Visiting the Jolly Ole Guy

We took the kids to see Santa Claus yesterday before heading to church. They were VERY excited to see their favorite guy!!! Each of them brought their letters they had written to him.
Stella with her letter, waiting in line to see Santa. Going over her list. :)

Porter making sure Santa sees his list up close!

Riding the train after their conference with Santa, they are in the red car.

Last year I inherited all of mom and dad's Christmas Villages. Last year I was too lazy to put them up!!!! This morning I brought up ALL the boxes (and there are a lot!) up from the basement and put the villages up. It was a lot of work, but worth it. It was fun to see all the pieces and remember them. Mom also wrote on every box which year they got what piece and who it was from, so that was really neat, too! Very clever, mom!!!!!!!!!!

These are the ones above the kitchen sink. I don't have a power source up there, so they are not able to be turned on.

The rest of them are above the remaining kitchen cabinets. I do have a power source up there, so they are all plugged in and glowing right now! :) They look so pretty.

Just a random photo of Porter from yesterday. He's very into writing his letters (although he doesn't know them all). Yesterday he asked me how to spell "cheetah" and I thought he did a great job!

Holiday Fun!

We are getting geared up for Christmas and had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here is what we've been up to the past few days.

Stella had a cutout gingerbread person sent home with her from school for her and her family to decorate and bring back to school where they will be hung in the hallway outside their classroom. She had lots of fun getting her gingerbread girl all prettied up! Wednesday night before Thanksgiving we all, along with mom and dad went to Disney on Ice. It was fun and we all enjoyed the show!

S & P enjoying their flavored ice in their new cups.

The large inflatable Ursula (from The Little Mermaid).

A pirate scene from Peter Pan.

Poor little Porter was SO tired by the end of the show. When we got home (he fell asleep on the way) we had to stand him up to get his coat off, the little guy could hardly even stand, he was so exhausted!

Thanksgiving day, Mike carving the turkey.

Kids table with their turkey cake!

Yesterday we got decorated for Christmas. We bought a new prelit tree this year and rearranged our furniture upstairs to put the tree in front of the window. Here is the tree and our new layout.

Stanley, our Elf, made his appearance this morning. Bringing along a Scooby Doo holiday movie and a note from Santa to remind the kids to be GOOD, no FIGHTING, and to GIVE this holiday season.

We put our old tree up downstairs in the playroom. The kids decorated this all on their own and had a lot of fun!

Our stockings.

You all know what a bargain hunter I am! I got these stockings last year, way after Christmas, from Lands End, they were under $6 a piece with free personalization and free shipping! I couldn't pass that deal up!

Past Few Weeks

Mike and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on November 4th and we traveled to the Riveria Maya in Mexico and stayed at the El Dorado resorts for 5 nights. It was wonderful, although we did miss the kids!! They stayed home with my mom and dad and had a blast with them!
I really didn't take hardly any photos while we were there, but here are a handful of them.

Our beach Looking out from the hotel lobby.

If you stayed on the ground level you had "swim up" rooms. This was something I'd never seen or heard of and it was so neat! You could actually swim from one of the large pools right to your room, there were pools throughout the grounds almost like sidewalks that you could use to get to a pool! Here is a shot from our balcony to looking down at them. The lounge chairs you see are right outside someones patio doors.

Yours truly........

Mike lounging.....

On our actual anniversary! Getting ready for some chow.

Mike at one of the resorts bars.

First night there, out to dinner at one of the resort restaurants.

Now back to reality!!!!!!!

Mike's back has been hurting him some this week so he got out the massager we have (we actually got it as a wedding gift 10 years ago!). The kids think it is hysterical to play with. Here is Stella rubbing it on her belly!

My least favorite holiday activity is carving pumpkins...... well, Mike's is putting up Christmas lights! Before I snapped this photo today, he was flipping me the bird!!!!!! Not very Christmas-like, Mikey!!! Luckily, he was still in the holiday spirit after his chore was done!! :)

Stella playing basketball in the garage today..... look at that form!

Swish!!!!!!

Watching a movie this afternoon.