Santa!!!

***I wrote this last weekend and forgot to post***

Our weeks have been very Christmas-filled. This year it has been extra special with Meli getting involved in all of the excitement. Before she would kind of get excited, but without really understanding any of it.

 

Our non-Christmas activity was having company over to watch the Oregon vs. Arizona. Whoa! What a game. Ducks KILLED the Wildcats! I enjoy cheering for the Ducks, but I am not a crazy fan or anything. I usually root for the Beavers in the civil war game. I do enjoy supporting an Oregon team when it involves championships and such. So very exciting!

Visiting with Santa

The next morning, we headed to the local firehouse for their pancake breakfast with Santa. The kids were ecstatic! Colin had sat on Santa's lap at his school a few days earlier. So, Meli really wanted to do it too. Colin asked for the Skylander Trap Team gaming system and Meli asked for a purple present. That is all she wants! She was very excited to show her pigtails to Santa. Once she was done, she took them out and wanted to go back and show Santa her hair down.

I asked her to elaborate on her "purple present". She literally wants a purple wrapped present with a purple bow on it. (We think Santa will fill it with random purple items.)  Just adorable.

By the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony

We have really lucked out in the little town we chose to be our home. There are times when we may get frustrated that there are not a lot of the stores we were used to in Virginia. We have come to realize that we were spoiled, but I prefer the smallness. We have everything we really need here and for everything else we can go into the big city. Plus, I love buying local rather then chain stores. So I am OK supporting the local hardware store rather then Lowes. Our town is very much about the community. People are genuinely nice. They also get very into the holidays. We went downtown for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The kids saw Santa again! Colin is convinced that he is the real one, because we saw the same one three times. I explained that Santa cannot do all of the Santa appearances so he has nice guys help him out.

The town also had a block party where they served hot cocoa and soup. There was also caroling and hay rides!

Daddy baby

More houses seem to have Christmas lights then not. Meli freaks whenever she sees lights. We even saw a tree that had the ball of lights all over it. It was crazy!!!

Silly faces

Will and I enjoyed some Gluhwein. I think next year we are making our own. 

Gluhwein

we also made shortbread cookies as a family. Pretty good for our first time. 

Shortbread

We have done so much more this last week...so more later!