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! 

I have some Christmas ribbon to make a bow but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Christmas Festivities: Week One

Christmas is already so much more fun to me with a kid. Lillian doesn't really understand it yet, I don't think, but she is old enough to enjoy the festivities. I decided to try and do something special each day from December 1st through the 25th. I pulled some ideas from pinterest, family traditions, and events going on around our town. Let me just put it out there Huntsville knows how to celebrate Christmas. There are so many light displays, charity events, and Santa meetings going on in this town. And a lot of them are free or super cheap! Some festivities are little more exciting than others but 25 days is a lot to do something extravagant each day. I ended up with way more pictures than I thought so I broke it down into weeks. Here is what we did:

Day 1: Decorate Lillian's Tree

We put our family tree before thanksgiving but made Lillian's tree be the first event for December. Its a small (Charlie brown tree as we call it my mom super cheap after Christmas from Hobby Lobby one year. It has just a few small silver ornaments and then we will add her ornaments as we get them each year. She currently only has two we received last year; first shoes and an angel baby first Christmas ornament. She actually wanted to help put the ornaments on and then loved when we turned the lights on. I didn't have anything for the tree topper yet to Kevin put one of Lillian's large hair bows and I actually really like the idea. He is so smart!

It's just her size!

can you tell by my face I was a little worried she would drop the ornament and shatter across our wood floors...

Day 2: Watch a Christmas Movie.
To be honest I forgot to do something this day. Things were a little hectic but Mommy did watch a Christmas movie and Lillian paid attention every now and then. lol

Day 3: Santa

The Little Gym and a local mommy blog sponsored Smile and Say Santa. It was a FREE opportunity to get your photo taken with Santa. It was low stress and while you waited your turn to sit in his lap you got to play around the gym. I took Lillian just to see how she would do with Santa. My expectations were correct and she did not care for him, I finally got her to stand next to him long enough to capture one photo where there were no tears; no smile, but no tears. We planned to take her all dressed up to see Santa again for our Christmas card picture so I was hoping that would help her maybe warm up to him. I was very pleased with our experience. Not only did I get a quick picture but free play at the gym helped release some energy. We were number 14 in line and they were already on number 12 when we arrived. Super quick and they allowed you as long as you needed to capture your photo.

eyeballing Santa from afar

So glad Santa thought of this. Made for a funny picture at least.

Day 4: Tinsel Trail

Tinsel Trail is a FREE display of Christmas trees in the park in downtown Huntsville. The trees are each sponsored by local companies, organizations, and families. Lillian really loved seeing all the trees and the dogs. Apparently we went on one of the two nights they have where you can also bring your dog to walk around. I am not a dog person but every two seconds if Lillian wasn't screaming at the lights on a tree she was screaming "hup" "hup" (puppy) as a dog walked by. It was super cute.

Day 5: Bake something sweet
Technically we didn't bake anything. Does using the microwave count? We made puppy chow (aka crack to us because it is so addicting)! Luckily Daddy got home early from work and was able to help. It was much more than Mommy could have handled by herself. Lillian is quick to get sweets.

helping stir

BUSTED! so funny that Kevin got my finger in the picture

hard work deserves a reward. I think its safe to say she enjoyed it. 

so upset when Mommy took it away. I felt like I crushed her dreams.

Day 6: Christmas craft with Daddy

Kevin took Lillian to our local Home Depot for their FREE kids workshop. Kevin needed to pick up some supplies there anyways and this made for a cute little outing for them. They made Christmas yard stakes. 

Day 7: Christmas Special

We watched the I Love Lucy Christmas Special on TV.

Decorating the Tree

Lillian and I had gone to Nashville the weekend of Nov. 20th to see my newest niece Aubrey. When we got back Sunday night Kevin had already set up our Christmas tree. I was so excited for one reason because it meant I didn't have to fluff the branches but mainly to start decorating for Christmas! That next night we decided to decorate the tree. Unfortunately we couldn't find any of our lights so after a quick run to Target we were ready to go. I was excited we had to buy new lights because I had seen an idea on pinterest about putting two different sizes of lights on the tree to really make them pop. It turned out great and Lillian did a great job helping put the ornaments on and hasn't tried to take any off. She loves it when we turn the lights on.

Trying to eat the gingerbread house ornament.

I like a "pretty" tree and Kevin likes the traditional family tree so we made it into both. We have silver ornaments and snowflakes and white lights. Then we put on all of Kevin's ornaments his Gammy and Pappy gave him every year growing up. These are just a few.

 I had ornaments growing up to but not sure where they are now but my mom did find these two in her decoration tubs this year so I added them to our tree.

PRICELESS! right?

The last two pictures aren't as good as they are from my phone and was before we out the ornaments on but can you see house the bigger bulbs pop! It looks awesome in person with all the decorations and lights on.