Mom, how many more days?

Every day now we are having the daily discussion (at least 10 or 12 times) about how many more days there are until Christmas. And I think Jack is keeping better track than I am! If I happen to give the wrong answer he is very quick to correct me.

Yesterday David had the brilliant idea that I should bundle him up and send him out into the backyard. At first I was skeptical, but Jack loved it. He spent a good 40 minutes wandering around the backyard: riding the glider on the swingset, going up and down the slide, playing in his playhouse, "cleaning" off the snow.

When Jack was a baby we really wanted to buy a house and we spent a lot of time looking at condos thinking we didn't need the huge yard we have now. Yea, we were so wrong. Our huge, secure backyard is awesome. Really, what were we thinking?
Here is what the woodland tree ended up like. Sorry about the extraneous junk in the background, we have a super, super tiny 1960's ranch house living room. (Which is partially why the big tree is in our bedroom. We can barely fit both a couch and a tv in here.)

Let's peek inside:
a gnome sitting on the base (complete with teddy bear, Jack was sure he needed a teddy bear);
pine cones, acorns, toadstools, a much loved little stuffed gnome up near the top and a turnip. What? Your trees don't have turnips? (There is a potato on there too!);
a gnome that I suspect is missing his pipe;
my only girl gnome, and she is knitting!;
a swinging gnome;
birds, both old and new;
fruit and nuts and woodland cottages;
and kitschy 1960's squirrels too!

This tree is so much fun. I hope to find more woodland ornaments (ahem, toadstools of course!) for it soon.