And we sang it aaallll weekend long. My kid identify it as "the song in the girls bathroom on Elf" and it's their favorite Christmas song this year. To go along with their song, we did a lot of Christmas-ing this weekend. Saturday morning we had holiday pancakes, saw Santa and toured the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates, rode a horse at Jester Park's Pony Express To Santa, and the rest of the weekend we did our Christmas shopping for extended family and friends.
Monday morning feels like a relaxing vacation compared to the busy weekend!
Our first stop of the morning (after dropping Hubs off at work and eating breakfast) was taking a tour of the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates. The remodeled building is beautiful and contains so much history. The kids got to see Santa and enjoy punch and cookies while we toured the building.
Santa was hilarious and joked with the minis.
The carolers singing filled the entire building.
This room had the most impact on the minis. All photographs showed hunger, poverty, war, etc. They had A LOT of questions, I had to explain about clean water (which then led to a conversation about our water system), and got into quite the discussion about terrorism (which attracted other people touring the building....we're really good at gathering a following apparently).
After the World Food Prize building and taking a walk downtown Des Moines, we drove toJester Park Equestrian Center for their Pony Express to Santa. This was our first time attending this yearly event and we were so impressed! Each child got to ride a horse through a Christmas themed course to Santa in his sleigh, then an entire spread of cookies and hot chocolate awaited us (and a room of crafts), and ended with a long sleigh ride.
I'm slightly ashamed at how many candy canes my children consumed on Saturday so I'm not sharing, but I can reassure everyone that teeth got brushed numerous times that day!
A huge bonus Saturday afternoon: naps for all (this was before I laid Elizabeth in her bed, but after I dozed myself for a bit).
The minis spent their evening decorating Rice Crispy Treat Christmas houses.
A back scratching train on our Saturday night at home (which we completed with Chicago style pizza from Felix and Oscars).
Sunday turned into an unexpected busy day when Hubs decided to do some Christmas shopping for me. With the kids in tow. I still haven't gotten a full story of events, but I'm told it's interesting and involves my husband and our oldest arguing in front of a sales lady which necklace I wanted. Points to the oldest who apparently got it right!
Also in our Christmas shopping frenzy this weekend, I found Imaginext Power Ranger toys. The 90's child in me couldn't pass them up!
The rest of our Sunday included browsing through books at Barnes and Noble and dinner at one of our fave restaurants, Malo.We took in a quick story time in the middle of picking out books.
The best picture we could get at dinner. Other than the picture of Max informing us he didn't like his mac and cheese because it had cheese in it.