Festive

We've had a lot of festive and seasonal events going on around here the last couple of days.

Sunday (December 18)

We decided it was time for Santa pictures. The previous three years we have gone to Thorobred Chevrolet to have free Santa pictures taken.  Unfortunately, Thorobred became Earnhardt Chevrolet this past year and they kicked Santa out and quit doing Santa pictures way more than a week before Christmas.  I'm still debating writing a letter about how stupid that decision was.

Here's a look back on previous years.

2013

2014

2015 

(I know this Santa looks like he's made of a strange combination of plastic and putty, but I assure you he was a real person)

After the failure at the car dealership we thought we'd take a chance at Bass Pro Shop.  I mean, how bad could it be?

They ran out of passes before noon that day

This is the Santa we would have seen. 

The kids went on and on about how they really didn't care about seeing Santa and it would be fine to not do it this year, so we took these pictures and then left. 

And then I used an app to add Santa to each picture.  

So yeah, 2016.  Another hash mark in the nope column. 

The kids did have a good time riding the carousel, even though Spencer would have you believe he was being tortured. 

Monday (December 19th)

I went to Elliott's preschool to help him with his winter/Christmas craft.  I went once with Spencer (the first year Spencer did it Elliott was, like, 3 days old and I'm not sure Spencer had anyone show up for him) and twice with Elliott.

We also can't find Spencer's from his second year of preschool.  But if we do ever locate it, this frame will complete the collection.

Tuesday (December 20th)

I taught an art masterpiece lesson in Spencer's class in the morning.  It was the first of the year, which means I have five to do next semester. 

In the afternoon I took December 20th pictures.  I'm not going to do a whole post with all of the comparisons this year, but if you want a quick refresher- go HERE 

It was a struggle to get Spencer to wear pajamas for even two minutes. 

Wednesday (December 21st)

Elliott picked a set of 100 gel pens as his gift when we went to Costco to return a too small sweatshirt that someone at his birthday party gave him.

We actually bought the pens on Tuesday afternoon, but on Wednesday he was very, very, very excited about them and spent the afternoon using them. 

Wednesday night we went out to dinner and then went to the Mormon Temple to see their light display.  There are only four or five Mormon temples in the whole world that do Christmas light displays and since one of them is in Mesa we thought we'd check it out.  

This is from the website:

Join us in a celebration of the birth of Christ at the Mesa Arizona Temple Gardens this Christmas Season.  As you thrill to the sights and sounds of the holidays, we hope that you, your family and friends will enjoy: hundreds of thousands of colorful lights; uniquely illuminated palm trees and flower gardens; an inspiring nativity scene; a display of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem; recorded messages in English and Spanish and a modern Visitors’ Center open to all.  This spectacular annual display, provided by volunteers, is free of charge each evening of the holiday season.

Here's an aerial view that I got from Google. 

We walked around for about 40 minutes to see all of it.  

These were my favorites.  

The kids loved it.  Even Spencer said, "Wow.  Now this is impressive." Ha!