Holiday Happenings 2013

I don't know about you all, but this year I have felt more rushed than ever trying to fit in all our holiday fun.  Maybe it's because Thanksgiving was so late.  Or maybe it's because we devoted the first week or so of December exclusively to Hanukkah.  It's probably both...and my neurotic insistence that we absolutely do anything and everything holiday!  Well, with only a couple days remaining, I am happy to report that we've pretty much tackled our holiday to-do list (especially if you consider the few things we have planned for the next couple of days.
It's been fun...and exhausting.  So without further ado, how about a massive photo dump?!?
First stop on our holiday extravaganza was the Coleman's Nursery holiday display.  The nursery itself burned down awhile back, but they now display the legendary holiday trains, figures, etc, so we went to check them out.  The boys liked the whole scavenger hunt thing!

We went to some holiday show.  The highlight there was Colton getting his face painted like Spiderman.

We "wrote" letters to Santa.

And, of course, we got our tree.

...And decorated it.

We visited the holiday train show we go to each year.  Levi's a big choo choo man these days, so this was a big hit for him!

Speaking of trains, we also did a Polar Express night at the Botanical Gardens.  Basically, they served hot chocolate and cookies and read the kids The Polar Express.  Afterwards, we got to board the train to drive through the garden of lights, probably the best display in our area.  Besides the fact that it was just about the coldest night possible, it was a lot of fun!

We also made gingerbread houses.  Colton has a crazy memory for things and remembered exactly how this whole process worked from last year.  Levi, meanwhile, thought it was just about the greatest project we have ever done.  Icing and candy...how does it get any better?!?  He didn't even care that his house collapsed once he was done decorating it!

And, of course, there has been all our fun with Buddy (our elf) over the past month or so.  Candy cane hunts, "snowball" (cotton ball) fights, sugar cone Christmas trees, and more.

Despite sickness and a limited time frame, I think we've done pretty darn good...and had a blast doing it!  I love this time of year, and love that my boys are fast developing the same fondness for it.