Christmas Parties

We've been having Christmas parties galore this week.  They both had a dance party, Kayla had a school and Sparks party, and Macy had a choir and Cubbies party. Phew! We finished school yesterday, so other than some fun crafts and baking we are done with school for the year.

 I helped out at Kayla's class party. We decorated some ornaments, enjoyed a snack, read a few books, and had a book exchange.  I didn't get too many pictures since I spent my time cleaning up after a class of 1st graders.

And here is Kayla all bundled up in her jacket despite the fact that they had just come inside from recess where it was 71 degrees outside.

Macy's choir had an open house.  We sang a few songs and played with rhythm sticks.

 

I know the girls have had fun at their parties, but I am ready for things to settle down so we can enjoy this time with our family before the holidays.  We have been on the go so much that I am ready for some relaxing time.  Of course my house is a disaster and I still have shopping to do, but hopefully we can get that taken care of this week so that next week we can take it easy.

Catching Up

We've been pretty busy, as usual, but I haven't really taken many pictures recently.  I know that will change with all of the Christmas events coming up.  I thought I was really on the ball getting cards ordered and most of my shopping done before Thanksgiving, but Christmas is starting to sneak up on me!

Sweet Kayla made herself a list of things she needs to do. I thought it was too cute to not take a picture of and record.  It has also offered me the opportunity to remind her of things like not complaining about school work.  After all, she is the one that said she needs to get better with these things. :)

Macy came home from Timothy class as a giraffe.  A few weeks earlier she came home as a cheetah, but I forgot to take a picture of it.  

I'm usually up before the girls, but for some reason I turned off my alarm one morning.  I ended up sleeping in and coming downstairs to this cute sight.  Kayla had gotten Brooke out of her crib and they were all cuddled up watching a cartoon. 

This year we decided to make the drive to Lake Lanier to see their lights.  We usually stay more local, but decided to try something different.  The girls really enjoyed it, but if I had known about the mini carnival we wouldn't have stopped.  I know the girls had fun, but the prices are outrageous, especially after paying so much to get in a see the lights.  

Brooke loved the lights and oohed, ahhed, and wowed quite a bit.

Anytime horses are seen they must be ridden by my girls.  They LOVE riding horses. 

And thankfully they had a train for Brooke to ride.  She is at the age where she wants to do what her sisters do and not just stand around and watch.  She LOVES choo-choo trains so this was perfect for her. 

Things are getting busy around here as we begin building our house.  It's probably not the best time of year to begin the work, especially since Marc plans on doing as much as he can to help keep the cost down, but we are very excited to finally be moving forward. 

Gatlinburg Wrap-Up

 I'm never going to get through our vacation if I don't step it up and start posting! Rain was in the forecast for half of our trip, and while we did spend some of that time at the water park, we wanted to get out and see something new.  We found a rainforest habitat that was indoors, so we loaded up and headed out.  We had the place mostly to ourselves.  A school group came in a little after our arrival, but they had a program to sit through which allowed us to tour at our leisure.

This guy would not put his tongue back in his mouth.  We enjoyed laughing at him. 

We brought a pack 'n play for Brooke, but I knew she wouldn't sleep in it if she saw all of us beds in the same room.  So we decided that Kayla would share a bed with me since she moves the least and Brooke could sleep in the middle.  The first night she of course screamed about being in the pack 'n play, so I brought her to my bed. She thought it was play time at first, but after putting her back in the pack 'n play two times she got the picture and went right to sleep.  She did really well.  After the rainforest adventure Marc took the older girls to the water park and I stayed in with Brooke for her nap.  It took quite a while to get her to sleep since it wasn't dark and everyone else was gone, but she finally went to sleep for a couple of hours.  I laid next to her and read a book.  That was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

The weather cleared up the next day, but it was cold.  I didn't pack warm enough so we found an Old Navy on the way and bought a few fleece jackets.  We enjoyed a pancake breakfast and headed to downtown Gatlinburg.  Of course we started our adventure at a candy shop.  Can't pass up those caramel apples! After walking around a bit we headed to a mirror maze.  I was expecting it to be a little more fancy, but it was still tough.  Every once in a while I'd see what I thought was one of the girls only to have them pop out from somewhere else.  Thankfully it wasn't crowded and we didn't lose any children!

We rode the tram up to Ober Gatlinburg.  In all my years of going to Gatlinburg I have never been to Ober Gatliburg.  The line for the tram was longer than we expected, but the girls had a great time.  We enjoyed a pizza lunch while watching the ice skaters, and wandered outside for a bit before we got too cold.

 The colors were absolutely fantastic.

Brooke fell asleep in the car.  When she is tired she puts her hands on her face.  If she has a blanket she will cover her face when she falls asleep.  Makes me smile.

On our way back home we made a stop at the Deer Farm and Exotic Animal Petting Zoo.  Kayla complains about the name being so long, but every time she talks about it she says the entire name.  

The girls enjoyed feeding the animals but they wanted nothing to do with walking in the pens.

I can't really blame them.  I mean look at those hungry animals!

 Marc was brave enough to enter the deer pen.

This guy was intimidating and pretty nasty.  Marc fed him a few years ago, but he decided that once in his life was enough.

 This guanaco was so gentle.  The kids enjoyed feeding it and we even let Brooke give it a try.

She thought it was funny and giggled when she saw her empty hand.

I think the highlight the of the day was holding the baby goat.  Marc went into the crazy goat pen and picked out a baby for them to hold.  He brought it into the area between the two entrances to the pen.  

We had a wonderful time on our vacation.  I love that they are older now and adventures aren't quite as much work as they used to be.  I'm looking forward to more traveling in the future.

Water park!!

The girls had an absolute blast at the water park. There was a play area for the older ones, a wave pool, and an area for younger children.  Our girls enjoyed it all. Well, except for the bucket that dumped water every 15 minutes or so.

 When Marc first tried to get her to go down the slide she said, "I don't want to go down the drain!" So funny, but after one ride down she was hooked.