This weekend Ava had her first experience getting a Christmas tree! Unfortunately she has bronchitis so she wasn't her usual cheery self (as you'll see by all of the non-smiling photos) but we still had a blast.

Growing up, we always went to a tree farm and cut down our own 12-foot Christmas tree. So when I moved to Los Angeles and saw all of the parking lot Christmas trees, all pre-cut, I was a bit disappointed. This year, however, we found a tree farm that allowed us to chop down our own tree! So we went out and started searching for the perfect tree.

Frank always wanted to get a flocked tree growing up but rarely got one so for the past couple of years, we've gotten flocked trees. It seriously makes Frank more happy to have a flocked tree than the day we got married (kidding!) so I now just go along with it. Long story short, when you cut down your own tree, you have to wait a couple of days to flock it, let it dry and pick it up. And that's no fun. I wanted to decorate this weekend!

So although we had the experience of a tree farm just like I did growing up, we ended up leaving and going to another parking lot tree farm in the search for a pre-flocked tree. With just one flocked tree left, we had found our tree. It was the perfect height and the perfect tree. The only problem was that it had been flocked that morning so they didn't want us to take it.

We assured the owner of the tree farm that we were okay taking it not fully dry and off we went with our tree in our roof. The rope came untied just as we left and with a screaming baby in the car, we attempted to re-tie it ourselves and headed on home.

Good news...we made it home with the tree still on our roof and drove 20 mph the entire way to ensure our tree's safety.

We got home, did our annual ornament exchange and decorated with the fireplace on and Christmas music in the background. Take a peek below at Ava's first Christmas tree experience!