Jingle and the Advent Calendar have been a lot of fun this Christmas season. This weekend we had several fun activities brought to us by that crazy elf.
But first, Friday Joel and I had a date day. We try to save at least 1 vacation day a year to spend with each other. We started out with a killer breakfast at a local diner. I pretty much order "one of each" from the menu. 7 hours later, I was still stuffed. However, that didn't stop me from then eating a Chipotle burrito and re-upping my stuffed-ed-ness.
Besides eating, we also went shopping at the outlet mall and got Joel a few much needed shirts - I was pretty sick of the same 3 t-shirts he always wears so this was mostly for my benefit. After shopping we headed home and worked on wrapping the kids presents. We don't have any good hiding spots in the house so this is what we did with the wrapped gifts:
Guessing we won't get away with this half-assed hiding spot for too many more years.
That night, since Joel and I were stuffed from the eating portions of our date day, we decided to get personal pan pizzas for the kiddos and let them have a special treat of eating dinner in front of the TV. They had gotten a Christmas movie as the Advent calendar prize. They thought this was pretty sweet.
Today the Advent Calendar activity had the kids pick out 3 toys each that they no longer play with to donate to the kids who don't have any many toys as we do. I can not believe how well this over. The kids were very cooperative and willing to pick out toys. I really expected a battle and crying but there was none. Not a single tear.
So to reward the kids for being so good and willing to give up toys they no longer play with, we decided to treat them to a trip to the movies. Lily's only been once and Tyler's never been. They got so excited. We boxed up the toys, dropped them off and then had some time to kill before the movie so we ran in to Walmart to kill time.
We wandered through the Christmas department which the kids ALWAYS request to do. They got a hold of this giant stuffed Santa and told him what they wanted for Christmas. This is the closest they would willingly get to any Santa this year.
Then off to the movies we went! We saw The Penguins of Madagascar. The kids did pretty good at the theater. I brought lots of snacks and drinks in addition to the popcorn since it was lunch time. We tore through everything. Lily loved the movie and was really intent the whole time. Tyler got super tired about half way through causing him to get a little cranky - but that was short lived cause it didn't take long for him to pass out on his Daddy's lap.
Lily was boogieing down during the credits at the end. She kept making this goofy face the one of the penguins makes during the show. It was super funny - unfortunately my camera wasn't snapping the picture fast enough in the dark to really capture it.
Also, going to the movies as a family before noon costs the same as Joel and I going to the movies by ourselves in the evenings! I foresee many more weekend matinees in our future!
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