A Quick December Trip

We are in NH for just a couple days. It's tricky to travel so close to Christmas, but Laurie Berkner, one of the kids favorite musicians, played a Christmas concert at the Capital Center for the Arts yesterday and we'd bought tickets months ago when we saw she was doing a Christmas concert.

On the way in, we stopped at the King Arthur Flour headquarters where they have a cafe and shop to have lunch for Auntie Jen. It was so Christmassy! The food was delicious and the shop was full of good gifts.

Yesterday the kids loved the concert. Poor SlimJim was so tired because it was during his nap, but aside from a small fit about not touching a beach ball, he enjoyed it just as much as the girls.

Mr. T. didn't get to go so we brought him to Home Depot to ride the tractors.

Tomorrow it's back to NY to finish up the Christmas preparations!

A Deer Birthday and A Family Music

Sunday we spent the afternoon at a deer-themed 8th birthday. It was a cute theme and went really well with the festive Christmas decor. We even got to make live flower crowns. 

Today all of us went to a make up music class for the boys. While music was fun, the surprising highlight of our morning was walking from music to the post office in the rain.

Don't let those adorable faces fool you though, after the post office it started raining harder and everyone complained. We tried to wait it out in a coffee shop, but by the time we were ready to leave it was pouring. So we braved it and hiked it back six blocks to the car in a downpour. We called it an adventure. Hoping the snow returns! Cold rain is no fun. 

A Dolly Christmas

Last year the girls started a tradition of taking a Christmas photo for Christmas cards with their dolls. I suggested it last year to show off the matching girl and doll Christmas dresses Meamaw and Grandpa got for the kids. This year they dressed the dolls and staged the photo themselves. Then MiniM.E. created the cards and signed and addressed them. They are so cute!

Tree Lighting

The Victorian Stroll in downtown Saratoga and the Gavin Park Tree Lighting are always back to back. It makes for a very exciting and very exhausting start to the season. This year, toting four kids, we decided to go to a "pre-stroll" party on Thursday and skip the walking around in the downtown cold and only do the tree lighting. It was cold and damp but Santa's arrival on the firetruck was worth the wait for the kids. 

And the indoor party with free snacks, movies, and Santa is a huge hit.

Snow Play

We've had some freak snow storms in the past few year that gave us snow on Thanksgiving and once even snow before Halloween. But this has been the craziest December. It's ridiculous the snow we've already gotten and we aren't even a full week in. 

While I know we'll all be sick of it by March, the novelty hasn't worn off yet. Lots of fun playing outside the past few days!

 We even brought the snow play inside!

The girls are enjoying the snow much more now that they can play more creatively and maneuver better in their snow gear. I am pleasantly surprised at how much the boys seem to enjoy being out in the snow!

Trimming the Tree

As we decorated today, I wanted to document the decorating with my camera's remote. In typical "spice things up" (a.k.a. ruin all Mom's plans), SlimJim decided to come down for the decorating wearing this:

So they weren't quite the photos I was hoping for, but I guess they document our family dynamic.

 

Merry Christmas Season!

Cutting Down the Tree

The season between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so short this year that I really wanted to get the tree the weekend before Thanksgiving, but with such a full house we wouldn't have had room for the tree and the table in the living room. 

We headed to Bob's Trees, our favorite cut your own farm because they have reindeer and wagon rides. Found the tree right away, in typical fashion. As MiniM.E. kindly informed us, "getting a tree is like looking at the first tree and then having to walk around a farm all day until your legs hurt finding the best tree and just picking the first one that only Mommy likes anyway." This year with four kids in tow and no snow for pulling the sled, we only did a little of the "walking around the farm all day".

Compared to how easy it was to check if all our lights were working, decide they weren't, buy new ones at the store, decided those wouldn't do, and go back to get more lights from a different store, getting the tree this year was a walk in the park!

On the agenda for tomorrow: the rest of the Christmas decorating!