Every year, I always become a little bit sad when I realize that you guys don't get to experience the excitement of Christmas at home. So, we decided to start celebrating Christmas a bit earlier by asking Santa to come a couple of days earlier so that we could open up a few presents before we left.
First, we set out some cookies for Santa, because they are his favorite. And instead of milk, Nathan suggested that we set out some coffee for Santa because he may be tired from delivering all those presents.
"Christmas" morning at home was not terribly exciting. The kids woke up, just like every other morning and headed right for breakfast. Nathan took a peek at the cookies and coffee and announced that Santa ate the cookies, but immediately afterwards asked for a bowl of cereal.
Alas, Santa brought most of the items off the wish list: For Nathan, a nerf gun, lightning mcqueen slippers and a lego set. For Hannah, a teddy bear, hair bows, and a set of skating protective gear.
On the day before Christmas Eve, we drove up to Dallas to visit Auntie Momo. We spent the night there and then flew to Chicago to spend Christmas with Daddy's side of the family.
So, without further ado,
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a happy family and a huge Christmas Tree. This picture was taken in front of the Dallas Museum of Art where we spent Christmas Eve morning.
The DMOA is one of Auntie Momo's favorite places and they had a pretty amazing Children's area. You guys tried your hand at still art and tracing.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 2 trolley rides.
Well, technically not on the same day, but we were able to ride 2 trolleys during the Christmas break. Hannah loves riding the trolley and kept asking if we can stay on. The first trolley was the McKinney St. trolley that went through downtown and uptown Dallas.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 3 costumed mice (including a mouse king). One Friday, we went to go see a Children's theater production of the Nutcracker. It was pretty neat for me to look over at Nathan and see how his slight lean forward and how his eyes were just lit up. He really enjoyed the show. Hannah really liked the "princess" (fairy) dresses.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 5 mammoth fossils. On our drive up to Dallas, we stopped by the Mammoth National Monument in Waco. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and it was really neat to learn about the Colombian mammoth and be able to walk through an active archaelogical dig site.
On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 6 exotic animals in the animal show. The Palatine library is pretty amazing. Not only are their bookshelves filled with multiple copies of each book, hold regular story times (even during the holidays) they also have some pretty cool special programming like the one we went to a few days after the new year. We were able to see a hedgehog, a weasel, a turtle, a boa constrictor, a large rabbit, and a frog. Hannah was interested in going up to be a volunteer and raised her hand each time. It was pretty cute.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven Jelly Belly samples. We drove about 45 minutes north to the quaint city of Kenosha. We took the jelly belly factory tour and had samples of different types of jelly beans. It was a fun sugar rush filled day.
On the 8th day of Christmas my true love gave to me 8 Train Cityscapes. We visited the Trains at Northpark, which benefits the Ronald McDonald Foundation. When Nathan was in the NICU, the 1 afternoon where we were able to use their facility was an amazing blessing. It was neat to be able to point out the different things that we've seen in real life.
On the 9th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 9 Sick Havlirs. It all started with Grandma and Hannah getting sick on day 1. About 24 hours later, people started to drop like flies. It was a house with surround sound puking. (Sorry for the graphic description...) can you guess who was the only one who did not get sick? 2017 will forever be remembered as the year where we almost all of the Havlirs in the house got sick.
On the 10th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 10 Antique Bowling Pins. Besides the game belonging to grandma when she was a little girl, it was also really cool to see how well Nathan and Hazel played together. For this game, one person would set it up and the other person would knock the pins down, then you guys would change turns...all on your own.
On the 11th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 11 Skating Havlirs. On the day before everyone else got sick, most of the family brought their cold gear, skates and drove to downtown Chicago to skate at the Ribbon. Nathan eventually got the hang of it and was able to skate around the 1/4 mile loop by himself twice. He even told Daddy not to follow him (but Daddy asked Uncle George to follow behind).
On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 12 People Splashing in a Pool. We went to 2 Christmas parties while in the Chicago area. One of them was at the great-grandparents' nursing home. We played in the pool with the cousins and then ate and played games upstairs. Of course, there was also the opening of presents.
I left out a few other things because they didn't quite fit nicely in the 12 days theme, but I'm going to mention them below.
The other Christmas party we attended was at Daddy's other set of grandparents house. All the aunts and uncles were there, along with cousins. The Christmas band was small, but mighty, and the white elephant game...well, everyone didn't get as much...let's just say that we all ended up with gifts that we could actually use, which is a bonus in itself.
We went and watched Moana with the cousins at the movie Theater. This was Hannah's first time at the theater and Nathan's second time. Nathan got a bit upset and had to leave the theater at one point of the movie, but he was able to watch the rest with Daddy, sitting in the back row of seats. Hannah watched most of the movie not scared and during the scary parts, she sat on my lap.
We also visited the little red school house, a nature center at a Chicago suburb. We think this may be where we all got the stomach bug, but we are not quite sure. It was fun, there were lots of cool animals to look at and little activities for the kids to do.
Well, that wraps up our Christmas holiday vacation. Back to the swing of things!
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