Gardner Village

Gardner Village puts on an amazing show during Halloween and has an awesome witch hunt (which we did this year with Becky) where you get a $.35 cookie for completing the scavenger hunt.  During Christmas, they put on another scavenger hunt, but with elves.  We headed out there one afternoon and I was very underwhelmed with it.  The decorations for Christmas didn't even come close to the ones they put up during Halloween and the number of elves is few compared to the witches.  Also, instead of getting a cookie, you get a free piece of taffy (which none of us wanted).  Once I saw that, we decided to just feed the ducks instead.  We used up almost an entire loaf of bread and the ducks were so happy to see us.  Two ducks even jumped up and were stealing bread from the bag! Haha.  Kylie just sat staring at the ducks and eating some of the bread.  I guess that I will be visiting Gardner Village only during Halloween as it is a much more fun environment.

Too bright out!

First Visit with Santa

The weekend we were supposed to see the lights on temple square, Scott and I stopped by Trolley Square to get a picture with Santa.  There was hardly a line which makes sense as it was only two days after Thanksgiving.  Santa handed Kylie a candy cane and so it took a little bit to get her to look up at the camera.  The background was nice, but I was a little disappointed that he wasn't wearing the normal Santa suit.  It just isn't the classic Santa picture without it.  I got some good pictures of Kylie on his lap and then we headed out to go see the lights (which ended up not happening).  I wasn't able to get a picture last year, so it was a must-do for me this year.  It's always nice to have those pictures to look back on.

Zoo Lights

Last Monday, mom and I went to see the lights at the Hogle Zoo.  It was my first time going and it was pretty fun.  I got an e-mail from the local news station for a $3 off coupon (so it only cost $4 to go) for that day and so we went!  We thought it might be pretty busy because of that, but it wasn't bad at all.  Since it's at night, you really don't see any animals at the zoo so hopefully people don't go expecting to see any.  We did see an active snow leopard, but the tiger and lions were no where to be found.  Santa was there with not a very long line, so I figured why not take a picture with him.  It was nice that there was a table with crayons and coloring books to keep the kids occupied while waiting.  Kylie wasn't super interested in saying hi to Santa and wanted down pretty quickly.  At least she didn't cry!  The lights were fun and Kylie loved this small blue elephant that we had to drag her away from.  I don't know if I'll make going to the zoo lights a tradition, but it seems to be a fun activity to do every once in a while.

High Five for Friday

1. Christmas is in 2 weeks!!  We have been doing some fun Christmas activities and have a few more lined up the next week.  There's some fun lights that we want to check out, including Christmas Street and the "Tree of Life".  Brianna and Kyle are coming into town the 20th and it will be fun to have them here.  I know Kylie will love all the extra attention she's going to get.  I know it's only the 12th, but it got here so quickly!  I'm almost done shopping for Christmas gifts.  I hope to finish up today, but I'm sure I'll be buying some last minute that I forgot about.  The weather has been great so far too!  It's supposed to rain this weekend, but there's still no sign of snow here in the valley.  I'm not complaining about it being warm.

2. We've been taking Kylie to the first hour of nursery the past few Sundays.  I wish we didn't have to wait 2 more months to actually put her in nursery.  We have to sit in there with her since she's not old enough, but it is fun to watch her interact with the other kids.  There are actually two nurseries and we were taking her to the older class the first couple of times and wondering why there weren't many kids.  We took her to the other one and found out that Kylie and one other girl will be the only ones in nursery.  The rest are all boys!  I don't think we have to worry about Kylie as she's already shoving the boys out of the way.

3. Kylie has started to love coloring and playing with stickers!  This makes me super excited that I can start doing more arts and crafts with her.  She's doing better, but I still have to keep making sure she doesn't eat the crayons.  I am going to stay away from markers for a while.  We did our first Christmas craft and made a fingerprint Christmas tree.  I tried making my own finger paint with flour, but it did not turn out at all, so I just bought some at the dollar store.  She tried to eat the paint, so making them did not last very long.  It is so fun to see all the new things Kylie is into.

4. Well dang, I wish I could think of 5 things to talk about.  Scott is working hard and I'm busy trying to do all these fun Christmas activities.  Also, I've decided that I need to think of other activities besides shopping to get out of the house.  Since Kylie loves to push the carts so much, shopping can get a little exhausting with her.  Anyway, that's all I've got. Until next time!

Festival of Trees

I decided to go and take Kylie to the Festival of Trees last week.  I thought she would have a lot of fun looking at the trees and checking out all the different activities they have there.  Well, it didn't turn out as fun as I thought it would.  I had Kylie in the stroller and she was not happy sitting in there.  I was a little afraid to let her out because the chain surrounding the trees wasn't much and Kylie could easily crawl underneath and touch everything.  She got pretty upset, so I let her out to walk around and she just wanted to push the stroller, which was a little difficult for her as there isn't really a place for her to push.  I let her walk around a bit, but it was pretty crowded for a Thursday afternoon and I didn't want to lose her in the crowd (since she is speedy gonzalez).  I think she was tired, even though she had a nap so we left after only like an hour.  There was a kid section that had a lot of craft activities, but you had to pay for tickets and then each craft was a certain number of tickets.  Santa Claus was also there, but he was on a break when we showed up.  There was also a stage where there were kids dancing, but it was hard to find a spot with the stroller to sit and watch.

All in all, it was a disappointment as Kylie complained pretty much the whole time.  I think I'll have to wait a few years before taking her again where she can enjoy doing crafts and look at the trees without wanting to touch everything.  There were 3 Frozen trees there and I got pictures with two of them.  I wasn't able to get a picture with the third one which is too bad because it was the best one.

Frozen Tree #1

Frozen Tree #2

Crying one minute

Happy the next

Whining is so exhausting.

Temple Square Lights

We were able to meet up with my mom and see the lights at temple square on Monday.  We had planned on going there the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but it was insanely crowded!  A lot of people see the lights after Thanksgiving anyway plus there was a concert at the tabernacle and a Jazz game!  Too much traffic, no place to park and not worth trying to fight the crowd; so we went home.  It was hardly crowded on Monday and it wasn't that cold either, so it worked out great.  Beforehand, we ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  It was delicious and I was able to try the seasonal peppermint bark cheesecake which was so good!  While waiting for my mom to arrive, we went to the Disney Store to look around.  Kylie has a new favorite princess--Rapunzel!  She is obsessed with watching Tangled more than Frozen and could not stop looking at anything Rapunzel.  The Disney Store is heaven for Kylie.

Checking out Rapunzel stuff and wearing her cute hat and gloves.

Tree in City Creek.

After seeing the lights, we went and watched Scott play soccer.  Despite how tired Kylie was, she did great and had fun climbing up and down the stairs at the soccer game.  Since we're living in Utah, I think it makes sense that seeing the lights at temple square should be a tradition every year.  We did notice that there seemed to not be as many lights as years past, so we wonder if it was a money issue, but it wasn't lit up as usual.  It's still pretty, though.  I also forgot my real camera, so these are all phone pictures and they're not the best quality.