"...Hum bite 매следiously! I'm going to go back to the vlog. It's already the early afternoon. I've had such a busy day already and I'm happy to report that I did get up at 830 this morning. So, every day is an hour earlier, which is fantastic. 830 at 7.5.730 again. And I hope I can get back to 730 tomorrow morning. That would be ideal. That was like our normal kind of like wake up time before that was Caves Natural Lake Wake Up. Already had a big morning, from here morning. I think I took through my emails. I had to make a list of the things that I have for like work stuff that I need to accomplish. I have to shoot something today. And I finished up some stuff this morning and then took shower. Got ready. So, it is, it's all I think it's almost 2. I didn't. Oh no. Okay, well I just poured water everywhere. Figure, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to start the vlog. I'm really, oh my gosh. This is just, no. This is why I'll put water in irons. I think all my irons are cheap. I think that's my real problem. Oh my god. Okay. Hold on. My mom got paid the cutest. Christmas tree. It's like a felt Christmas tree. I have some of these stuff on already actually. But it's like a felt Christmas tree. Like this that he can stick all of these little things and ornaments and houses on it. I wanted to iron it so it laid flat because all of these are sticking up. It was just folded in the package. I had something else I wanted to iron. Well, I have like a couple of things that I need to do with the tool. I like, tended to tackle it. I got these place mats from quince and they have the fold in it. So I wanted iron those so that we could use it here so we could stop using this folded tape cloth. This is what we've been using. So I'd like to put those down. That would be really nice. Just a few seconds lay them down a little bit. Oh yeah. It's working perfectly. It always reminds me how fun it is to vlog every day because it's just like we're heading out. I don't overthink it. You know, because it really has a lot of encouragement to be like letting out for the holidays. You know, or I guess that's what I think of that. I feel like I share so much more than you normally would. Or I'll be like, oh, not doing something interesting. Today, I just really need to get through this work. So I'll vlog tomorrow and then I start to overthink it. But during vlog, it's like no pick up camera. Start it. We're doing it. And it always tends to end up being like, wow, we did a lot today. That's so much fun. I'm getting really sad. And both of them, I'm getting really sad that our Christmas decorations. Like aren't really up in a meaningful way. I think, honestly, we're going to tackle that today. So I feel good about like welcoming the season stuff. Today, our niece is coming over. She did work today. So she's going to come over and like play outside with Kate while we're putting up the Christmas lights and so, hopefully with her and she'll watch him while we're kind of like climbing trees and stuff, which is good. And then hang out inside. And maybe I'll do the tree. Finish up the tree and do fine holiday stuff. So I wanted to get Kate's tree up so that he can play with it too. Okay, I remember, but I can't fully get out the, you know what I have to do? I think after their first watch, they'll be fine. You know, it's like something like that, but they look better. I'm going to do the lights outside in the tree later. And Romeo opened these because I was like, I needed more velvet balls. Like last year, I remember having a few of these really pretty red velvet balls. And they were so pretty, but I was like, I need more of this look like in the tree. And look at this. And I was not happy. This look how pretty those colors are. High dark burgundy red ball. High blue ball. I love it. I mean, hello. Look at the like brown, like a camel kind of color and then white. This one's kind of a stop. And green. Because they're rubbing on the word. Ah, they need to change their packaging because that's not this is quite a much. And it actually came with really pretty ribbon to hang them with. I'll be this set like, it didn't take a little bit more than like normal delivery to get here. And I thought in order to set out the these up. And then if I feel like I need even more like for the tree for like next year and stuff, I'll um, I'll order some more. So I got those. And while we're gone, my friend picked up that was on our street picked up this box first because it got delivered and it was on top of our pillar while we were gone. And she grabbed it for us to keep it safe because it's from care away and big thinking to care away for sponsoring these video. If you do not have non toxic cookware, let me get you on it. The founder of care away hot Teflon flu from Teflon pants. I didn't even know that that was a thing. I've loved care away for years and we still we had our first set of care away in our apartment. How many years ago? 877 years ago maybe? We still have her. The original. Your original. It's so important to cook with non toxic. If the house, what you breathe, how you cook, what comes from the pants and actually goes into your food that you eat. I used to be a person that would go to places and buy pretty cheap pants, especially when I was in my first apartment or my dorm. Investing in good cookware is such a good decision. They have this 12 piece cookware and cabinet organizer set. This is the essentials I personally love the cream. Like I just showed you. And in addition to being beautiful non toxic cookware, their organization is like, they've really thought about how it can organize in your kitchen. It comes with this canvas holder that can actually go on the interior of your doors. 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You can get a free, graza, fizzle spray. And also at the highest tier, you can get this free 9 piece complete bar set. This is their newest product, non-toxic stainless steel, plastic free bar set. This makes a great gift to you. Really want to make some bread today. So I'm going to put that into the oven and also some soup. I asked from you what kind of soup you wanted. He said tomato basil. So we're doing tomato basil and grilled cheese. Something. So I just started on it. I'm going to bake the sourdough bread that we've got. This one is rosemary, garlic bread. I'm not going to burn this with them. I've burned the apple. It's really set myself up for success here. I'm going to put this. And we have to roast some tomatoes for this recipe. We cut those up and then we can, like, while that's cooked, that's going to take a while. Those are going to take a lot of cook. So we can go outside and work on our Christmas light. And when I use the Dutch oven, one to make the soup it. Also our knives are care way. I didn't even realize I knew I had the set, but I didn't realize it's really the ones that we use all the time. So you're really complete your kitchen care way. You just need to roast these, like, in your arms. Yay. I did not burn it this time. I have nox burning in the living room now. It's not so good. Those roasted nuts at the flea market. That's what the inspiration was. Those roasted nuts at like a Christmas market. Roasted chestnuts on an open fire. It smells so good and warm. Oh, thank you. Yay. Eva, you know what's going on? Yeah. And he started going after her. Are you following your Eva? My, our nieces here. She's, yeah. Careful. He's getting really good at stairs. Walking around. His teeth. The sleigh is not slain. What do you mean the sleigh is not slain? Come on, baby. Let's go down look at this lay. So, what kind of last year? One of the cords, like, ripped. I do not remember one of the cords in red being. And we're at the end of the next year. Come on, kid. No, I do not cut it. What do you mean? No, you did not cut it. I, you have a cutter in your hand. No. It's, I was cutting the, the place. Wait, which one, so the sleigh? So I give up on the sleigh. I'll wait till the head of the company. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Do you remember that? I remember that. Um, kind of vaguely I do remember that now. Yeah. Well, I open, I'll think, oh, I can do that. There's an ear here. I don't know. Your probably goes into one of these. What? Oh, no. We could do remember that. And I was like, okay, I'll fix it next year. I just need to connect them. That's fine. We need to do a little electrical work. That's okay. Slee. That's a sleigh. Is that Santa sleigh? Is that Santa sleigh? You know, I need to buy every time I go looking for, electrical tape. I can't find it. And the last time I used it was for Halloween. Have you seen it, babe? No, I don't know. No help. Oh. Yeah, baby. Yay. He's a little like the brownie. Oh, not the brownie. The green one. He's one. He likes the aesthetically use. Yeah. So it was right about here that we no longer have audio. Every year during Vlogmas, there is always one to two vlogs that has a technical glitch because we have no time to like, reap them or redo it because I'm vlogging daily. So you're going to have a nice little voiceover narration from me while you're watching these next several clips because it was about three hours of footage that didn't have audio. So we finished up with the reindeer on the yard and we were moving on to wrap some of the lights around the big tree that we have in the driveway. But of course it was getting dark. So we brought out one of my big studio lights to shine up on the tree so we can see what we're doing. And we got an Amazon delivery with a new bubble machine. Kate has gone through three bubble machines because he loves to grab onto them and hold them so he drops them and breaks them. But in his defense we've been buying very cheap bubble machines like five dollars from Target or ten dollars from Amazon. So we invested in a bigger one, a better one. So we're hoping that we can put this one up high enough so he doesn't grab onto it. So then we started wrapping the tree. This tree has gone through a couple of different phases of us doing the lights. We actually lost a limmer. We had a lim cut because it was actually splitting at its base. So we don't have that when it hangs over our driveway anymore. So we believe we're going to have extra lights this year. We don't have to do quite too much to give the same effect with all of the branches being wrapped. We go up as high as we can. We overdid it the first year. I want both of us. Wanted the whole tree lit. All the way up into it. But we're just not that tall and it gets very scary getting up that high. So this year we just decided to go up as much as two to three strands of lights would allow us to and kind of stop there. So we worked on one branch and we'll do some more tomorrow and then I headed in to work on the Christmas tree. Now I put the Christmas tree up a week before we went to Japan, but it didn't have any ornaments on it. And every year when I start this process I think myself for buying this huge ornament organizer. I got it on Amazon. It's like so great for organizing all of your pretty round balls for the most part. I have some odd shaped ornaments that kind of have to hang out on top to have all of my ornaments in one spot so I don't have to go and look for them. Every year, Kinsey attacks the ornaments. So it's always fun time doing the tree and putting up all of the ornaments. Got this ornament last year of Kinsey. Looks just like her, but she always wants to attack it. Anything that hangs too low, she's going to attack. And my goal with hanging the ornaments is always to make sure that they're hanging freely. Through the branches. I don't like them like too crammed or alert kind of like bent up a little bit. So I always make sure that I've moved some branches out of the way. And I am pretty devastated about my train. I really did try to fix it. And I think this year, maybe you're going to bring it home to my grandfather to see if you can fix it because he used to work on trains with my cousin too. But for now, I'm going to pick up a track. I'm going to put it away. Maybe we can save it for next year. And we have not decided yet if we are going to do a tree for K this year or real when like a small one. So I'm going to put all of the ornaments up. Even his, the specialty ones that we've been collecting for him, like his first ornament that we got, which is a rocket ship and all the little fun ones that we got in Japan. And you know, just all the fun things that we can, what we have just in case we don't get a retreat. We still have all of those up. But I will leave off the basketballs. He does have basketballs. And I'm not going to put those on the big tree for personal aesthetic reasons. But everything else will put up. I found this rolled up paper towel and I remembered that I put the leftover crystals from our chandelier in the kitchen on the tree and it added such a sparkle. I love that. It totally forgot to order those tear drop crystal ornaments that I found online. I won't get them in time now. So that's going to be on the list for next year. These velvet balls came with a ribbon that I can attach to the balls. And I can't burn the knife of me. I cannot find the hooks, the gold hooks. So we're going with the ribbon actually, really like to outlooked actually. They're great filler ornaments that I really needed because I needed that darkness in the tree because all of my filler ornaments were like a bright, kind of champagne color. Like a silvery gold. I put every ornament that I had except for Kate's basketballs on the tree. And I love how it's starting to turn out and so collected and found and unique. So I got all of the pretty ornaments on there and mess along with it. So good. I love how good it looks being so different, having so many different types of ornaments. It just like, I don't know, works. It feels like more collected. You know, so as the years pass, we collect more and more ornaments and like, I don't really like it. I don't really want to do the pearls. And I know I'm not doing the bows, but I have had these lights for a long time. I've gotten them at a kill one year. I'm not sure. They clip on to the edge of the branches. So I'm thinking that it would be pretty. I have one up here right now and you just clip them on. You put it one battery in it. I think they're timers. I think. And you put them on the edge like this and kind of position it where they're going to stand up. Like that. I think that's pretty. Almost like every other year or every two to two years, I'll do these and I like it again. You know, it's just like, I just changed up the way that I do them. Adding these in will be really pretty. And also I need a topper. So last year and the year before, I did a big bow. And I had a big bow that just kind of like trail down. Also feeling like I don't want to do that. The bows I don't want to do, I feel like, to do have a star that feels like vintage. I think I found that it is, or my mommy there found this for me or I found it in a CZI. I can't remember. I think I found a couple on my journeys. Oh, this one. I think my mom actually got me this one. So I'll one at a flea market one time. I think a star this year will be really pretty. You think that these are going to be pretty this year? This candles. Is it? You like the candles this year? I'm just going to put them on. I haven't done it in this so be like, to just get two years doing this. Yeah. I think that feels like collected. Like it has a story to tell. It's not just like a box or box or an animal. I put them on one here except for his, his basketballs. His knee. His basketballs. And his 12 days of Christmas. You know the one that looks like little boy. Like I didn't put those up. I put all of their like specialty ones like his first ornament and then his ornaments from this year. I put them. He's got a hat. He keeps the least up. Uh huh. They're all on here. His Mickey and his robots. Oh, yeah. They're all up here. And he trained. And he trained. His legs. His legs. His legs. His legs. His legs. Oh yeah. He just ripped one of the ornaments off. Yeah. Earlier. Yeah. And don't forget to check out Carois Holiday Sale and use my code. IMF-Mekana for a free gift and shop there 25% off site wide sale. Thank you.
I totally relate to the excitement of holiday decorating! When I was a kid, setting up the tree was always a family event, and we’d play our favorite Christmas songs while hanging the ornaments. It made everything feel so magical. I love how you mentioned the twinkling lights, MaCenna; they really do bring a special glow to the season!