Let the Christmas FUN Begin!

I forgot to post this picture with Brynley's Bits this week, but wanted to remember that she has also been gazing up at her mobile a lot too! And of course, there's the hand in her mouth too. I'm thinking she's gotta be getting her lower teeth but I also know it could take days, weeks, months before the first sign of a tooth too!

Earlier in the week we decided to get out of the house and make a day of Christmas activities. To start off, we headed to the Billy Graham Library to see the Live Nativity and to take a look at his childhood home. Living near Charlotte there's always a lot to do, and this was one of the things I had wanted to see. We went during the day, but had we gone at night it would have been lit for Christmas, and there were carriage rides available, but we had a full day and evening planned, so we opted to see things in the day instead.

There were still a lot of people and tour buses there in the day, so I could only imagine the crowds by night! We got to see a lot of the sweet animals that would have been present during Jesus' birth. Ryder didn't care much for the animals, so I'm glad we didn't waste our time going later that night like we had thought about doing. I still can't help but think to the time we drove through Lazy 5 Ranch to feed the animals and I threw a bucket of feed all over the car as an Emu reached its head inside the car to get a snack! Ha! I will have to post those pictures on here sometime. I guess you could say that we aren't the most animal friendly when it comes to livestock ha!

Everything was decorated so beatifully for Christmas, and if I had $180 to spend, I would have taken a huge carved nativity scene home with me from the gift shop too! Maybe next year?? Right now we have a ceramic one that we got from Garden Ridge or somewhere like it, and I want a really nice one that I can have as a keepsake one day. Ya'll should see my wish list for Christmas for the coming years. Looks like I may have to start saving now!

After the Billy Graham Library and a quick dinner at Fuel Pizza, we headed to Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden to see their lights. We went last year and had a blast, and so we have decided we want to make this a yearly tradition. I think Ryder's favorite part was the trains that went through the little town. Mine was the cupcakes and hot chocolate ha!

Yes.. the cupcakes and hot chocolate! MMMmm.. not diet friendly, but oh so good!

I think it's safe to say that Ryder enjoyed his cupcake too!

 And here we were last year, as I let Ryder pick out a cupcake and have his first taste of hot chocolate.

Apparantly I decided to wear the same red scarf and let Ryder wear his same dressy coat to see the lights this year too! I love looking back and seeing just what we did and how much we've changed.

And here I am this year, holding Brynley and letting her see the lights for the first time!

It looks like I'm nursing Brynley here, but I'm not. I was just trying to keep her warm and my coat wouldn't close over us both because her carrier was in the way. I just loved the picture and seeing her sweet baby head poking up ha!

I have really got to get better at my photography skills. It was hard to capture the lights in each photo, but we did have a lot of fun this year. I think Ryder got a little bored though, so next year maybe he will be more into the lights. He kept wanting to go back and see the trains again.

The highlight of his night was riding the tram, as you can see by the excitement in his eyes here!

And I loved this Santa! Free pictures, had I known this I would have saved our trip to the mall to get the kids picture with Santa. This was a much better Santa, and the funniest thing was when he asked Ryder what he wanted for Christmas, he replied "A firetruck and an ornament". Ha! Where he got wanting an ornament I have no idea! He only has about 10 firetrucks in his room already, so I think he just got nervous when he told Santa what he wanted. I didn't get any good ones of the kids on Santas lap together, so instead here they are seperately. LOVE.

We ended our night by going through Christmastown, USA which is really McAdenville but everyone around knows it as Christmastown because of their awesome lights. It really is best to park and walk around, but we opted to drive through the neighborhood and town instead since Brynley is still so young. There were so many people getting off the exit to see the lights that I wasn't sure we'd make it. I sat in the backseat, feeding Brynley her bottle and pointing out the different lights and Christmas themed houses we'd see to Ryder. It was definitely a festive day and we only had a few meltdowns along the way ha! We're planning on meeting my family for dinner tonight and then taking a drive through one of the bigger neighborhoods to see more lights tonight. I haven't participated in the Christmas Checklist that a lot of other blogs have been doing, but it seems like we have done quite a few of the things on the list that I just wanted to do anyways. What Christmas activities have you done this month so far?