Christmas

This year for Christmas has been the most fun with Austin. She really started getting the concept of Santa Claus and being naughty or nice. We introduced Austin to the Elf on the Shelf (http://www.elfontheshelf.com) and she named her elf Oswald. At first was she was not too sure of him and actually asked Luke if he was going to leave and go to some other kid's house. But then CBS showed an Elf on the Shelf cartoon and once she watched that I think she understood the elf a little bit more and was excited to "find" him each morning. I am not going to lie there were definitely a couple times this month that I threatened to call Santa and the Elf on the Shelf did not seem to work and it was kind of a pain in the butt to remember to move him each night.

Austin asked Santa for a bike for Christmas, specifically a pink bike. Santa did not disappoint and Austin did get a pink bike for Christmas. She is already pretty good at riding it. I think she was most excited about having Santa fill her stocking. On Christmas morning she ran into our bedroom yelling Santa came and he filled my stocking!

Christmas was pretty low key this year. My parents, Luke's mom and Bridget came for dinner and I made my traditional lasagna. Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year both Luke and I got Monday off from work as the observed holiday. Austin's school is closed this week so I took the remaining days off and actually do not have to go back to work until Jan 3rd. Austin and I have stayed busy with play dates and such. Tuesday we had Jaxson (Ragen) and McKenna (Swender) over for a play date, Wednesday we went to Zoo Lights and today we had a play date again with Jaxson (Ragen) and Cooper (Dena) at an indoor play place called Imagination Avenue. I think tomorrow we are going to go to the train park because it is so nice outside (70's). I am going to need a vacation when I get back to work.

 

 

 

 

 

The lone animal we saw at Zoo Lights

3 Year Pictures

I know I am little late posting these. We had them taken back in mid-October. This year we went to the Desert Botantical Gardens. Here are my favorites.

Polar Express

This year we decided to take Austin on the Polar Express train ride in Williams, AZ. We booked a package that included the train ride, dinner, hotel night and breakfast. Williams is about 30 miles west of Flagstaff and about 2 1/2 hours from our house. A few days before we were set to leave the weather forecast called for a big winter snow storm to come through the area on Friday/Saturday. We decided that we would give ourselves plenty of time to get up to Williams and left the house a little after 1pm. All I can say is I am glad Luke was driving. At one point it was snowing extremely hard and the freeway was at a complete standstill. I was not sure we would make it at all. However, about 3 1/2 hours later we were there.

We checked into our hotel, changed into our matching jammies (big deal to be in your jammies on the Polar Express) and headed to dinner at the Depot Cafe. It was nice because the hotel, train depot and Depot Cafe were all one big campus and once we got there we did not have to drive anywhere.

After dinner we checked out Mrs. Claus and made a couple Christmas Tree decorations and then it was time to board the train.

The fun part of the train is that you actually travel (through a space time continuum) to the North Pole to pick up Santa. On the way you get to enjoy cookies and hot cocoa and a reading of the Polar Express. Once you make it to the North Pole, Santa comes aboard to great each of the children and give them each a silver bell to remember to "believe." On the way back to the train depot everyone joins in to sing Christmas carols.