December Fun!

We had a nice Saturday at the end of November, so Erik took advantage of it to put up our Christmas lights.  We don't do anything spectacular, but it's still fun to have some lights on the house!

Grace watching Daddy work :)

We set up our Christmas tree the first week in December.  Everyone was very excited to decorate it and put "their" ornaments on the tree!  Grace was so confused about the fact that we had a tree in our house. :)  Erik kept asking her "where's the tree?" and she would point to the Christmas tree.

Helping Dad put the lights on

Around and around…..

All done!

Time for ornaments!

Putting them up high enough so Grace can't pull them off :)

What is this?! :)

All decorated!  We defiantly had to keep ornaments up high this year with Grace.  She also really liked to pull on the bottom rows of lights. :)

We took full advantage of all the fun that downtown had to offer on Thursday nights this year.  The first Thursday night that they had festivities, we decided to head down since it wasn't as cold as it has been in years past.  We got down there and decided to first stand in line for the trolley.  Well even though we were down there fairly early, we still waited about 45 minutes to ride. :)  But the kids loved it and it was well worth it!  After the trolley ride we decided to go see how long the wait was to see Santa.  It didn't look too long, so we decided to wait there and do that too.  Well, it was a lot longer than it looked!  But we stayed anyways, and I was glad we did so we didn't have to come and wait anther evening, we could just come and enjoy being down there. :)

Waiting in line...

More waiting…. :)

On the trolley!!

Waiting to see Santa….

More waiting…..poor Grace just wanted to get down!

Talking to Santa

With Santa!  Norah totally froze up when it was her turn to talk and told Santa she wanted a remote control Sleeping Beauty, lol!  She was then crying about it later because that's not really what she wanted but Kyler wanted something remote control so I think she went off of him. :)

After seeing Santa!

We helped my parents put up their tree too.  Kyler was so excited to collect the pine needles, lol (if that would only last….) :), so Erik told him for every needle he picked up, he would give him a penny.  Well this was great motivation for him and he collected well over 100.  By the way, we still have this bag saved at our house…….

Oh my, I'm embarrassed to even put this in here, but we finally had Grace open her birthday present from us!  (Only about two months behind!)  See, it didn't arrive on time, and since Halloween followed her birthday, we just kind of got busy and I forgot about wrapping it….sorry 3rd child! :)  So, here is Grace opening her birthday present!

What is it?!

Excited!

Hmmmmm

A baby!

Loving on her baby :)

We went back downtown on the last Thursday night of festivities to see the ice sculpting and the live nativity.  The kids really had fun seeing the animals at the nativity and Kyler was mesmerized by the ice sculpting.  He could have stayed all night!  We were getting cold though, so we took a quick trip up and down the street and then headed home.  Thanks so much to downtown for hosting all these fun events!!

Kyler petting an animal

Grace checking it out

A bit blurry, but Grace petting one of the animals

Kyler and Norah :)

The kids were dressed in coordinating outfits today, so I thought it would be fun to get a few quick pictures in front of the tree. :)  Then later on, my mom wanted some of them with their reindeer headbands on in front of the tree at her house. :)  And this is about the best you get with three kids, ages 5, 3, and 1!! :)