The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We are continuing to experience all of our firsts in our new state, this was our first Christmas in Indiana so we were trying to figure out what our new traditions would be and what fun things we should do around town during the most wonderful time of the year.
We got our first snow of the season at the perfect time, the day of the Carmel tree lighting...

 The snow really put me in the holiday spirit and Grayson and I loved every minute of it, Owen and Brad were a little cold and whiny but the Carmel civic center had outdoor heaters and of course someone walking around with free gloves, so what's not to love?

 Grayson's first Santa experience of the year.  He LOVES "ho ho".

 And "ho ho reindeer"...

Grayson went on stage to "help" all the kids with the lighting of the Christmas tree...

We were impressed with this event, just like we are most events in this area.  It was designed all around the kids, with free hot chocolate and cookies, Santa's elves were located at different stations helping kids with arts and crafts, or doing balloon animals.  They even took our picture with our phones at no charge while we sat on Santa's lap and they gave each child a "gift"....

The next day, our elf Dewey showed up.  Owen was happy he found us at our new house...

 He made the boys this delicious breakfast...

 And the boys were finally able to start working on their lego advent calendar from Aunt Nicki...

We finished decorating our tree and we moved it around the room three or four times to find just the right spot for it, still I think we need a bigger one...

Dewey seems to have a lot more energy this year, he actually moved almost every single night in the month of December.  They boys had so much fun looking for him every morning, especially Grayson.  Grayson would say "ho ho elf" as soon as he woke up every morning.  Then we would go on an elf hunt and once Dewey was spotted Grayson would cover his face and squeal with delight.  It was the sweetest!

 Dewey made this for the boys...

And he brought them these Christmas jammies...

Dewey brought them something extra special this year...

Tickets to a special Christmas train ride.  He sent us to Sullivan Hardware where we got to ride a Christmas train to the North Pole and see Santa...

Someone was sad when it was over...

We had to see what all the fuss was about at the Indianapolis Children's Museum's Holly Jolly room.  It was pretty awesome if I do say so my self.  We are very lucky to have such generous grandparents -  Mimi and Poppy who buy us a membership to the museum each year (so far).  It is so much fun and we can bring friends - if anyone wants to join us.  

 We went with one of our neighbors - that's Hogan on the far right.  He's a few months older than Grayson and almost as tall as Owen...

 I went down the slide with Gray - luckily there are no photos to document that experience...

 And of course Christmas trains...

 Ice fishing...

Liver performances...

And a snowball fight...

 This is a real fossil of a tyrannosaurus rex.  They let the boys touch the fossil that they were working on uncovering.  For my dinosaur obsessed little boy the Children's museum is the perfect place!  This man told me that the children's museum has a place in Utah (I think) that they go to once a year and bring back many different dinosaur fossils.

 My boys love this place, we have been so many times already and really haven't seen everything.

Grayson was WORN out after we got home...

 Then we went to Clay Terrace to do some shopping and stumbled upon some live reindeer.  The owner told us that reindeer like to eat apples and carrots, so we took note and will put that on our grocery list for Christmas eve.

We drank a lot of hot chocolate...

 and decorated a gingerbread house...

 

And cookies of course...

We went to the Indianapolis zoo with my friends from high school and their little ones.  It was the craziest night to go because it happened to be 70 degrees so everyone had the same idea to see the lights.  It took us two hours to get from our house and parked in the parking lot due to all the traffic.   

 The boys had fun despite the crazy amount of people there but I think I would rather go on a less crowded night even if it is a little colder...

I had a special Christmas shopping date with each of my boys solo...

Every time we went to the mall Grayson wanted to stand and wave at "ho ho" until he finally looked over and waved back to Grayson...

And then together...

Where's the snow mama?

Owen had a holiday concert that he participated in at church....

and at school...

Look at this cute little elf...

And here is Owen with his sweet buddy Jacob - although Owen looks like he wasn't happy about his hug....

We had our neighborhood Christmas party at a local pizza place.  Santa and Mrs. Clause came to visit and called out each child's name to give them a personalized Christmas present.  These two were quite animated singing Christmas carols, calling Rudolph, it was pretty magical for the kiddos!

We had a wonderful month full of holiday activities leading up to our real Christmas celebrations.  Look for more on that in my next blog post...