Buddy the Elf Would Be Proud

"I planned out our whole day: First, we'll make snow angels for two hours, and then we'll go ice skating, and then we'll eat a whole roll of Toll-House cookie dough as fast as we can, and then to finish, we'll snuggle." This is a) a line from one of our favorite Christmas movies, Elf and b) a pretty solid description of our last Saturday, where we did all.the.things and had a lot of fun.

We started the day with some Christmas coloring, some yogurt and fruit to tide us over, and holiday headbands.

Then we headed off to see Santa. We ate breakfast, did crafts, talked to the big guy, and petted a reindeer.

On the drive home, the kids looked longingly at the sledding hill. And because we are suckers, we helped everyone into full winter gear and trudged on over to the hill with three kids and three sleds in tow. The kids discovered the fun sledding hill jumps (or "bumps" as D called it). By the end, they all wanted to "jump the bump." We enjoyed the fact that they could all bring their own sleds back up the hill. And enjoyed even more that they invited us to join them for a few runs.

After sledding, we came home, ate a quick lunch, and tried to convince super tired people to take a short nap. They were too amped up and no one slept. But mama tried.

Then it was off to Marvel Universe Live at the Excel. We got up there with plenty of time, so picked a less expensive, farther away parking spot. Sometimes you need to take a break during the long walk to your seats.

The show was so much fun and Dec lived his best life there. He was captivated the entire time. Mike even saw him waving his arms in his seat during the final battle - as if he thought he was part of it too. Spiderman was his very favorite part. Especially the part where Spiderman "didn't know how" to ride a motorcycle. "I-RUN-MAN" was not so bad either.

Fiona was very nervous during the first part, but finally realized it was pretend and really enjoyed the second half. I could hear her belly laugh several times. She thought Groot and his only words ("I am Groot") were hysterical. Quinn enjoyed it, but perhaps should have participated in that nap thing that was suggested earlier in the day. She was pretty squirrely during the second half. But she was not disruptive and didn't ruin it for anyone. So we'll take it.

When the show was done, we bundled up and headed outside to walk through Rice Park and see the Christmas lights. It was so pretty! We also walked over to the Landmark Center to see the outdoor skating rink. We knew it would be tight with dinner time, so we didn't bring our skates along. But some year, we will definitely go up there to skate. [In case you thought Quinn was 100% mine, when we were watching the skaters on the rink, a girl fell down and Q let out the biggest laugh. She is also her father's daughter!]

We wrapped up the day with dinner on the way home at Noodles. There was lots of conversation around our favorite parts of the day, the amazing motorcycle scene in the Marvel show, why mommy won't let daddy have a motorcycle, and how many candy canes are too many to eat in a single day. And then, to paraphrase Buddy the Elf, to finish, we snuggled.