Christmastime fun

We crammed as much holiday fun as we could into our December.

One night we all went to the library for the after hours movie night...how cute are these two sitting together to watch The Grinch?!?!

We got to watch the movie (well, Dave and I took turns watching the movie with Lucy while the other chased Max around...the cuteness of actually sitting with his sister didn't last long...) and then do crafts and eat snacks...We Love Our Library!


My last day of work for the year was Thursday, December 17.
That next day was Lucy's class Christmas party so I volunteered to help - lots of fun!

Playing a Santa-hat ring toss with her friend Grant

Yes, she is in the bathroom...
But she looks gorgeous - and so grown up!

She sat on Santa's lap!  I couldn't believe it...
except she was one of the later ones called and every single other classmate sat up there with no hesitation

They did a book exchange - Lucy ended up with a book about the movie The Good Dinosaur

After the party, Lucy and I ditched her friends and went to fetch Max from Ms. Shelly's house and the three of us went to see Scuba Santa at the Newport Aquarium:

 

He loved running around!

It was freezing cold but we stopped for a quick pic with the giant Christmas tree

Later that night we went to make cookies and watch a Christmas movie (the Ice Age Christmas movie) with Ashley and Cleo...fun times!  Max really got into it - and he didn't save any green sprinkles for anyone else!

We had some more library fun one Saturday when Santa dropped by...the kids got to do crafts and write letters to Santa and meet the big guy (Max wasn't interested in that last one).

They both thought the snacks were the best part...

Later that night, Lucy worked on her Christmas gift for Max - she wanted to paint an "M" for him to hang on his bedroom door!

We found a couple of passes to Totter's Otterville that were about to expire (they got them at HalZooween) so we all went there to play for an afternoon:

One night, Lucy had her best friend Ava over so they could exchange Christmas gifts...they had a blast and they're so cute to watch together!

Lucy got Ava the same Frozen sweatshirt she had so they could be matchers!

On Christmas Eve, we made more cookies at home so we'd have some to leave out for Santa.  We let Max have control of the green sprinkles again...

After months of me begging, we finally decided to join the YMCA a day after Christmas.  Lucy  was SO excited and almost every day she asks, "Is the outside pool open yet?"
The first time, it was just me and Lucy.  I brought her princess ring that she always uses at Brookwood and started to blow it up when a lifeguard walked over to tell me outside rings, etc. are not allowed...Lucy was super bummed...they had a bunch of puddle jumpers for kids to use but she didn't want to wear one - she just wanted me to hold her.  After swimming together for a bit, she had to go to the bathroom and when we came back to the pool, I talked her into trying one.  She was very resistant and when I asked her to just try it for 5 minutes and if she hated it, she could take it off, she told me she'd try it for one minute...But she LOVED it!  She kept it on the whole time and had gladly put it on each time since.

The next time, we took Max with us while Daddy worked out.  He wasn't too into that day but the next time, all four of us swam and he loved it.

During our break, we also went to the Children's Museum one day - and then down to see the holiday trains (though, unfortunately, Max fell asleep on the way to see them so he missed it).

 

And we also took one last trip to the Newport Aquarium before our passes expired.