a big, full weekend

Thursday evening, we went to visit Santa!

It was the perfect time to go!

2010-2015 visiting the same Santa!

Friday after school, we went to mail the kids letters to Santa! 

They wanted to make sure he knew everything they wanted!

They get so excited to see Santa that they forget to tell him everything ;-)

That night was the 3rd annual faculty Christmas bowling party for Tim's school.

 On the way there, on a busy road at 5 pm Friday evening, our power steering went out! It was a little scary! We had to call a tow truck and thankfully one of Tim's coworkers came to get us!

The van was fixed yesterday and thankfully it wasn't too big of a problem!

 We still had fun at the bowling party!

Saturday was the Bentonville Christmas parade.

C Girl got to walk with her school's 4th grade float.

The theme was Elves on vacation!

I was happy that I was able to create a pretty cute elf costume!

 C Girl had a blast with the parade!

 B Boy and I found a spot on a VERY crowded parade route.

 Tim stayed with C Girl and walked in the parade. There were pigs in the parade behind them!

I took a ton of pictures, but I tried to condense it here.

 Having the time of her life!!!

Digging through all of the candy!

Saturday evening, C Girl and I had tickets to see The Nutcracker!

Tim had to document his girls getting ready.

 We had a great time!

 On Sunday, we had church and C Girl went with the GA's to sing Christmas carols at the nursing home.

Yesterday, I got out to do Christmas shopping and grocery shopping. I also made dinner and cookie dough to bake cookies for Tim's office staff. He had a board meeting last night and wasn't home until after 8 pm. By the time I went to bed my feet were hurting so bad! I have not been on my feet that long in quite awhile!!!

'Twas the weekend before Christmas

Friday, the kiddos had a fun day at school watching movies.  B Boy had a PJ day too!  They were excited for Christmas break!

Yesterday, I took C Girlie to see The Nutcracker at The Walton Arts Center.

Three years ago, I had taken her to see The Nutcracker at the Arend Arts Center.

She didn't remember it, so this was like the first time for her.

It was great!

She did have some funny revelations- 1. she was upset that there were not words. 2. she didn't know that boys did ballet.  3. she is not one to easily express gratitude or compliments, but I do think she liked it.  She's just funny about expressing deep emotion, lol.

I hope this is something that we can enjoy doing through the years.  I love taking her to plays and ballets.

 We had church this morning.  I always love church services right around Christmas where we sing traditional Christmas hymns.  

C Girl and I made some candy covered pretzels this afternoon.  She had the very important job of pouring sprinkles on them!

This evening, I met three friends at the movies to see Saving Mr. Banks.

It was SO, SO good!!!!  

I knew it was about how the movie Mary Poppins came to be, but I had no idea what the movie was really about.  It was a beautiful story and a beautifully made movie. Go see it!!!