I C U P and other winter adventures

 

Lula was hanging out in the bathroom today.

The girls sure thought it was silly but were concerned that she would get wet if we turned the shower on so before daddy showered they made sure that he moved her into the living room.

 

At Thanksgiving I had mentioned that I wanted to take the girls to Macy's 8th floor to see the Christmas display and then go to the Holidazzle parade.  My sisters and mom were interested too so we planned it for December 22nd.  Back then it felt like forever away and now that it is here it gives me a little anxiety- what if it's too cold and we miss it?!  What if plans change and we miss our chance this year?! 

As you can see, it all worked out!

We met around 4:30 pm and we joined by about 4,000 other people.  Ok, really there were probably only 400 but it felt like thousands.  We waited through the line for about 30-40 minutes and then we were in. 

 

 

The girls actually did pretty good waiting.  It helped to have so many different people there that they could talk to (each other, aunts, mom, grandma).  They got a little antsy towards the end of the line but once they could see the room we were going to go into they calmed right down.

 

 

Hailey particularly liked the singing trees.  Not enough to sit by them and take a picture but she stopped to watch them for a few minutes.

 

When we were at the end of Santaland there was a walkway to Santa.  I wasn't expecting to be able to see him because there were so many people I figured there would be another wait.  I asked the lady how long of a wait it would be and she said- 'He's right behind this door waiting for you!'

 

 

We walked in and were pretty much in a private room with Santa.  We were allowed to take our own pictures (we could also buy them but as you can see Hailey wouldn't even get close enough to photoshop her in and Hannah was leaning back onto me as Santa was leaning into her.

Later she told me that she was nervous about those bells he was wearing.....Ummm....ok :-)

 

We made a stop at the bathrooms and then got a bag of popcorn from Candyland.

We made our way to the street and ended up standing behind a large group that had chairs and were sitting so we could see right over them.

Hailey was the only one who would have had a little trouble so Kimmy put her on her shoulders.  Didn't take long before Hannah thought she should get up there too- these are the times when it is really awesome to have sisters!  We all took turns holding the kids so nobody's back went out however, Kim did the most of the heavy lifting- THANKS KIMMY!

 

The girls LOVED the parade.

Hailey could see the best down the street so she would yell out to us what she saw coming.

Hannah's favorite was Santa at the end- she got a kick out of him yelling "HO! HO! HO!"

Hailey's favorite was the Wizard of Oz witch on the bike.

My favorite was probably the bus- covered in lights!

There wasn't a single part of the parade that wasn't worth waiting for- it was awesome.  The kids reactions were AWESOME!

 

We then made our way to La Casita where Jennie asked Hannah and Hailey to be flower girls in her wedding.  Hannah is really excited for this!  The jury is still out on Hailey :-)  (my words not hers- she isn't quite sure what it all means yet)