Celebration of Lights

The Tuesday after Christmas, we loaded the girls in the car to head to the Hartwood Acres Celebration of Lights.  It was recommended from friends as a "must-do" during the holiday season.  Boy oh boy, Christmas lights galore!

I didn't have high expectations, and had never been to Hartwood Acres (big local park), so really had no idea what to expect.  We were very pleasantly surprised!  It was a ginormous extravaganza of lights, with different themes throughout the park (12 Days of Christmas, a red & green forest, dinosaurs (huh?), elves working, etc.). 

The road through the park is about 3 miles long, and took us probably close to an hour!  Scott and I had our holiday coffee drinks and enjoyed the lights, reflecting on how our annual holiday date (in Chicago with dinner at CPOG and then Lincoln Park Zoo Lights) has happily morphed from a date night of just the two of us to a family affair, as the girls enjoyed the lights from their car seats (well one of them did, the younger sister luckily (for us) slept through the whole drive).

The one disadvantage was that the park opens at 6pm, so we left our house at 5pm, which meant no dinner for Brooke beforehand.  We arrived home at 8pm, and though Scott carried a sleeping Brooke up to her bed, she awoke and wanted dinner.  Thus, here she is sitting at the table with her glow light necklace (handed out at the end of "drive").  Hopefully we can do this again next year! (rumor has it this might be the last year)

Merry Christmas!

Ah, the annual holiday portrait.  Well, it takes many shots to get both girls smiling and Maddie also looking at the camera. 

After some tries we got a good one.

Christmas fun began on the 23rd with Grandpa, Mimi and Hank coming into town.  On Christmas Eve the girls opened their annual holiday pajamas.

Next, cookies and a glass of milk were left for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer (Rudolph the Reindeer Nose as Brooke calls him).  Only crumbs remained the next morning...until Maddie came by and swiped those up with her tongue!

Christmas morning, Brooke was a little apprehensive to come down and into the family room, as she thought this stranger Santa was still in the house.  But low and behold, he was not, but there were a bunch of presents under the Christmas tree!  She proceeded to help everyone unwrap their presents as the morning unfolded.  Here she's helping Grandpa.

Keira enjoyed spending the morning next to Maddie...

...who got a goose (stuffed toy) for Christmas and was very happy...though the goose was laid to rest a few days later due to many holes eaten into it and stuffing removed/eaten.

It was a wonderful Christmas and we look forward to the years ahead as the girls better understand the holiday.

Merry Christmas to All!

Seeing Santa Claus

We took Brooke and Keira up to the neighborhood community center to see Santa Claus.  I talked it up with Brooke for a couple days, and she seemed pretty interested.  As we waited in line in the hall she danced around in her dress and looked at the other children in line.  However, once the line moved into the room where Santa Claus was sitting, and Brooke caught sight of him, she slowly but surely hid behind me and refused to look at him.  She had no interest in sitting on this gentleman's lap! 

Keira stepped right up (well, was carried right up) and provided her Christmas wish list to Santa.

Maybe next year we'll get both girls together on Santa's lap.