Holiday Festivities

I hope you all had a very, very, Merry Christmas! I have been loving reading all the Christmas posts so I wanted to share a couple festive activities we did to help us get into the holiday spirit and the little bit of Christmas Day I recorded. 

I have the Groupon app on my phone and every couple of weeks I check out what they have near us. I was SUPER excited when I found one for the holiday lights tour on a Classic Cable Car in downtown San Fransisco! I love touristy stuff like that, so I grabbed up my first Groupon real quick. We took BART to Union Square. They were running a little behind so we were able to check out all the decorations in the Square before we took our tour. 

Myles was "Ooo" and "Aww" over all the lights and balls!

Biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen!

When we got on the Car, we were given Santa hats. I can't believe Myles kept it on long enough for me to take a picture.

 ...Then... he was over it, but even when he was trying to take it off... it was soo cute :)

 The driver let him ring the bell. It was too hard to pull by himself, so daddy had to help him make it ring. He loved looking out the window at all the 'pretties'.

 We rode around all over San Fransisco checking out all the Christmas lights, trees, and decorations. It is a pretty festive city! We also stopped at the Fairmont Hotel to check out their lobby. They had a huge 2-story gingerbread mansion made of graham crackers, peeps, and candy canes!

The inside had a toy workshop and a train going around the outside. Myles was completely fascinated by the train; he just stood their watching it for at least 5 minutes.

He also found "Memo" and a doggie he just had to touch!

This was my favorite thing we did all holiday season. I would love to make it a yearly tradition and maybe add some Union Square ice skating and shopping once Myles gets older.

When we went back home to Illinois for the holidays, I took Myles to have breakfast with Santa at the conservatory. I had to dress him up in his finest gear :) I have been looking for suspenders for Myles for a long time, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Well when we got back to Illinois, grandma hooked us up with these beauties!

Myles had a great time running around the conservatory, touching all the plants, climbing bridges, playing with the lights, trying to cross over into restricted areas, pointing at all the fish, and kissing frogs! He got a snowflake tattoo, made watched the lady make him a snowman pillow, and chatted with Santa.

When Santa first came by our table, Myles didn't really care too much about him, but he did give him a nice high-five!

Since that went well, I tried get him to take a picture on his lap. As you can see, that didn't go over too well: classic Santa fail! But then we caught Santa inside the conservatory and gave it another try... I didn't get a smile, but I think it turned out pretty good for our first Santa experience.

Myles also went 'sledding' for the first time with grandpa. It's been so cold since we have been in Illinois that I didn't want Myles to go out to play in the snow. But one day when we were leaving grandpa's house, he put him on a sled and pulled him around for a couple minutes. He really loved it! He was smiling the whole time and didn't want me to pick him up. I hope we get to take him 'real' sledding before we leave in a week.

Christmas Eve and day I didn't take very many pictures. I wish that I had some more of us and family, but we decided to keep our phone usage and such to a minimum. Sometimes it's so nice to not have to worry about pictures, social media, texts, phone calls, etc.; it's especially great when the day is spent with all our loving family! It was so great to enjoy the day with as little distractions as possible and really live in the moment. We created some great memories and I am for certain that this was the best Christmas of my life!

Here are a couple shots I did take:

Myles getting his stocking gifts: little race car and bird call!

Opening his sleepy time Elmo :)

 And lastly, Myles sporting his new Packer gear! Pretty sure the cutest thing I ever saw... Go Pack Go!

Oh and a very Happy New Year to you and yours :)