The Saturday before Christmas, our elf left tickets for us to go to The North Pole Experience up in Flagstaff. We had such a fun time! We stopped at Panda Express once we got to Flagstaff - how cute are these two?!
At the North Pole Experience, we took a trolley through a magic portal to the North Pole, we helped the elves make toys in their workshop, we attended Elf University, we had donuts ("yeti-os") and snowman soup (hot chocolate) with Mrs. Clause in her bakery, we wrote letters to Santa in his mail room, and we visited Santa. Jack and David also collected elf signature on their ornaments between rooms and while they waited at the hotel to get on the trolley and they thought that was so fun, too!
Going through the portal :)
Helping the elves make presents :)
Donuts, hot chocolate and dancing with Mrs. Clause :)
Writing notes to Santa - Kate was totally into it :)
They even had a fire pit to sit by while we waited for our trolley to take us back to the hotel.
More elf signatures before heading back home :)
The entire experience was so magical, it exceeded our expectations and the attention to detail was comparable to Disneyland (pictures don't do it justice) - WE ALL LOVED IT and it was worth every penny!!! Jack and David were one hundred percent into it and it was so fun watching their wonder and excitement!
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Christmas Sunday - we sure love these little humans!
My friend dropped off a cookie decorating kit and Jack and David loved it!
On Christmas Eve morning, we went to the zoo! It was the first time Kate was really into it - she called almost everything a "doggy"!
We spent a solid 20 minutes watching this bird eat a bunny (barf!)
The orangutans are my fav :)
Kate loved the goats!
Goat selfie!
It was so fun saying "yes" to all the things we normally say no to! Camel rides and "Arizona tubing" for the win!
On the way home, we stopped at Olive Garden for lunch. Growing up, my family had a Christmas Eve tradition of eating Italian food on Christmas Eve since my dad served a mission in Italy. We continued the tradition, but after cooking Thanksgiving by ourselves and since we were leaving town the day after Christmas, we didn't want to cook a huge feast. We got full on soup, salad, and bread sticks for lunch and took our entrees to go for our dinner later. Usually, eating out with our kids is torture, but we had a Christmas miracle and they did great - they ate all of their food and were well behaved.
When we got home, we did our Christmas tradition of painting Christmas pictures.
Here were the results this year (they are upside-down and sideways but I'm too lazy to go back and fix it):
David's Santa:
Jack's Santa sleigh:
My Christmas lights:
Spencer's abominable snowman:
Every year we get new Christmas ornaments, usually from a place we visited during the year. Since we went to Legoland this year, we decided to make Lego ornaments instead of buying them. It was fun!
We danced in our Christmas jammies, we read the nativity, we watched this hilarious version of the nativity, and listened to a recording of my great, great grandpa about when he got a pony for Christmas about 100 years ago!
On Christmas morning we opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls, and played outside. Jack and David got the dinosaurs they had been asking for and my parents surprised the kids with plane tickets to Utah! We were so grateful! How cute is this poem my mom wrote?!
Love this cute Elf on the Shelf :)
She cleans up well :)
The rest of the day was spent frantically packing and cleaning for Utah the next morning ;) I sure love Christmas and the people I get to spend it with, and for the gift of Jesus Christ.
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And a few random things - A couple of projects that Jack brought home from school :)
And more sleeping Kate pictures because you can never have too much of those!
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