Holidays

Last Saturday I took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop Winter Wonderland. I thought if we hit it before Thanksgiving, we would hit it before it got crazy. But I was severely disappointed :(. Apparently all the rain that day had driven us silly Arizonians indoors and it was super crowded.I had promised the boys a visit with Santa but there was an hour and half wait before we could stand in line and then once in line, it would be another half hour wait. I just didn't think it was going to happen seeing how I was on my own with 3 kids but I decided to play it by ear. If the kids cooperated and had fun at the store for an hour and half then we would see Santa.

Well, they did. They had fun racing remote control cars, shooting toy guys, riding the carousel, looking at all the cool camping stuff and of course, watching all the cool fishes:

So, when our turn to stand in line came, we went. And I was feeling really good! The line was moving along, there were only a handful of kids in front of us and everyone was happy- even Lucy! And then....Santa decided to take an unexpected break. You could tell it was unexpected because the Elves all looked panicked. And as we waited a long 20 minutes for him to mosey on back, Lucy began to loose it. And when he finally did come back and it was our turn to go up- boom! She broke her fancy necklace and there were beads everywhere (so depressing!). And then I attempted to get her to sit with a no speak Santa (seriously- he didn't even ask the kids what they wanted, it was so weird) she screamed out in bloody terror. So no Lucy in this picture but at least I got a picture of the boys with Santa (even if he was a weirdo Santa):

Also, this week was Thanksgiving! Yay for spending time with family! We enjoyed a nice morning and afternoon with my family, pigged out nice and fine on Thanksgiving food (had a smoked turkey this year and it was AMAZING!), then hung out at Tyler's house and when night time came- it was Black Friday time (well technically it's Black Thursday now). I actually got Tyler to come with me because he was in need of some winter clothing  and wanted to pick it out himself. And though he complained quite a bit, it was still fun to have him there. It was a nice, late night date night. And we scored a lot of good winter coats and sweaters!

The next day, the boys insisted on decorating the tree, I was feeling exhausted from the night before and let them have at it...

And then later after they were sleeping I got a second wind and finished decorating it and even put up a few decorations (not too much this year since we will be moving *hopefully* right after Christmas). Here is the boys with the finished tree the next morning: