Getting in the holiday spirit

Tis the Season! We've had a fun week full of lots of fun activities, so figured I'd dump a few pics on the blog to remember it.  It's all going by so quickly. Darn you late Thanksgiving for shortening the amount of time it's acceptable to listen to Christmas music!

To kill some time and pick up some birthday presents for Matt, the kids and I hit up the mall.  I'm the mean mom that wouldn't stand in line for a pic with Santa (thankfully, Benjamin didn't seem to care!), but he did get a glimpse from behind the fence :)

I'm also the mean mom who wouldn't stand in line for pictures with the Frozen cast (there's a WHOLE setup at the mall by us), but guess what, this picture made Benjamin happy enough!

And several days after putting the tree up, we finally started decorating!!

Benjamin put all the ornaments we gave him to hang up in the SAME spot on the tree.  It got a little bogged down...

On Friday night, we trekked into downtown (late, about 30 minutes after the parade had started....) to see the Parade of Lights.  I had grand visions of it being a super fun family outing, but of course with us running late, Avery pooping on the way there, and the roads being closed every time we were looking to park somewhere relatively close, Matt and I were at our parenting wits end.  We were cranky, short-tempered, and regretting the decision to go.  BUT THEN.  Leave it to our sweet little man, who when hoisted up on daddy's shoulders to see the floats go by, leaned over to say "Thank you for taking me here!!!" with his big old sparkly happy eyes!  Matt and I were put in our place, and reminded that hurrying doesn't help anything.  Just relax and enjoy!!  Benjamin certainly didn't care that we were late, he still loved every single thing that passed by!

A selfie at church on Sunday :)

After church we visited a fun craft market called Denver Flea that had fun vendors, breweries, and local food trucks.  The best part was seeing the dads carrying their sweet babies around in their carriers.  Aren't we lucky :)

Sunday evening we had a fun Christmas supper group where we left the kids at home and got it catered by Whole Foods.  Hey, we're crazy parents with little time these days! It was fabulous getting to spend time together and catching up on what God has done in our lives over the past five years.  We're SO grateful for this group of people that have walked beside us for almost all of our time here in Denver. :)

And just for fun, here's a pic I took of sweet Holden for a Christmas card!