Pre-Christmas festivities

Christmas is here! It's my favorite time of year and I love all of the traditions and festivities and fun leading up to Christmas. Here are a few of the activities we did this year: 

We had dinner at the Shops @ Legacy then walked around and walked down to the giant Christmas tree. The boys looked all the way up and kept saying "Woah!"

Ice! at the Gaylord, Texan. We were supposed to go with the Maybens, as is our tradition, but they all got strep throat that weekend! So we took the boys solo, and while it was much better than last year, it was still a little disappointing for the price. The Gaylord is beautiful, though, and we had a great time walking around. Oh! And since we had originally planned on going to a nice steakhouse with the Maybens, we decided to keep that on the agenda and went to III Forks for dinner, where I discovered their chocolate cake. OMG, was it good. I told J he will have to take me back sometime soon so that I can have more - although it was huge, the boys ate most of it, so there were no leftovers!!

We have a fake tree (and Jonathan complains about it every year - but if we had a real one, I would complain about cleaning up after it every year, so I guess we're even) but I have such fond memories of going to the tree farm growing up and want that to be a part of our tradition with the kids too. This year we went to the Yesterland tree farm in Canton, which was really kid-friendly! We went on a "hayride" (no, more like a giant toy train pulled by a tractor) and the boys went on a little train ride, and they have pony rides and airplane/fair rides, corn shooting (!), etc. It was really fun! Gigi & Poppy, & Aunt La & Uncle Kris came with us, which was great.

 

We made a gingerbread house this year! The boys loved this activity, from start to finish, and although I helped them assemble the house, they did all the decorating themselves. When daddy got home they were eager to show off their handiwork :)

Luke & Sami were in town and we got a nice visit with them, when we found out they are expecting a baby in May!! They are having a little girl and we are excited our girls will be so close in age :) We couldn't be happier for some of our very most favorite friends. We went to the Perot one morning and J got this pic of Ben, then Ben & Jack, relaxing with Sami while we watched a video in the expanding universe exhibit hall. So cute!