In the Christmas Spirit..

This past weekend was going to be one of those weekends where I was either going to want to screw Christmas and be done with it, or embrace it to it's fullest potential. We were going to spend the whole weekend Christmas shopping AND decorating. Luckily for me and my family, it was a GREAT weekend.

Friday night was a little challenging as there was some sneaking in of very large Christmas surprises. I had to occupy the girls, so Adam and the neighbor could sneak these giant gifts into the house and down to the basement. This was rather difficult as when they hear the door open, they are running down the stairs to greet their Papa at the door with smiles and excitement. I made a little game of it, though, and had them hide in the room until Daddy came and found us. He caught on quickly and when everything was inside and in place, he came and tackled us making the girls scream with glee. (Glee, by the way, means 'happy', says Alexa)

I know you're wondering by now what the giant surprises are, but it's Christmas, a time for keeping secrets. You will find out soon enough. Let's just say, Adam and I went all out this year for the girls, with the help of our neighbor Dave and his handy dandy tools.

We managed to get some supper in, in the midst of all that and then bundled up the kids to take them around the town to look at Christmas lights. I love looking at Christmas lights. And PROPS to all the families in Farmington for your beautiful light displays, manger scenes, lights that are programmed to 106.7 so we can listen to the music on the radio and for the gentleman who literally covered his house, yard, garage and roof with lights. It looks very obnoxious and I'd hate to be your neighbor, but our kids love it. The train and music are a very very cool touch. Thank you!

Driving around looking at lights has become our new way of putting the kids to sleep, by the way. I love it.

Saturday was the day I was going to hold my breath and hope to God that we came out of it alive..and WE DID! We got up early, got ourselves ready for the day and off we went to Target to purchase a Toys for Tots gift to bring to the Coldwell Banker Burnett office in St. Paul where our realtor would exchange it for a lovely Christmas wreath. I wasn't expecting much, but the wreath was beautifully decorated with pinecones and a green velvet bow. We were able to visit with Vic for quite some time and even saw Santa Claus. Alexa ran right up to him and was given a bag of treats. Lillian on the other hand was a bit shy and stayed snuggled tight in my arms. She was ok looking at him from a distance. When we were leaving, she was fine with saying 'goodbye Santa' about a hundred times. It was actually quite cute, though.

From there we realized we were close to my cousin Jennah's house, where she lives as a student of St. Thomas. We called her and sure enough, we were very close. So, we stopped by for a visit and a tour of her place. Very nice.

We head to Minneapolis from there to pick up a gift for my brother Ben. Luckily we were able to find what we needed at the first place we stopped. Whoo hoo. The girls were behaving, Adam and I were happy...A GOOD DAY SO FAR!!

We noticed Lillian was starting to rub her eyes and get a little sleepy, so we decided now would be a good time to break for lunch before we continue any more Christmas shopping. I wanted to finish today, knowing it was a stretch being we hadn't even started yet. We stopped at McDonalds and inhaled some chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers. Then off to Target again for some more shopping. Lillian fell asleep after that, so I ran into a couple more stores with Alexa while Adam sat with her in the car. The LINES were unbelievably long. We spent more time waiting to check out than we did actually shopping. Ugh! But, my little Alexa was such a trooper and hung right in there with me. One last stop at Walmart before heading for home. The day was a success. We didn't quite finish shopping for everyone on our list, but we came close and we did it without any shouting matches or tears.

Then, as if our day wasn't busy enough, we got home and started putting up our Christmas tree. With the help of the girls we were able to get it up and looking perfect. We were so busy getting ourselves into the Christmas spirit by dancing to Christmas music while decorating our new house, we didn't even get dinner until after 8 o'clock. Then of course, off to look at more lights and to 'put the girls to bed'. :)
We drove up 77 and saw the big white tree all lit up at Prince's old house he had while living in Minnesota. It was absolutely beautiful. I will post pictures soon.

Adam and I stayed up cleaning up and addressing Christmas cards. What an exhausting day. But, we accomplished SO MUCH!

Sunday we had to make another quick run to Target. We decided we just didn't have quite enough lights on our tree. We finished decorating and Benski came over to help. When all was said and done, I have to admit, the house looks great and I'm definitely in the Christmas spirit. Very excited to have my family down this upcoming weekend to celebrate Christmas.

Adam and Benski did some more shopping that afternoon while picking up some food to grill. Maddie came over to play with the girls all afternoon and then later we found out she had a fever, sore throat and is now vomiting. Swell!

The boys grilled up some wonderful food, steak, chicken and hotdogs for the girls. Delicious!! I had them bathed and in their jammies before we ate, so we could take Benski out to look at lights before the Vikings game started at 7:30. Lillian fell asleep, because she didn't have a nap, but Alexa wasn't quite tired yet. She stayed up a little while and helped me wrap gifts. She picked the wrapping paper, cut the tape and put the gift tags on all the presents. What a good little helper.

I won't comment on the Vikings game, as there is nothing good to say about it, but I did sneak in some time during the game to make some changes to my blog. Benski informed me for the last few months he hasn't liked reading my blog because it's too hard to read with a dark background color. Well, I think white is the lightest I can go, so hopefully this helps?

I took some pictures of our Christmas decor, so I will be posting those soon.

It was a whirlwind weekend with absolutley no relaxation time, but Adam and I are very much in the Christmas spirit and are anxious to spend the holidays with our families at our new house this year.