Tangled at the Museum

If there's one thing I love most about this time of year, it's not only Christmas, but Christmas break. Ahh, 2 glorious weeks off of work. It's been fun spending more time with my kids and doing fun things adn going fun places. Apparently though, lots of other people have the same idea. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry and it was crowded! Like way crowded! It got to the point that I just wanted to start running people over with my stroller. I know I have a double-wide stroller but c'mon people...watch where you are walking and if you see the double-wide coming, could you move over like a couple of inches or hold a door?

Anyways, despite the crowded museum, we still had fun.

Every year they have all these Christmas trees set up from around the world. It's really pretty.

And they have a big tree in the rotunda.

We went and saw the farm exhibit and the kids had fun sitting in the big wheel. And petting the cow.
And driving the big tractor.Then we went and saw the circus. We had fun looking at the model circus and making funny faces in those silly mirrors. We had fun clowning around. My animal-lover Gracie, liked the elephant best of all. Or maybe it was the tigers. We had fun looking at all the trains too. Evie and Presley had fun despite being stuck in the stroller. We would let Evie get out and wander around but you you had to be quick because that's exactly what she is. One turn away and that baby girl is gone! We went and saw the baby chicks too. One little chick came right over to Gracie to say hello. The kids snacked as we walked around. Evie could not get enough goldfish. In fact, she was trying to take her big sister's. One of the new exhibits they have is Muppets. Although we didn't go, because you had to buy extra tickets, they had cute posters hanging up promoting it like this one. Grandpa had fun with carrying Presley boy around and showing him all this new stuff! Thankfully my family came with to help. I can't go many places with these 3 by myself. I wanted to check out the weather storms exhibit. It was really neat as they simulated all kinds of weather including this tornado. And Gracie couldn't stop staring at the "Polar Express" train. This may have been her favorite part. Or it could have been pretending to be the conductor and engineer. After naps later, we took Gracie to see Tangled. It was such a cute movie and she didn really well sitting throught the whole thing. For her second time to the movies, she had fun munching on Teddy Grahams and M&M's. A fabulous day of family fun!

Dilly Dally at the Doc's

I decided to call the pediatration today because Presley has had a runny nose and a cough and then yesterday little Evie got a runny nose too. We got in and thankfully no one had any temp but the babies needed to strip down and get a weight check anyways. Presley weighed in at 23 pounds 12 ounces and Evie was 18 pounds 5 ounces. Both babies ended up only having some sort of virus going around and needed no antibiodic. So what do you think? Do you think these look like 2 little sick kiddos to you?

Zoo Lights!

Last night we journeyed to Brookfield Zoo for the Zoo Lights!

It was cold but the lights were very pretty. They really go all out.

They had all kinds of special hoilday activities like this train. The merry-go-round was open too. It's different to see everyone riding it all bundled up and usually when we go to the zoo, it's nice and everyone is dressed for hot weather. Oh well, Gracie still had fun despite being in her snow suit. She rode her favorite, the panda bear. Here's the gang all bundled up. It's a good thing the zoo was selling hot toddies! On our way to see the bears, we stopped to play in the sleigh.

The real polar bears were actually sleeping in the snow. The brown bears were inside a cozy hay-filled area sleeping. And then the usual photo spot, was all wintry with winter animals. Gracie had fun posing as a polar bear, a wolf, her favorite as of last night. I think it's due parital to the Polar Express movie but we did see the wolves out and about and even bought a mini one. She also pretended to be a bear. Then after seeing some animals, we went back to the merry-go-round to ride.....the new favorite animal of the day, the wolf! If you can brave the cold temps, the zoo really is neat to see with the lights. I think it goes on through this week. You can't see all the animals you normally would during the summer, but it is still a great family fun outing.

Merry Christmas!

We had great Christmas!

For starters, Santa was VERY good to us.

He stuffed our stockings full of goodies!

And left lots of good things under the tree.

He left Gracie some workbooks, dolls, Jessie and Bullseye legos, and a merry-go-round.

Presley got a Little People airport, a band set, and a toolbox. Both Evie and Presley got a mega-blocks play table. And Evie got a Little People dollhouse, a Little People minivan, a keyboard, and a flowerpot.

Gracie checked out what was left of the cookies and milk we left out for Santa.
Evie and Presley dove right in and started playing with thier new block table.
Gracie got a new Jasmine doll that she had asked Santa for.

Evie got a new keyboard.

Gracie also got a bag full of books to practice writing and reading and playing school. She even got a pointer so she can pretend to be a teacher!

And my little rockstar, Presley, got a drum set filled with all kinds of instruments.

The past few weeks Gracie has been talking about getting a merry-go-round so.....

Santa left this musical one for her. She loves it!

This year was so much fun. Evie and Presley were walking or crawling (Presley) around and playing with all their new toys. Last year they were such little babies, all they could do was lay there.

We checked out what Santa left in our stockings. Gracie got some Princess cards, socks, mittens, some panda slippers, and stickers.

Evie got some hairbows, play food, dishes, books and some new sippy cups.

Presley got goodies in his stocking too. He got some cars, socks, books, and balls in his.

Even Millie and Hazel got some fun toys and kitty treats in their stockings. They have been good kitties too!

Gracie lined up some of her dolls so that they could watch the merry-go-round too.

Then everyone helped Mommy and Daddy see what was in their stockings.

Then it was time to dig into all the presents. Evie loved this part. She didn't even care what the present was, she wanted to rip off the paper.

Gracie had fun passing out the presents. She can read her own name and is learning to read the rest of ours.

Presley and Evie got a basketball game!

So of course we stopped to open it so everyone could play.

After a short game, it was back to the presents.

Presley would not put down his drumsticks. Our little drummer boy.

Gracie got some new panda jammies.

Evie had fun helping Gracie open up her art set.

Evie is modeling some of her new hairbows.

Daddy got an Elvis Mr. Potato Head.

Presley had fun opening all his new cars and trucks.

Evie got some new books too. She had to read them right away!

Presley and Daddy got matching Elvis shirts too!

And then Gracie got a box of dress-up clothes. First there was Wolverine.

But then she saw some Princess dresses and it was good-by Wolverine, hello Snow White. (Sorry Daddy)

We played a little longer before heading over to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Well, when we got there, Santa had been there too!

And Auntie Amy had given Evie this cute little Princess Sweet Shop. Even though Snow White thinks it's hers.....

Santa was WAY too generous this year!

Grandma and Auntie Amy got busy making some yummy waffles in Grandma's new waffle maker. We had chocolate peppermint waffles and banana chocolate chip. Yummy!

Of course, Presley had to bring his drumsticks over to Grandma's. It was fun putting his coat and getting in his car seat with him not letting go of these.

Grandpa had fun playing with Evie.

And after a quick meltdown, Gracie was ready for stockings at Grandma's.

Evie was ready too. After some quick naps, we were off for Christmas, Round 2!

Santa has so much stuff that he left everyone a reuseable shopping bag to store the stuff that wouldn't fit in the stockings!

Presley finally had his stocking done this year (it was not done in time last year)

Gracie got lots of play animals in her stocking.

And Evie didn't want to sit still long enough to even take a picture with her stocking.

We got even more goodies!

And then Gracie wanted to do the scratch-off tickets that Mommy and Daddy got in their stockings. And wouldn't you know, she won $10!

Time for more presents!

Santa left Gracie this magnetic dress-up ballerina since she is starting dance in a couple of weeks.

Santa left Presley and Little People policecar and fire engine.

And Evie got a baby Cinderella and baby crib.

He also left Gracie some legos. This one is up her alley because now she can build her very own zoo!

Presley couldn't stop playing with his new cars that he didn't care about anything else.

Evie got some new playfood of her own. She got some cupcakes and pizza.

Auntie Amy gave Gracie this Little People town set too.

And Gracie gave Auntie Amy a new Shop-Vac and pillows!

Gracie has been very busy making lots of crafts this Christmas. She had a lot of fun (because she got to glue) and made this train for Grandpa.

And we gave Grandma and Grandpa some fun gifts too. Like this picture frame.

And I made these for my mom. She is a little behind with printing out pictures of the kids so I helped her out by making a scrapbook page layout for each of the kids.

But the best gift of all is this book. It is filled with pictures of Gracie, Presley, Evie, and Grandma and Grandpa. It is told from the kids point of view and talks about all the fun things they do with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma LOVED it!

Then it was time for some entertainment and Evie sat down at the piano and played us some Christmas tunes.

And Bing was there to sing for us some more too!

And before taking a nice long nap, we used up the last of our energy playing in the pile of wrapping paper.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We sure did. Thanks everyone for all the fabulous and wonderful gifts. This has been the Christmas yet! Lots of memories and traditions that will be carried on next year. Only 364 more days til Christmas again!