Three Days of Christmas

Christmas eve, we traditionally go to Smith's where Santa usually makes an appearance, we trade gifts to each other, and feast on food... All night long!

That night we all snuggied up in our new Christmas eve pajamas and crawled into our warm beds anxiously waiting for Santa to come.
In the morning Jess was the first to awake at 5 am. (who CAN sleep on Christmas?)
I waited and waited until 6:30 and told Josh we should go wake up Bridge.






(doesn't she look excited!?!)

While Josh and I were opening gifts from each other, Bridget was trying on her new skirt...



After we cleaned up a bit and ate breakfast, we headed out to my parents.
It was quite the day...



Dad crying,


Bridget getting more excited about MORE presents...


And Mom giving herself a face-lift with scotch tape!
(laughs owed to the new "The Office" game that Melanie and Nick got.)
Later after reading the instructions further we realized we were ALL supposed to do it... but I think it was more fun to watch Mom do it! :)

Festival of Lights

I remember as a child going to see the "Preston Lights" with my family. It was one house particularly that we would go and see. I had told Josh that I wanted to go a few years ago, but finally this year we got around to it. There was an article in the paper talking about how this is going to be the last year this family does the lights because how outrageous the electric bills have been the last few years.
Friday night after a couple stops for dinner, Arby's for Jess and Bridge, and Carl's Jr. for Josh, we headed to Preston.
after about 20 minutes of stop and go traffic for a fallen telephone line, and the half hour drive to Preston, we came upon the Hollingsworth Family lights.

They had a lot of Disney wood cut outs which was fun for us to point out to Bridget. (sorry I didn't get any better pictures, I didn't know I had a "night setting")
However...I did remember it being a LOT cooler as a child. But it was still something fun to take Bridget to.

After the Hollingworth's, we stopped at a park that Preston had local businesses help decorate. I was mostly impressed by the entrance!

And finally on the way home, we stopped to try and win a few bucks!

No such luck!

Our little fish...

So there are a few things that you can't take away from Bridget without her throwing a fit...

*Milk/Juice
*Crayons/writing utensil
&
*Water!

She did NOT want to get out even after I drained all the water, sprayed the bubbles out of the tub, AND wrapped a towel around her.

Here Comes Santa

Today we took Bridget to meet Santa. We weren't sure is he was even going to be in town yet cause usually he is out in the open so everyone can come see him, but when we got there, he was no where in sight. As we were looking for him, this lady at Hallmark was standing out front of the store pulling faces at Bridget, then she walked up to me and (freakishly) whispered in my ear, "Can she have a candy cane?" I said sure and she went in and pulled a huge one off of the shelf, tore the price tag off of it, and handed it to Bridget. She was very excited. Josh asked her if she knew when Santa would be at the Mall (if he was) and she said that he was there now, and just up and left her store to be our personal guide to the North Pole! Josh and I were a little weirded out, but we kept following her. She first took us to the gift wrapping shop thinking that that's where he was at. The workers there said that Santa comes to help wrap presents... She then continued the wild goose chase asking anyone around... at this point I was again confused why she decided to be our guide.
Long story short...
( Santa IS at the Mall! He is there from 10 am to 9 pm up until Christmas Eve in the old Head over Heals store.)

Bridget wasn't quite ready to sit on his lap, but he did give her a little book! Josh is planning on wearing a white beard around so next time, She might be ready.

...so... who's finishing up all the toys while Santa's at that mall all month???