Santa Visits Story Time

Our Christmas Story Time at Blue Door was a HUGE hit.  I'm still smiling from how wonderfully it turned out.  Check out who showed up to join in on the fun...

....I love our community and all the wonderful people and businesses who work together to make it such a wonderful place to live.  Thanks to everyone who came out for the event and for continuing to support my little gig at Blue Door.  It truly brings joy to my heart and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to see so many smiling faces each week...

In case you missed last week's special story time, you still have a chance to get in on the magic tomorrow night at Coffee Bar Blue Door at 6:15.  Hope to see you there.

Some Downtime and The Creepy Santa

I always breathe a sigh of relief when I get to the end of the week.  Typically, Mondays aren't too bad, but they're Mondays... enough said.  Tuesday mornings are jam-packed.  And Wednesdays are the busiest of all.  They always includes lots of yummy produce...

...and usually a required mid-morning stop for caffeine and treats...

...some story time fun...

...you know the usual.  By the end of Wednesday, we're ready for some breathing room.  Lucky for us, Thursday and Friday come with a more relaxed schedule which suits the boys and I splendidly.  We have time to do things like this...

...it felt like Thanksgiving in our house.  YUM!

There's even time to make some new ornaments for the tree with the babysitter while Mickey and I brush up on our parenting skills...

...the boys nailed it with their paper ornament, don't you think??

We usually have time to check out some new books at the library too...

...it's a highlight of our week.

We get especially excited when the weather cooperates and we get to enjoy some of our free time outside.  Today was one of those days...

...obviously, we decided to spend the morning at one of our favorite parks.  This time we remembered to bring the bikes too.  The boys discovered the thrill or riding them down the little hill...

...they are definitely their father's children :-)  Little thrill seekers!

The excitement didn't end there...haha.  After the park, we got lured into Walgreens by a sign boasting free photos with Santa.  Since I'm one to push my luck with the boys, I ran the idea by them and decided to entertain them with a visit to Santa.  Let me just say, I think we're back to square one with our fear of Santa after meeting this creepy guy...

...is he not the worst Santa ever??  He was even more creepy in real life.  Of course I couldn't pass up the photo opp but I can't blame the boys for insisting that I come with them and not get too close.  Without photo proof, how else would anyone truly understand just how creepy he was???  Next year, we'll be sure to pass on Walgreens tempting offer.  Haha!

Time to get ready for Miriam's visit.  We're excited to have her company this weekend.  Family time is the best.

Goodbyes, Turtles, and SANTA

We bid goodbye to my parents yesterday.  I was sad to see them go after such a great week.

I'm TERRIBLE at goodbyes, and sometimes even get a little depressed after people leave, but I've learned over the years that the best way for me to deal with those situations is with some fresh air and some exercise.  We had a pretty fun day making that happen.

We kicked off our morning yesterday with some veggie-scrambled eggs before hitting the road along with my parents.  They were off to Birmingham and we headed to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Jupiter.  I love that place and used to take all of my out-of-town guests there.  It's that cool!  I am embarrassed to admit it was the first time I took the boys to check it out.  They were celebrating "Blue Friday," which in my opinion was the PERFECT alternative to Black Friday shopping and we decided to join the fun.  I'm so glad we went!

We had hoped to see a Tropical Santa there but apparently I got the wrong information.  Good thing I remembered santa was going to be downtown later in the afternoon.  In the mean time, we headed home for naps for the boys, and a workout for me.  I'm still muscling through the Best Body Fitness Bootcamp plan and had switched up the order of the workouts for the week, attempting to avoid the burpee workout, but had to bite the bullet and finally tackle it yesterday.  I ended up doing 158 burpees in that workout.  OUCH!  I'm pretty sure I reached total muscle failure with that one.  Now I'm really dreading week 6, since it includes 2 more burpee workouts as well.  I have a love/hate relationship with those things.

Once the boys woke up, we headed downtown to track down Santa.   We ended up running into a friend who detoured us into the Arts Council for the Tykes and Teens Festival of Trees.  There were some gorgeous trees in there!   Guess who else was in there---SANTA!  Thankfully Mrs. Claus was kind enough to give up her seat so I could hold the boys for the photo.  There was no way Colton was getting anywhere near him without me.  Poor guy!

Maybe we scarred him last year...

What a difference a year makes.  That Santa really is a great one!  (So much better than the one we ended up finding downtown--creepy!)  Hope we can track him down again every year.  

I rounded out my day with a very sad, but good movie and a glass of wine on the couch.  

Not a bad day at all...much more eventful than today.  We've had a cozy day at home today, lounging in our jammies til  at least 10 and playing with just about every today in the house and the yard.   I love hanging with my little men.