We had such a fun Christmas season. Christmas is SO SO magical and has always been my favorite holiday! Having kids that have such sweet and innocent excitement about it makes it even better than I ever could have imagined. We did lots of fun activities, and since it was so long ago, I'm sure I won't remember everything. But I'll write what I can remember. We went to "Winter Wonderland" at Riverside State Park, where we went on a hayride and saw Christmas lights, learned about and saw a live owl, saw Santa, and walked across the lit swinging bridge (except Curt didn't..he's afraid of heights, especially on things that move). It was a cold night, but there were fires set up all along the trails and it was nice to be able to warm up! If we do it next year, we'll definitely bring stuff for smore's! We went Christmas light looking LOTS of times, and Brooke especially loved spotting the Grinch (her major obsession!). We found lots of cool houses and never got bored of that. The girls are gooood Christmas light lookers. We did the Lake Coeur d'Alene cruise to the North Pole and had so much fun doing that with the cousins. The conservatory at Manito Park was beautiful as always. We sang lots and lots of Christmas songs and read so many Christmas books and loved everything about Christmas! My mom and I took the girls downtown on Christmas eve day to watch "Arthur Christmas" at the IMAX and rode the carousel that was way fun. We had a quiet Christmas eve with just our family and Gma and Gpa and played ring toss, clothespin game, and the dice game, our annual traditions. As well as read and acted out the Nativity, opened PJ's, and of course ate yummy food. We left out cookies and milk for Santa and Brooke was insistent that we leave carrots for the reindeer, so that we did!
Aside from all the festivities, we really tried to emphasize to the girls the importance of Christmas, because of Christ. That He truly is the reason for the season. I'm grateful for the time of year to focus even more on our Savior and to be able to spend time teaching about Him and what He has done for us.
-How Brynlee would yell "Santa" every time we saw him on the corner of Sullivan and Sprague. No matter what direction we were coming from, she always spotted the blow up Santa and the Santa on top of the Christmas tree stand amazingly fast. It was totally her gauge for where we were at!
-How much the girls loved singing Christmas songs. They love music and were totally hooked on Christmas music (as am I).
-The magic that was in their eyes on seeing what Santa left. They were totally spoiled (Santa needs to learn some self-control) and they soaked it all in.
-A new tradition we started by writing our gift to Jesus on a piece of paper and wrapping it up. Our "gifts" are still in our rooms, and help us remember what we are trying to be better at.
-The wonderful time I spent with my little family, enjoying the warm, peaceful feelings that come with the Christmas season. We took Brooklyn to the store to pick out a toy to give to a child who wouldn't have presents otherwise and she chose the Doc Mcstuffins doctor kit (the one she wanted so bad) to give away. She picked it knowing that she would give it away, and did is so willingly and with such a pure heart. She really is so sweet.
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