Holiday Happenings

I had to begin this post with our BEST Santa picture EVER!  Look at this...all the kids are looking and the older ones are smiling.  I LOVE IT!  Ok, now let's move onto what this post is really about.

Every year we use a countdown-to-Christmas calendar and each day there is a different activity for the kids to do.  This year....the activities...ehhhhh....were few and far between.  I blame it on Eulee and her quest to make me sleep-deprived.  I wasn't quite as fun as my usual self this holiday season because of the whole new baby thing.  Of course, the only kid to notice was Elina.  She knew I wasn't up-to-par. She'd change the advent calendar and ask, "How come there's no activity for today?"  And I'd give my usual response, "Oh, sorry, Mommy's been really tired."  I can't wait until next year when I will have my act together....hopefully.

Anyway, we did some of our usual things...made homemade ornaments, had picnics while watching holiday movies...decorated the bedroom doors...saw Christmas lights in PJs while drinking hot cocoa...

decorated sugar cookies... (FYI, Eli drew a picture of Santa on the sleigh-shaped cookie)

saw Santa...(I love how Santa looks when he's talking to the kids...and I love how Eli is whispering in Evie's ear, telling her what to say)

One of my favorite ones each year is "Write a family member a love note and leave it under his/her pillow."  The kids really spend time writing these notes.  And for some reason, this year they chose to write a note to me.  B kept asking them, "What about me?"  

This year we also rode the North Pole Flyer out of Austin.

It was pretty fun because we got to see Santa and Mrs. Claus while riding a real train.  The kids had a blast, but B wasn't as impressed.  He said it could have been more Christmas-y.  For example, the cookies they handed out were snickerdoodles.  B wanted to know what was Christmas-y about that.  He would have preferred Christmas-themed sugar cookies.  Plus, Santa took pics with the kids, but he didn't ask any of them if they had been good and what they wanted for Christmas.  But at least the kids loved the whole thing!

The other new thing we did was Breakfast at a Beastly Hour at the zoo.  We did the holiday one with the rhinos. It was so much fun!  First we had breakfast, then we decorated boxes for the rhinos.  We went into their pen (while they were away) and all put out our boxes and put food inside them.  Then they let the rhino out to eat the food.  It was a little anti-climactic because the rhino didn't really eat any of our food. He was just checking things out, but not really eating.  The zookeeper told us that since there was so much new stuff in the pen, he'd probably need all day to check things out in order to eat.  Oh well.

They made it up to us by letting us touch the rhino afterwards!  It was amazing.  They are so much bigger than you think.  And the skin is tough, but soft.  We loved the whole experience! (In the pic below Eli is also holding a rhino horn.)

We've also been having lots of fun with our new fire pit.  We drink hot cocoa, roast marshmallows and the kids explore the backyard in the dark.  It's been great!

It's been such a fun holiday season!