Here comes Santa Claus

Do you remember the excitement you felt as a child leading up to Christmas?  Writing your letter to Santa, hoping desperately that everything you asked for would fit on his sleigh.  The house filled with the delicious smell of cookies freshly baked.  Trying so very hard to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, despite the butterflies of anticipation fluttering away in your stomach.  For me, one of the beautiful things about parenting is getting to recreate those little bits of magic for my kids...

The letter to Santa.

Dictated by Ava.  Hence the part about the nails.

Decorating the tree(s).

Going out to see the lights.

 And visiting Santa, just to make sure he got that letter we sent.

He actually wrote us back.  Santa is full of surprises.

 I've said it before and I'll say it again: parenthood is awesome.

Escaping the Noise

Life is loud.  Sometimes I want the noise of the world to go away, so that all I can hear is my kids laughing.  I want to see what they discover when there are no toys, or television shows to distract them.  So a few weeks ago we packed everyone into the car, and drove the scant 15 minutes required to get us to a place where that was possible.  You gotta love Colorado.



In my backpack and ready to ride.

Leading the way.

 

Exploring the castle ruins.

It was an amazing day.  My girls are happy in the sunshine, and I love that we live in a place where this is possible.  Here's to many more years of escaping the noise.

Halloween

Halloween is kind of a big deal around here, so I would be remiss if I didn't back up a bit and recap it for you.  Enjoy...

Ava started talking about her costume weeks before the big day, and never once did she waver from her choice: Big Sister was going to be a witch.  She was also insistent that Little Sister be a witch, and since Little Sister can't really voice any objections, it was witch hats all around. 

As usual (since saving all of your trick-or-treating for just one night is for chumps), we got some serious mileage out of those costumes by hitting every Halloween celebration we could find.  The picture above was from downtown Littleton, where Lila racked up some major cute points with her little baby "thank you". 

Ava had not one, but two parties - complete with costume parades - at school.

And we would never miss Boo at the Zoo...

And the big finale, the neighborhood candy-fest on Halloween night.

We had to sub in Ava's old piggy costume thanks to some cold weather.

Lila pretended she was too cold to go out for a second round of trick-or-treating.  I'm pretty sure she just wanted to stay in and raid the candy bowl.

This is quickly shaping up to be one of our favorite holidays.  Hope yours was just as sweet.