Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

It's hard to believe we only have 1 weekend left until Christmas.  I'm pretty sure most people will agree with me when I say I can't believe how fast this year has flown by!  (Isn't that the case every year?)  

Even though it was 65 degrees last weekend & didn't feel like Christmas was around the corner (which I definitely wasn't complaining about!), we did plenty of activities to get into the holiday spirit.  On Friday evening, we went to our church's Children's Christmas Festival which my dad helps run.  Lucy had a great time running around, playing all the games, making crafts, and decorating (and eating) cookies.  Santa was there too but we actually skipped seeing him because we had Breakfast with Santa the next morning at Todd's work and since we weren't sure how Lucy would react this year, we didn't want to ruin the breakfast the next morning in case she freaked out seeing him on Friday night.

Playing the wreath toss

Painting daddy's face (yes, one of activities encouraged the kid's to paint their parents' faces, I let Todd handle this one)

Trying to win a cookie at the cookie walk

Lucy won!

Making ornaments

Showing off her beautiful ornaments

Decorating  a cookie

Can't forget the sprinkles!

Pretty sure she was on a constant sugar high the entire weekend

On Saturday, we drove out to Honda R&D for Breakfast with Santa.  This was the 3rd year we've gone and the best year yet since there were no tears when sitting on Santa's lap and she could actually play some of the games and do the crafts.  We were so proud of how well she did with Santa and even told him she wanted Jake the Pirate legos.  When they announced Santa was leaving, she ran over, gave him a big hug, and shouted, "Bye, Santa!!" Lucy is definitely not shy!

Talking to Santa

Smiles this year

Family photo

Decorating more cookies

Giving Santa his hug before he left

Last year vs. this year (and I'm so impressed it was the same Santa too!)

My aunt & uncle were in town on Saturday and staying with my parents so we all went out to dinner at Local Roots (luckily, we were going the opposite direction of the insane traffic for the zoo lights) and then everyone came over to our house afterwards to hang out, FaceTime my brother & sister-in-law who just had a baby last week, and eat dessert.

My uncle snapped some really cute pics of Lucy

Driving around in her car (and by driving I mean Grandpa pushing her around)

Playing with pinecones

FaceTiming and "meeting" our sweet nephew, William Hugh

Eating dessert (UK had a basketball game earlier that day hence all the blue outfits)

Sunday morning was spent grocery shopping and making Cream Cheese Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel for our annual book club Christmas party.  We did things a little differently this year and everyone made brunch foods since we were having the party at 11:30 AM.  It was a huge hit and I definitely ate my fair share of yummy food.  Also part of our party is our favorite thing gift exchange where we purchase our favorite thing(s) ($5 limit) for everyone and in return, you get everyone's favorite thing.  There are 10 of us in book club so I went home with 9 gifts and it was probably our best year in terms of gifts!  Lots of fun, cute, creative gifts.  

One of the girls outdid herself with her wrapping for everyone's present

We ended up with chocolates, 2 mugs (one was our horoscope sign and one was our initial), macaroons from Pistacia Vera, a candle, a face mask, adult coloring book & colored pencils, nail polish, nail files, & tea, and a wallflower from Bath & Body Works (not pictured is what I brought which were a package of paper straws and my favorite foam soap from Bath & Body Works in Vanilla Bean Noel)

While I was at my party, Todd had taken Lucy to one of our friends' daughter's birthday lunch.  From what I heard and the pictures I saw, it seems like they both had fun there.  

Sunday evening ended a bit early as I had to be up at 3:00 AM on Monday morning for work but I'm already looking forward to this coming weekend which should hopefully be a bit more low key (but will involve decorating more cookies!).