Elliott's First Real Plays

Elliott got to experience his first real life plays this past year.  The first one we took him to was Scrooge the Musical at Champion Center with some good friends of ours from Church.  We were warned that there were some loud noises and s couple of little scary parts.  Elliott was loving it until it got to the part of Bob Marley, Scrooge's former partner and he was a little scary, or super scary as Elliott would say.  He looked like a Zombie and that just about did Elliott in.  He made us snuggle him and close his ears and eyes and then he started crying loudly and yelling "Get Me Out of Here!"  We were able to convince him to stay but it took a lot of convincing:)  After the play was over we were heading out and they said the cast would be in the lobby greeting people, Elliott scoped out where the Zombie was and went WAY out of his way to go around him and not see him.  The next weekend we were suppose to go see Elf at the 5th Ave with all of Wes' family but they all came down with the crud so we went with my brother, sister in law and our Niece and a dear friend of mine and her 2 kiddo's.  They all loved it and had a blast.  We also ran into another set of dear friends and their daughter.  Here are a few pictures of the special day.

 Elliott & Gigi holding hands after the show.  We joke that this is their 2 real date:)

 Elliott and his other real good girl friend

 The 2 big cousins

 3 out of 4 of the kiddo's that got to attend.  It was so fun

Zoo Lights

Every year Wes takes the week in between Christmas and New Years off from work so we can spend time together as a family and we can watch the kids play with their toys.  This year we decided to pack up and go to Zoo Lights after Christmas thinking that it would be less crowded, we were wrong.  The weather was questionable if it was going to rain but we made it through without rain and the kids had a blast.  We bought them light up wands and of course Edith picked a sparkly pink butterfly that was pretty cute and Elliott picked one that to this day has been loosing the light up things.  It was a fun family evening just the 4 of us.  Great memories!

Edith's Light Up butterfly

Elliott's Light Up wand.  It is much cooler in the dark!

Daddy and his girl

Our visit to Santa

This has to be one of the most fun trips to see Santa that we have experienced.  On our way to see Santa we were talking with Edith about him and she said to us, "I going to stand by him!"  Well, we are here to tell you that once she has made up her mind on something she is sticking to it.  When we got there Santa tried his hardest to get her to sit on his lap but you can probably guess what happened. 
 

Delivering the letters to Santa.

This is the closest she would get.  Told you she was STRONG WILLED!

They thought that Rudolph would help.

Leavenworth 2012

So I made a deal with myself that I was going to try and be better about posting on our blog for those of you that actually care and may look at it every once in awhile.  Well this past December we made our annual trip to Leavenworth.  We we trying to think how long we had been going and we came up with we have been going since I was 5 and missed 3 years in there and I am now 34 so that is 26years if my math is right.  That is a long time but a tradition that we are keeping alive with our kids.  Elliott looks forward to this trip every year now and that means so much to me.  This is the first year that Edith really remembers it and they are still to this day talking about it.  We get the share the fun weekend with my parents, my brother and his family and now dear friends from our church that went for the first time last year and were hooked.  This year there was no snow but it was cold.  It was still super fun.  Here are a few pictures to capture this year.  Looking forward to next year already!

One of the beautiful trees on the hillside.

My brother and his little man

My dear friend who just happens to be our pastors wife as well.  We went to high school together and reconnected a few years ago.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.  That is our baby girl who is not so little and my hubby and our pastor who "photo bombed" the picture as his kids would say.

The best family picture we could get when dealing with a 5 year old in a mood and a 2 1/2 year old girl:)

Tried to get both kids to take a picture with Santa and Mrs clause but Edith would have no part of it.  Elliott was super sweet though, because they gave him a candy cane and he asked for one for his sister.  He can be sweet to her!