Holiday celebrations

Well we have been busy celebrating early Christmas activities. We had a great Thanksgiving with our family and that was followed by an early Christmas celebration. The kids enjoyed connecting with their cousins and it was great to see everyone again. The atmosphere was stress and drama free. So that was great. The weather was great. D and I also ran the local turkey trot and had a great time. I think it was the first time that we officially ran a race together. So that was nice. His goal for us (or me) was to run the 5 mile race under 40 minutes. We did succeed. We made it at 39:39.




Some Let's Dance fun



The next weekend Julianne's class sang in the local Holiday Tree Lighting gathering. This is the first year we attended and it was really fun. They had smores, hot chocolate, carriage rides, and caroling. Julianne was really excited and the class did a great job. Santa even came to visit the gathering.


We brought Mallory's friend along.

Mallory dancing the night away. I think she learned some of those dance moves from Let's Dance.



That same weekend we were able to visit the real Santa. This Santa knew everything about the kids. We all walked in to the room and Santa said "Hi Julianne". She was floored and her uncertainty about Santa turned to reality. She is on the brink of trying to figure out everything about Santa but this kept her believing a little longer. He talked about her class, Mel and Tucker, playing basketball, etc. He knew all this information about the kids that surprised all of them. We did not sign up to see this Santa last year so it was great to be able to make it this year. We also visited the talking tree and he is always fun and tells lots of jokes. He can also secretly see the kids so that was fun for them also.



The Talking Tree. He could not hear us because he had too much sap in his ears. :)

The entire gang.

Mallory chose to be the first to sit on his lap.

She is thinking hard about what she wants for Christmas, which is a Nutcracker.

Lindsay is not too sure about this fellow. Nathan refused to go up to Santa or really talk to him but he still knew lots of stuff about him.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-running a fun/competitive race with hubby.
-Having a fun eventful holiday extravaganza with family
-our great warmer weather (except for yesterday which rained all day)
-Keeping Julianne believing in the spirit for one more year (it may be the last)
-Our spinning bike bending and calling the customer support and they sent us a free crank arm and petal. Very nice and friendly. We were finally able to fix it after it being more difficult than first thought it would be. We learned a lot about crank arms in bikes.
-Lindsay's starting to play more with the kids. She now crawls away from the kids when they chase her and she laughs.