Decorating the Tree

Well, we put our tree up yesterday, Jakob has been asking to put it up for a couple weeks now. Yes, we have an artificial tree, I don't like it but I've got pretty bad allergies to real trees and we live in such small quarters that I would be dying with a real one in our house. Mark grew up with an artificial tree, so he likes it, plus there is no having to remember to water it and the lights are all ready on it - it's very simple, which I have to say I like!
Jakob helped put up some ornaments, mostly on one or two branches, which I fixed later. He got tired of the decorating after about 20 minutes - probably Mom and Dad constantly telling him to "Be careful!" didn't help any. He did put the angel on the top - after a few tries, he dropped it 2 or 3 times - but eventually got it on there with some help from Daddy.
Later, we took a walk in the cold (freezing rain) to see the Moreland Christmas tree (neighborhood tree) that is all lit up now - it was one of Jakob's favorite things to see last year - it's a huge tree and it's so pretty. So, you'll see a couple pictures of Jakob all bundled up before our walk (he's even wearing a scarf that my Grandma made him - so cute). We made it about 2 blocks before we both started to freeze in the rain and wind, saw the top half of the tree and headed home. We'll save that walk for another night - probably not tonight as we are expected to get rain and "hurricane force" winds - gotta love Portland and global warming! (I just took a closer look at one of the pictures of Jakob in front of the tree, and I'm not quite sure what he is doing with his hands - throwing some sort of gang sign? Gotta love Mark's influence on our son!)

We took a trip to Toys R Us yesterday to see what Jakob wants Santa to bring him, of course he still wants an electric train - which we can't afford and really don't want to get (Thanks to the Santa at Sun River who suggested an electric train!). We tried to make some of the other toys look really flashy like, tinker toys, an electric car race track, legos etc, but didn't get a real answer on what we should tell Santa to bring. It's hard to shop for a boy who likes everything and everything that is over $50 - sucks being on a budget too! Of course, he is 3 years old and I'm sure that he will love anything that Santa brings him. He will be so overwhelmed with the fact that he REALLY is getting presents that he won't know what to do!