Our third week of Advent has flown by as fast as the others. Sunday was a beautiful day, and I was so thankful because we had plans to visit the Arboretum. Santa was sitting right at the entrance, so Charlotte hopped right in the one person line...
Hunter didn't want to sit with him, but when he saw that Charlotte got some candy, he didn't hesitate to take a picture, too...
Grey was napping, and there was no way I was waking him, so we didn't get any pictures of him that day:(
We started to walk back toward the Children's Garden and saw Donner...
And Rudolph...
And Frosty!
With candy at each stop, the kids were on a sugar high by the time we got back to the children's area.
Hunter and Char were so excited to show James all around...
We had a great afternoon, and were so blessed by the warm weather!
Monday night we headed to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Fair Park. It was COLD, but fun!
They had these dinosaur eggs randomly placed, so Char had fun playing in them...
And pretending she was a dinosaur...
Grey slept the entire time, again...
Sweet baby. I promise we bring him on our family outings even if there's not proof!
Tuesday we made these cute Ninja Bread Cookies
Wednesday we made fudge for the mailman and Thursday we missed our activity. It was the last day of school before the break, and I went to work Hunter's class party. When I got there, he looked pitiful and felt warm. He made it through about half the party and asked to leave, so we headed out early and the kids just rested that afternoon. We squeezed the activity in on Friday, though...
As you can see, Hunter was feeling much better. I loved making paper snowflakes as a kid, so it brought back fun memories....I'm not gonna lie, though, I totally had to look up directions on pinterest:)
Before we made the snowflakes on Friday, we all headed to the Gaylord, which is always one of my favorite outings of the season. Unfortunately, we had some issues and had to leave pretty quickly after we finished our snow tubing. I was thankful we were able to squeeze that in, though!
Once again, Grey was asleep, so I stayed at the bottom of the slides with him while James took H and C up. They rode 10 times each! And were pretty worn out after that. Someone offered us some extra rides, but the kids turned them down. I guess ten is more than enough! James got a video of the fun since I couldn't see it close up...
So fun!!
Today, we celebrated Christmas with Grandee and Poppy. After dinner, we opened presents. Hunter went first...
A new light saber! He and James had a fight with his old and new one after Grandee and Poppy left.
Char got...
A La La Loopsy doll! Every time she sees a commercial that show, she tells me it's scary, but as you can see, she was elated. She played with her all night.
All the kids also got some cute new clothes...which they really needed!
We got Poppy a Mississippi State wine stopper and some wine to go with it...
And Grandee some BBW (her fave) and a new ring holder...
Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the kids opening the biggest gift of the night....their new Xbox! They were so excited. Hunter was screaming! James is setting it up now so that they can play when they wake up. Char got a Toy Story 3 game and Hunter got an Angry Birds game to go with it.
The kids had fun playing with each others' toys as you can see...
(Look at Hunter playing with Grey's new baby car...love that!)
And as expected, grey loved the wrapping paper...
We are thankful for presents and family this Christmas season, but above all else, we are thankful for our Jesus. We stand in awe of Him and the Father that sent him. My favorite Christmas song right now is How Many Kings. The chorus says, "How many kings stepped down from their thrones? How many lords have abandoned their homes? How many greats have become the least for me? How many Gods have poured out their hearts to romance a world that's been torn all apart? How many fathers gave up their sons for me? Only one did that for me. All for me. All for you."
He did do that all for me. And all for you. What a God!
