Oh Christmas Tree 2011!

Dear Carter,

This post is going to be picture heavy, but it's because you had so many cute trees at the Festival!  It's still hard for me to believe that it is all over and done with. I have to be honest in saying that with it being all over, I'm not really feeling the Christmas spirit any more.  I'm sure it will come as it gets closer, but for right now I'm just not feeling it.  We did decorate your grave today, and I hope you like the little tree we put up there.  Your sister and I decorated it today, and we think it turned out so cute!  I have a few more things I'd like to put up there, but the ground was a bit to frozen to get the posts into....tomorrow I'll be sure to bring a hammer.

As for the Festival Of Trees, all of your trees sold.  The first one to get more than one bid was the one that your brother and sister did for you.  It was called, Carter's Hope and the theme was butterflies and stars.  We actually did a whole photo shoot of our family with our tree, and we plan to use those pictures for our Christmas cards this year.  I'll be sure to share those soon!  Here is the adorable little tree.

They even put your little picture in it.

We decided that we just couldn't let go of this tree since it was your brother and sister's very first one, so Daddy bid on it and won it! We gave it to Grandma Erbes to enjoy.  It is adorable!

The next tree was your cousin Samantha's Sweeter Than Candy tree.  She says that she named it that because you are Sweeter Than Candy which is so SO true!

Your Aunt Stacy, Aunt Nelva, and Cousin Monica were also there to lend a hand.  The tree was so fancy and just beautiful!  We are very proud of her for doing this.  She raised all of the money for it on her own.

The next tree was your Grandma Geri's Frosty The Snowman Tree. Your Great-Aunt Nancy helped her with it too.  This was their first tree, so they were nervous, but as you can see they had absolutely nothing to be nervous of!  It turned out adorable, and the lady who purchased it was thrilled with it. 

Finally, here is the Team Carter "We Are All Misfits" tree.  We had a lot of help from our friends, and we appreciate them so, SO much! There is ABSOLUTELY no way we could have done this without them. We came up with the idea for this tree the day after last year's festival, and it took us this whole year to get it just right.

I am going to do a separate post on our trip down to the festival tomorrow.  Just know that I love you and miss you so very much.  Sometimes I'll just be working along, and all of a sudden I feel as though I've been kicked in the gut.  I suddenly hear the words in my head "he's really gone".  I can't believe it has been as long as it has.  I just plain miss you little guy.  I love you, and am praying that you know that, and that I'll somehow feel some comfort in knowing that.