Christmas Outings

I've mentioned several times before how Zach and I are pretty lame about celebrating holidays. But since Christmas is a pretty major one, we did a couple things for Aubrey in an attempt to be "fun parents".

First we took her to ride a train that I'd seen an ad about. All I knew was the address and that it was $2 a person, which kind of clued me in that maybe this was no Heber Creeper. It ended up being a tiny kids train that just drove around a mall lot, but it was perfect for a 2 year old. Colorful, safe, and short enough of a ride to match her attention span. She had a great time.

I realized that the picture below of Zach and I and Aubrey is the only one of all 3 of us together from this entire past year! How did we go a year without getting one family picture? Not that the one taken by the skilled hands of Bob the train conductor isn't everything I'd want to frame for my wall and more...but we'll make an effort to get legit pictures in 2010.


We also spent way too long in the car trying to find a big Christmas tree for her to see, since we didn't have one for our house. We took her to a huge 40 footer, to which she said "Oh christmas tree. Brr it's cold. Go home." Oh well, she looked darn cute in her hat.
Christmas was interesting! Even up to the day of Christmas Eve, we intended to go spend Christmas with my family but finally decided not to make the drive. Mostly because of my upcoming due date. So Christmas Eve night we took Aubrey for a drive to show her Christmas trees, which really is kind of sad. "Here sweetie, we'll let you look at other people's trees, but you can't have your own." But then we saw some beautiful live trees on sale for $2! The store had just closed, so we pressured an employee that was leaving into taking our $2. Most likely they pocketed that money, but hey, our conscience is clear! So 8 pm on Christmas Eve, we set up a tree, decorated it with one whole strand of lights and some random ornaments and played Christmas music. It was very festive for us!
The picture on the left is how our present loot looked Christmas morning. All of Aubrey's presents were at my parents house, so Zach wrapped a couple Dollar Store items in tissue paper (and a baby shower gift bag) for Aubrey. The saddest part is that 2 of those presents contained just one balloon each, but they were different colors at least :) A few days later my parents and Lindsey came into town for a doctor's appointment for Lindsey and they brought Christmas, and Aubrey was very spoiled! So don't feel too bad for her! Even though we didn't go anywhere, we had a good Christmas, some good family time, and best of all, lots of relaxing! I hope yours was wonderful too!