Moving and Decorating

We moved over the course of a few days. I guess that's a nice thing about moving close. We thought we had a lot of things, and when we were packing, it seemed like a lot, then when we put all the boxes in our living room, it didn't seem like too much. It has been nice unpacking our dishes and towels and other things we haven't used or seen for a couple of years.

Alianna wanted to help of course. She helped pack by throwing things in boxes, or unpacking boxes I had done, looking through everything, then putting some things back in. She helped Mark get some boxes down and stack them too.

Our new place. Before we had a chance to get a plastic cover for under Alianna's chair, we made a makeshift table in the kitchen. Now she has a booster seat at the big table with a chair mat (the type for under a computer chair so it can roll) under her seat to catch any spills and not stain the carpet.
Lots of boxes and no furniture.
We ate on the way places a lot at first as we tried to find shelves and organizational things so we could unpack. We tried a lot of couches too, but none we liked enough.
Although our apartment was not all ready, we wanted to decorate for Christmas. We had bought an artificial Christmas tree at a garage sale, but as I started to set it up I was in tears. For some reason this year I really wanted a real tree. In Scotland we had a fake one and it was scrawny, but our place was tiny and temporary, so I didn't mind. This year, well, I don't know why, but a real tree was important.
Mark thought it might make a big mess, but when he saw me so upset, he wanted to make me happy (he's such a wonderful husband) and we went out to find a real tree. They weren't too expensive, and I sold the artificial one, so now we have less to store at the end of December.
We bought some small plastic balls for Alianna to put on. She thought they were really cool and still does.
They were a little tricky for her to hang.
But with a little help she soon had a patch of green balls, another clump of red, and a third collection of gold. Later I spread them out, but she still likes to move them and the other low ornaments around, and for some reason, she likes them all to be in one spot close together.
Alianna has fun with leftover boxes.
Mark's parents loaned us a small couch and some chairs, so now we have somewhere to sit. Alianna loves being like daddy with her feet up on the ottoman reading stories. One morning Mark had a blanket too, so she ran to get her own blanket and put it on, so she could be like daddy.