I know everyone is long over Christmas already. On to Valentine’s Day. I, however,  have trouble keeping my photos current with the season due to our “current season.” Plus this year our tree stayed up waaaay too long. The day we were going to take it down we decided to forgot all about our to-dos and watched Paddington on Netflix as a family. Cute movie! I have a major soft spot in my heart for London. And Paddington. It was about three years ago that we arrived in Paddington station for the first time and bought our little baby bear (who was in my belly at the time) his very own Paddington Bear that talked when you squeezed his tummy. “Marmalade sandwiches are my favorite!” P.S. We tried them and they are not at all good. So in short I recommend Paddington’s movie, not his food choices.

Late that night, after watching the movie, I started to feel really bad and was sure I had the flu. Turns out I had appendicitis and ended up having surgery a few days later. After surgery I was feeling pretty rough for several more days so the tree just sat. I secretly loved having the tree up extra long this year!  And thank God for our church family that helped out with meals during all of this. But the tree had to come down, and I still wasn’t up to doing much so my oldest son did the deconstructing while I told him where things went. He even let me take a few pictures. If any of you have a teenage boy, you know this is a big deal. I know he was just being nice due to the surgery, but you know I was all over that. So I played around with some free-lensing–my new favorite creative outlet. The strand lights really show the interesting effects of using this method.