Family Tree Consists of 3: Christmas Festivities: Week Two

Day 8: Galaxy of Lights

Huntsville Botanical Gardens does a Christmas lights display through November and December. They have weeks where you can walk and then the rest of the time it is drive through only. We opted for driving. Daddy came home from work and surprised us with a pass to get in. The cost is $20/vehicle. Not bad if you have a loaded up van of people but for just the 3 of us it was a little more expensive in my opinion although worth it because they have lots of lights and since it goes on so long there is not a huge rush of people driving through. If you go during the walking nights admission is $6/adult and $3/child (3+) so it would have been cheaper for us this year to walk but we got the hook up with a free pass from a dear friend so it didn't really cost us anything. Lillian LOVED the lights. Here is a video of the first minute of seeing the lights. Click here

we were only going about 10mph so she sat in the front with us.

Daddy let her drive

Had to get our picture in front of the Salon Allure's Angel for Paula! (different companies, organizations, and families sponsor each light display and this was one of our friend's Salon. Salon Allure near Parkway Place mall if any local friends need a stylist!)

Day 9: Ornament Craft
I found a craft idea on pinterest to make an ornament out of flour and salt and then imprint it with Lillian's hand. There were lots of recipes but I went with this one because I already had everything. The recipe calls for:
1/2 c. of flour
1/2 c. of salt
1/4 c. of water ( i would suggest adding more to make it like playdoh. Our ornament seemed too dry and cracked)
You will also need a rolling pin, baking sheet, and large bowl. Once all ingredients are mixed you roll it out to your preferred shape and bake on 400 degrees for 3 hrs. I read you can also just set it out to dry for 24 hrs at room temperature but we opted to bake.

Lillian loves to help bake!

I painted it white to help define the hand but ended up not being much better.

This recipe yielded enough for just two good size ornaments. I tried making 3 and the other two looked terrible so we threw them away, (sorry grandparents). We wrote Daddy a message on the back and gave it to him when he got home.

Day 10: Santa's Village

We went to Santa's Village mainly because I loved the Santa we saw last year and I wanted to get Lillian's picture with him for our Christmas card. Luckily it was the same Santa as I think different ones volunteer each night. As you can tell Lillian did not care to sit in Santa's lap. Which is to be expected of an almost two year old. Oh well maybe next year. Lillian has also been cutting her upper two canines this week so the cold weather and teething sleepy baby did not make for much magic. I really like Santa's Village. It is cute and if I am correct it is all run by volunteers but I don't think we will be heading back again. It is $5 per person, under 1 is free (per their website) I assumed 12-23 months was free too but when we went to buy tickets we were initially charged for 3 people. We told the lady Lillian is one and she kind of made an cynical face and only ended up charging us for 2 adults so I'm not sure if she didn't believe how old Lillian is or if they mean 12 months and under are free and we misunderstood. Either way Lillian still loved to see Santa (from afar) and the lights and the music but not much else interested her.

this was her watching me walk away

then she realized she was sitting in Santa's lap

distracted her for a second

but the bribery did not work

maybe with mommy...

Nope

so we went to decorate cookies instead

Day 11: Dinner with Chelsea

We have a family friend named Chelsea that is a flight attendant and she happened to have an overnight stay here in Huntsville so we made sure to meet up with her and go to dinner. She was one of Kevin's sister's friends and just has become part of the family and we enjoyed getting to visit with her and she is super awesome with kids. We took a few selfies at dinner.

Day 12: Day of the Dozen

We made sure to hit up Krispy Kreme's Day of the Dozen. It was buy a dozen get a dozen free! They were so yummy hot and fresh and then ate on them for the next 4 days for breakfast.

Day 13: Read A Christmas Book

We went to a friends house to play and they had lots of Christmas books that Lillian enjoyed reading through. The only Christmas book we have is The Night Before Christmas. So we read that before bedtime.

Day 14: Paint Rudolph

I bought this wood cut out from the Nashville Flea Market in November for only $6 and we finally got around to painting it. Kevin drew out the face I was envisioning and I painted it while Lillian just watched. Then Kevin went back and worked his magic to make it look perfect!