ready to eat!

So I was forced to test the pumpkin bread on my own and I pronounced it very good, better than canned pumpkin bread.

Then I went to bed. There were still no lights at the top of the tree. I'm sure of it. However, LOOK!

Lights!
I don't know if Pete fixed them after he came home (I was in bed already) or if they fixed themselves, or what, but they work! Yay!