Christmas at the mall

One of the local malls does a Christmas celebration each year. They put up lots of fancy lights, have Santa visit, make fake snow, and give carriage rides. So when we found something that exciting (and free) we decided we should take Grandma, Grandpa, and Melanie to join in on the fun.

 Grandma and Allie dancing to the Christmas tunes (truely Rockin' around the Christmas tree).

  

Rach and Hadley enjoying the lights.

Left: Grandma and Hadley watching the "snow" fall in the play area (it was really just little bubbles, but that is as close as we get in Arizona).

Right: Mel and Allie posing for a glamor shot in front of the musical light display.

 We decided to enjoy the carriage ride as a family. We even trusted Allie to help drive the wagon (How brave, she could of killed us!). 

All aboard! Destination Christmas fun!

Caroling

 This year Rach got a part time job working as a Christmas caroler (Achieved childhood goal #4: become a paid ROCKSTAR)! We never got to go listen to her group since they did all private parties, but we did get to see the awesome threads she got to wear.

This is Rachel in her cool outfit. Very Charles Dickens looking. Allie decided she wanted to try it all on too. She just looks super cute.

Allie also wanted to play dress up with Aunt Mel's winter clothes. Grandpa was happy to play along.

'Twas the 8th of December

'Twas the 8th of December and all through the house, 

little girls were stirring and running about.

 The decorations were hung and the tree was decked out,

We were all going crazy just milling about.

When what to our searching eyes did appear,

but a festival proclaiming Christmas was near!

Quickly we gathered the things that we needed,

and drove to the place of which we had readed. 

(sorry, a little trouble with the rhyme there)

The stores were all filled with wonderful stuff,

and for the show, we did wait on our duff.

As the sun was going down after noon,

We watched as they filled the giant balloon!

This was the balloon festival at the mall here in Gilbert. 

Apparently they have a big party each year in preparation for Christmas. They have Christmas lights, snow (it was really just little bubbles), Santa visits, and carriage rides.

  

 Here we are on the carriage ride. The girls were super excited to ride behind the horse, and wanted to get a picture with it after the ride.

 However, the star of the ball was the balloons. They had about 20 different hot air balloons inflated in a small parking lot area. Then they all used their flames to light up the sky. It was pretty cool to see balloon light up the night!
       

There were balloons of all types and varieties. 

Some of our favorites were the butterfly, the bumble bee (not pictured), and the smiley face.

We hope everyone had a grand time joining us on our family adventure. 

Special thanks to Google, for helping us find tonight's entertainment. 

We hope you will all join us again soon.

A Few of our Favorite Things

My mom asked for some pictures of our girls with some of their favorite things, and I thought it would be a good idea to put them on here so we can remember what was important to them when they were 3 and 18 months old.

 Allie loves her bike and riding around our neighborhood which she does quite quickly for such little wheels.  Although most of the time, we make frequent stops to play with some rocks, pick a flower, or play on a stoop.  She is definitely one who stops and smells the roses daily.

Hadley's favorites are her blankie and minnie.  I took this picture right when she woke up from her nap and it show exactly how she gets out of bed - with minnie and blankie in hand.  She is usually slow to wake up and needs a little snuggle time before she is ready to go out and play.  If she is ever sad or hurt, she cries for her blankie right after mommy.  She calls Minnie "Mimmie" and has recently become more attached to her as well.  So cute!

Visiting Santa

As per tradition, we made our way to Bass Pro Shop to go through the North Pole and Visit Santa this year.  Both girls were so excited to go and upon entering the building, saw a free... FREE...elk/reindeer/moose carrousel.  We promptly rode it and then went and stood in line to go sit on Santa's lap.  It turned out that they have cards that you pick up with time slots for you to come back and not have to wait in such a long line.  It worked perfectly, waited about a hour before seeing Santa and there were no tears and lots of giddy little girls. 

Later that night, we had our ward Christmas pajama party where they served breakfast for dinner, had little activities for the kids and had Johnny Western of the early western shows era.  He wrote a lot of the theme songs and other songs and had lots of great stories of Gene Autrey and others. 

Enter in Santa visit #2... of the day.  Allie made sure she got her point across about wanting a bike and Hadley just like Santa's beard and taking her picture.

It was a great start to the Christmas Season.