Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Holiday Season!!

Every year, it seems the month before Christmas goes by way too fast. I am looking forward to a day (probably way in the future) when Pat will not be in retail and we can enjoy the holiday season a little more! :) I always make a point to atleast go to zoo lights. The boys were super into Christmas lights this year. We drove around our neighborhood and visited 'special' houses every couple of days. Since the kids are older, I got some craft books at the library and we did a couple of Christmas crafts. Mostly just ornaments. It was so fun when Sawyer would come home from school with all kinds of holiday stuff that they made. I kept everything!! My mom still has an ornament that I made when I was 4 and I just love it!!
Every year we are able to go see Santa at the school where my mom teaches. It is so nice not having to stand in line at the mall!!
It is our family tradition to get together with my Mom's side of the family for Christmas Eve. I absolutely love it. Sawyer and Thatcher have so many great cousins just their ages. And so do I!! :) I love getting together with everyone and exchanging our gifts. It is never anything big. Just a small present. This year I made cookies and I made the women in my family scarfs.
On Christmas Eve my parents spend the night, so they can be here Christmas morning to see the kids open their presents. We usually just lounge around all morning, opening presents and then playing with them!! Then, in the afternoon, Pat's Grandma, and his brother Geoff came over for a wonderful dinner of honeybaked ham.
We had a great Christmas this year. There is nothing better than seeing Christmas through the eyes of your children.


I totally loved this peacock at zoolights!!



The komodo dragon.





Putting cookies out for Santa.




Putting out Santa's magic key so he can get into the house!! ;)




Santa's presents just waiting to be discovered.


...and the stockings were hung by the chim... wait...well... they were hung anyways!!






Playing with some new toys.



Making our rice krispy treat house.





Thursday, December 3, 2009

The 2nd Annual Littler Family Day at the Zoo!!

We have started a Littler family tradition of going to the zoo the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Most of us have zoo memberships, so this is a great FREE family outing!! We go to the zoo a lot, but the kids always love to go with their cousins. We had so much fun!! First we went to an animal training show. Then we saw the new Komodo Dragon. Then we checked out monkey village. After lunch, we did the children's zoo. It was recently revamped and I was shocked to see how nice it was!! It used to be all dirt, but now it is nicely paved and landscaped!! If you haven't been to the zoo in awhile, I highly suggest you check it out!!




Watching the show.


After the animal training show, you could leave a tip, and this bird would take your money!!








All the younger cousins. Opal, Sawyer, Adeline, Thatcher and Emerson.



I just love this pic!!






This peacock was just walkin' around!!







Papa (my dad) and Thatcher.




At the children's zoo, their was a cow that you could pretend to milk!! Water actually came out!!







Thatcher and Adeline eating some cotton candy.





Brushing some goats at the petting zoo.






The kids checking out a horse.



This windmill was just huge!!



Stingray bay.