St. Paul/ Minneapolis Weekend

 We've been wanting to take a weekend trip to Minneapolis for a while so we could attend the temple there and visit the Mall of America.  We finally did it the weekend after Christmas. 

Our first stop was the Mall of America.  Wow!  That place is huge!  The kids couldn't get their fill of looking at the amusement park.  The first two stores we visited were the American Girl and LEGO stores.  Annie was in heaven in the first one.  She just led me around by the hand looking at everything with big eyes.  All three of the bigger kids loved the LEGO store.  Logan bought a big cup full of white LEGOs so he could build temples (pictures in an upcoming post).  Alex bought a basic brick set.  Annie decided to save her money for a real American Girl doll.

The enormous creations over the LEGO store were neat.

 We went into the Peeps store a couple of times.

I have a great story about that roller coaster at the end of this post.

My little sister loves Peeps, so my mom wanted to get her a souvenir.  She wasn't sure what Sarah would like so I modeled some of the options. 

 One of the reasons it was so awesome we could make this trip with my mom was because Kayla lives up there.  She brought her two boys and met up with us.  It was so fun to see her!

Abby was a good sport about being in her stroller.  She's so easy going.

After some time at the mall we headed to our hotel where we met up with some more friends who'd decided to take the same mini-vacation.  We babysat their kids that night so they could attend the temple.  Jim and I managed six kids in the pool by ourselves!  It was awesome.

Kayla also joined us for swimming. 

My mom forgot her swimsuit so she sat poolside and watched us.  At one point she stepped outside and got some snow to throw at us in the hot tub.  The little boy we were babysitting thought that was the neatest thing ever.  He was very occupied throwing little handfuls into the hot tub.  (And I sure look strange mid-laugh...)

Kayla and her baby.

This was Abby's first time swimming and she LOVED it.  Jim even had her floating on her back just as relaxed as can be.

After the pool we bathed and dressed kids conveyor belt style and then turned on a movie for the last little bit.

They were cute hanging out on the bed.

The next morning our friends babysat (and took all the kids swimming again) while we went to the temple.  Kayla met up with us again for the session.

I felt so much peace visiting the temple this particular time; it was just what I needed.

After we picked up the kids and checked out of the hotel we headed back to the mall.  We walked around pretty much the entire thing and visited all the cool stores.  Our favorite stores were the ones with all sorts of games and a boys' store.

Annie posed a lot in the boys' store.  The boys were off having fun.

We peeked in at a themed restaurant.  (Too expensive!)

Meanwhile, Abby took a nap.

After we walked around we decided to go on one ride: the log ride.  So we bought enough points and got in line.  My mom had no desire to ride anything, so she and Abby sat down somewhere.  After a long and hot wait we made it.  I rode with Annie and Jim rode with the boys.  They all loved it, but the two drops scared all the kids.  When we started going up again after the first drop Annie turned to me with a scared face and voice, "We're doing it AGAIN??!!"  They all had terrified looks on their faces in the photographs we saw afterward.  They all said they'd do it again though!

We unexpectedly had leftover points after the log ride because we didn't know the 'chaperones' rode free with kids under a certain height limit.  There was enough left for Jim to take Logan on a roller coaster and me to take the other two on a kiddie ride (again free as chaperones).

Alex and Annie wanted to do the hot air balloon ride.  They loved it.

 

Logan was pretty nervous waiting for the roller coaster because it was his first time.  He was brave and did it though.  The hilarious thing is that he lost a tooth while on it!  He wanted to hang onto the tooth, but was too scared to let go with his hands so he kept it in his mouth the whole time.  Here he is with his tooth fairy money the next day.  The look on his face is just too hilarious to not include.

We were beat after all our fun, so we headed home after the three rides.  We arrived late Saturday night and went straight to bed! 

Christmas Day

Everyone slept in a bit on Christmas morning which was nice.  I don't remember telling anyone to get dressed so I'm not sure how it happened, but everyone actually got dressed before we looked at our stockings.

Some ready for the day pictures:

Patiently waiting...

Fussing because???

They must have been waiting for me.  My mom took several pictures of the kids before we did anything.

 Finally!  We opened stockings before breakfast.

We had apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast, but everyone was either so excited for presents or full from munching on candy that very little was consumed.  :)

We approach gifts differently than most.  Jim and I give each child one nice gift, and we take the kids to the Dollar Tree to buy presents for each other.  Then we seek as many opportunities as possible to do things for others.  That's the best part of Christmas for our family.  We have so much fun planning and carrying that part out.  There are a lot of reasons we do it this way, but the biggest is because we want to focus on the spiritual part of Christmas.  One added benefit is that the kids very sincerely appreciate everything they receive. 

Anyway, on to the gift opening.  I'm always impressed by how many presents end up under our tree despite the way we approach it.  Logan got Abby this cute flower.

I'm impressed he looked at me for a picture!  He was super excited about his Mr. Potato Head from us.

Weeks before Christmas we came up with the idea to get the girls matching dresses because Annie LOVES clothes and particularly loves the idea of matching her baby sister.  After we'd ordered the dresses I had a conversation with Annie in which she told me that she liked new clothes just as much as new toys.  We were excited to see her reaction on Christmas.  The kids handed out the presents, so we didn't have much control over the order.  The girls' gifts came out the way we'd hoped though.  The kids gave Abby hers first.  When she, with help, opened her very sparkly Christmas dress Annie's eyes got BIG.  Then Annie's face fell for a brief moment when she remembered it was for her sister.  Annie quickly recovered though, and dove into unwrapping her present from us (which amazingly was the next one pulled out).  I've never seen a child unwrap a present with such excitement; we think she suspected what it was.  She was thrilled about the dress.

Abby was so sweet all day (as usual).

This is out of order, but this was actually the very first present opened.  It was the largest present under the tree and Logan knew it was for him.  He couldn't wait to open it.

He was quite surprised to open that big box and find another box inside of it.  Then he was further surprised to find nothing but his siblings' clean laundry inside the second box.  We had to prompt him to search a little better.  He was quite happy when he found out what was inside: a LEGO giftcard!  We'd been planning a trip to Minneapolis for the end of that week and he was highly anticipating a visit to the LEGO store, although he didn't have any money saved.  So this was a big deal to him.  My mom also gave him a LEGO giftcard, my dad gave him a Visa giftcard for the same purpose, and Jim's grandma sent him some gift money for whatever he wanted.  He was set!

The kids were also very excited about their gifts from other family and each other.  Although, I think their smiles were the biggest when Jim and I opened the things they'd given us.  It was so sweet.    My mom gave them each a clothing item and a fun gift (doll for Annie, ball for Abby, LEGO card for Logan, and more Potato Heads for Alex).  My dad sent them all giftcards which will be fun to shop with when we have time.  Jim's grandma sent some money for them to choose something and Jim's parents sent them matching jammies.  My sister sent us a family membership to a children's museum we have here in town; such a great idea and we've already used it! 

We saved my mom's gift from us for last.  I'd been wanting to make her a memory book for years and finally managed it this year.  She has so many people who love her!  It was a great experience for me to put it together and read all of the kind things people had to say about my mom.  She really is awesome.

After we finished opening presents we spent the day relaxing.  The kids had a lot of Dollar Tree projects between their stocking stuffers and presents for each other, so they spent the entire day at the table just doing those.  Alex went between his Potato Heads and his projects all day.

Annie couldn't wait to try on her new dress.

That night the kids wore their matching jammies that Jim's parents had sent.  They were too cute.

Jim gave me new jammies too, so I joined in the picture.

Merry Christmas!