We had a fun, busy, (but not too busy), holiday season. We started it off on Thanksgiving weekend with a trip to downtown Minneapolis for the 8th floor Macy's Christmas display and the Holidazzle Parade.
This sure beats last year when we did this outing and Charlie had a big green cast (well, as big as an 18-month old's cast can be) on his broken leg.
We needed to fuel up with some hot chocolate before the parade...
I wish I could have truly captured the wonder in the kids' eyes during the parade - it was one of my top moments of the whole holiday season.
We tried to do one fun Christmas-y activity each weekend, leading up to our trip to Eau Claire for the big day(s). As always, we spent Christmas Eve with the Reiters and Christmas Day with the Walkers. We got some great video footage of the kids opening their presents Christmas Eve, but I'm afraid it would take me hours to get it uploaded here! Here are a few of my favorite photos, though:
Charlie and Great Grandma Lois
Ava and Great Grandma Twila - wish I had remembered to take a picture of the kids with Great Grandma Reiter - they are some lucky kids to have three wonderful great grandmas! (They love their Great Grandpa Bud, too!)
Santa made a surprise visit Christmas Day to see how the kids were enjoying their new toys!
It was a wonderful weekend - we saw just about everyone in our immediate families (except for Katie and Ben, although we did get to Skype with them) and the kids made out like bandits. :) The kids stayed healthy right up until the night we came home; it was good to have the week between Christmas and New Year's to hang out at home - Joe took most of the week off, and with nothing on our schedules, it was a great end to the year!
