"In and I want something sleigh"

More Christmas Fun

Tuesday night I had a work friends party at my house with lots o' appetizers and a rousing game of Apples to Apples.

This is just a sweet picture of Baker with the village. My mom has done an awesome village for as long as I can remember and she got one started for me when I got married. Baker loves to play with it and I let him. He drives the cars and plays with the people. I don't have the heart to make him stop.

 Pete has not be as adventurous as some elves out there. However, at my girl's party, they suggested to do some t.p. rolling and I gave in. Of course Baker loved it. The mess was worth his excitement.

 Last night, Amy and I took Hayes and Baker to the Zoo Light Safari at the Birmingham Zoo. These two had a blast. They play so well together.

 "Hayes, don't fall in the river, you have to look through this"

 Impromptu dance party. There were several of these that happened last night.

For one of our Advent Days (starting to be a blur) we drew "Make a homemade ornament for the tree" so I decided to attempt salt dough ornaments. They turned out great. So much easier than I thought they would be. We are going to give them away to family and friends this year too. After they baked, we painted them and put a ribbon in them. I also sprayed some clear gloss sealer to protect them.

I hope your family is enjoying some Christmas adventures. I am already getting sad that Christmas is almost over. I might really be depressed after this year.

Pete, Advent, Weekend and a Party

We have a Christmas visitor for December, named "Pete". He is our Elf on the Shelf and while he does do silly things, Pete is not as adventurous as some of the elves I see around. I don't really want Pete making a mess that I have to clean up, but he is a fun little December addition to our lives.

 Pete making snow angels

 Pete relaxing on the Foof watching TV.

 A typical weekday morning before school

Polar Express Day at school. Bake got to wear his pajamas. I LOVE pajama days.

 We are still going strong with Advent Calendar. On Tuesday we drew "Dance like crazy to Christmas music" and we did...

 On Wednesday we drew "Watch a Christmas movie as a Family" so Baker and I watched "Elf" since we were the only ones at home that night.

On Thursday we drew "Write a letter to Santa" and it was hilarious. Baker had all kinds of things to tell/ask Santa. I transcribed what he told me to say. Then, he took the marker and "wrote" our letters for us. Hilarious.

Friday we drew "Dinner as a Family", but we took it a step further and took Baker to his first play! TCT did "A Christmas Carol" and Baker sat quietly (excluding very loud whispering) through the whole thing. We were shocked. He really liked it though.

Saturday we drew "Drive around and look at Christmas Lights" however, this one did not happen due to Brent and I having Date Night that night. We did go to Capital Park so that I could take pictures of this sweet couple for their Christmas cards. There are so many rocks, Baker was in heaven.

 On Sunday we drew "Make a Christmas Craft as a Family", so we made Christmas trees out of ice cream cones, icing, M&M's and sprinkles.

 Some of us ate more ornaments that we decorated with.

Only one way to eat the tree..

 Although this is going back in time, I had a wonderful birthday, thanks to my sweet hubs. He took me shopping all DAY and gave me an amont to spend. It was really great. He went to every store with me and was a champ. That night, we met with some friends at Iguana Grill for a birthday dinner. I didn't want to go without posting about this because it was very special.

The Christmas Spirit

I have been majorly in the Christmas spirit this year. I started early too. I liked Thanksgiving being earlier this year so we could get a jump start on decorating and such in November. Well, daddy was out of town this weekend so Baker and I had a lovely Christmas- filled weekend extravaganza.

This year I wanted to do an advent calendar for the first time. I found a pretty one from Etsy that I love. I put an activity in each little bag for us to do each day until Christmas. Dec. 1st was " a special treat" so .....

We started early Saturday morning with our first ever trip to Krispy Kreme (his, not mine)

 Then we headed over to the Rivermarket to get our picture made with Santa. I feel too guilty taking my own pictures behind the other photographer, so this will have to wait. However, afterwards, Baker colored a beautiful picture of Santa FOR Santa and gave it to him.

Then, this nice man let Baker play "Old McDonald" on his banjo. He loved it.

 Fake snow!

 Tuscaloosa also brought in an ice skating rink for the holidays! We went over to watch since I didn't think Baker was ready to ice skate just yet. We watch our friends Stacy and Evy for a little while though.

We went to lunch at Tazikis after our River Market adventure.

Then we went home to decorate the tree whilst listening to Christmas music!

After our long nap, we packed up and went back to the RiverMarket for the $2 movie. We watched "The Grinch who Stole Christmas". When we got home, we drank hot chocolate before bed! (Who am I?)

Dec. 2nd we drew "Listen to the story of Jesus" from our advent calendar. Of course I strategically planned it to happen on Sunday when our church was doing "Breakfast in Bethlehem" for the preschoolers. We had our breakfast at church and then went to see the live animals and nativity scene.

 I did have to talk Baker off a ledge because there wasn't a camel. In his head, there was going to be a camel and he was leaving until he saw one. Whatevs. There wasn't one. In fact, this donkey was alone because the real sheep got out in the field the night before and they couldn't catch them. Again, whatevs.

When we got home from church, daddy was home! We decided Sunday night would be a good time to take Baker to Bobby Millers house. He decorates his yard extravagantly in kid-friendly chaos. He lets you walk through it too. How fun for a 3 year old!

 

Do you think this was enough Christmas fun for one weekend? Well, Apparently I can't get enough because Monday night we went to the Christmas Parade! It was neat, but I could tell Baker was tired and perhaps I have overdone the activities for a minute. 

Dec. 4th we drew "Dance like crazy to Christmas music" so that is a bit more do-able for tonight. 

Oh yes, we also got an Elf on the Shelf this year...more on "Pete" in another post!

This weekend was full of joy. As cheesy as that sounds, it was such a great feeling to experience the holidays with my child and see how excited he gets about everything. I think his past 3 Christmases he has been just too young to really "get it" and this year he does. I feel so blessed.

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Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, I decided to get a photographer to do a laid back photo shoot of Baker for his 3 year pictures. I loved how these turned out.

Thanks Corey Rives!
Here are a few...