Back in the saddle

Well, not entirely - since I promised Meghan we'd go riding at Christmas, and we didn't. I did try, the one day it wasn't raining I called to make a reservation, but they never called me back! I need to find someone in the neighborhood that would let us ride. So I still owe Meghan a pony ride.

We had a great Christmas! We're trying to make lots of traditions that we can repeat every year. I put 24 of our nativity characters in little favor bags, and each day we got one down and set it out, while I tried to explain the nativity story to them. We went to The Lights of Christmas, which was ok, but they didn't have the wagon ride, and Meghan's too tall for their pony rides (she's officially 4'4" ish, Jenna is 3' 6"). I'm not sure how much longer we'll keep that tradition, but they did get faces painted, made ornaments and did the train ride. Meghan had a first grade Christmas concert, which was fun. Her school normally does a Fall Festival, but since most of the school got sick late Oct, it was rescheduled as a Winter Carnival. I helped by picking up things the day of, including 11 boxes of caramel apples and a bouncy castle! The girls had a blast, and the schedule change may become permanent. Hamilton had a town Christmas party for the kids, with stocking decorating and pictures with Santa. That went well too, and the girls had fun. For Jenna's birthday we went to Jungle Playland for a couple hours. I wanted to make sure after Christmas wasn't a huge let-down after all the hype, so we packed the break full of activities - rollerskating, sledding, kids museum for New Years party, beach, Rasar park, their first movie in a theater (Princess and Frog) (they had a blast, were really good!). Now we're back into the regular routine.

The girls are having a joint birthday party the last Sat of the January (mid-way between) since a lot of their friends are in the same family, it's cheaper to have one party and invite everyone than to have 2 parties and pay twice for almost everyone! It also lets us celebrate Jenna's birthday away from Christmas. It's at Jungle Playland, and they provide food (hot dogs), so all I need to do is invites, cake and loot bags!