A Visit to Santa

Christmas season isnt complete without a visit to see our favorite Santa! We love Bass Pro and the fun, free stuff they have to offer!

We usually try to go on a week night right after the kids get up from nap so that its not so busy. We do dinner in the food court and just let the kids enjoy the mall (we dont go often so they love it!)

The kids love the shooting range and liked having Daddy help them hit targets!

Lainey loved walking around and checking out the sights and lights!

The kids love the carousel, even if they dont love having their picture made on it!

And of course the fish tank is always a favorite. Whats funny this year is that since the kids have really gotten into the show "Wild Kratts", they know what a bunch of the fish are. So Rhyan was saying "look at that big Gar, Mommy" and Mack was joining in on naming the fish! The things they learn amaze me!

After our Santa visit and taking in all that Bass Pro had to offer, we headed out to the food court for dinner and then for a special treat... to ride the train!!! My kids love the train so it was a blast for them. And the nice man driving it actually rode us the ENTIRE way around the mall vs the smaller path they have laid out! SCORE!

Finally... our 2015 picture.

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve morning, we had a yummy breakfast as a family and then I did something crazy... CRAZY.

I went to Target. AHHHHHHHHHHH! Mack had started about 2 weeks before Christmas saying that he wanted an electric or remote controlled dinosaur. Well, I thought we could distract him... i told him since he forgot to tell Santa that he probably wouldnt get it but he kept talking about it. Then... the saddest thing happened. On our family Christmas evening he went around telling people that he forgot to tell Santa he wanted a remote controlled dinosaur and would they pleeeeeease buy him one.

It really, really bugged me :-(. So I talked to Jeff about it and he said if I wanted to go get him one, fine.

So Rhyan joined me and we headed out into the madness! HA!

When we got home, we did our family gift exchange! Just our gifts to the kids and theirs to us.

Rhyan was SUPER excited to get an Ariel set of Lego's that she had asked for!

And Mack was stoked about his tinker toys! He LOVES those things and plays with them daily!

Lainey loved the fridge phonics but admittedly mostly makes a mess with the letters for now! HA!

After the kids were done opening their gifts, we let Mack open his extra gift. I told Rhyan that I knew he was getting an extra gift but that it was special because he was so sick at Christmas (you can tell in this pic how red his cheeks were from his fever!)

After we opened gifts, we made and decorated cookies for Santa!

Who can make cookies without getting to taste them, right?! Gotta made sure they turned out yummy!

That evening we invited Mama over for Christmas eve. We ordered pizza hut pizza and opened gifts to and from one another. It as a ton of fun and really nice to have some time with just Mama!

These sets of "puzzles" were so cute and the kids love them! But they still need help getting them set up which is a little annoying! But Jeff is great about helping them and they are a  lot of fun!

Mama had bought Lainey this new doll and when I told her that she already had a doll she almost returned it... but I told her I'm sure she'd still love it bc she LOVES baby dolls... and boy was I right! She opened it and immediately started saying "Baby! Baby!" and giving it kisses and saying "Oh Wee!". SO CUTE!!!

Jeff got a new robe!

We gave my mom some new slippers, some pics of the kids, and a couple of new sweaters!

We really just enjoyed our chill evening together. The pizza was a fun new tradition that I think we will keep! On such a busy day, it was nice to have something easy for dinner that no one complained about!