most magical time of year....

I love days like today, live for them really.  Where all things are little miracles handed to you on platters of sweet, candy cane covered faces.  And the best part, totally unexpected and unplanned.  Our favorite days are usually spontaneous and full of adventure.  So, this morning started with a bang, our Elfie brought a color yourself cardboard pirate fort...( he found a different Elf who told him it was only 10 bucks at Michaels and a must buy :)  The kids were ecstatic, all but EJ who really only gets that excited when he takes a poop and sees mama...yeah I am equal to poop, it's ok I am cool with it.  So, I suggested to Jeremy that we see Santa at a little strip mall, since he was arriving by firetruck I thought it may be a fun excursion and we had just enough time to scramble the eggs and ourselves out of the house.  We arrived, with only a couple of minutes to spare, and bam, the old man appeared from the North Pole on a firetruck, which for the record Graham couldn't wrap his brain around, he kept asking, "but what do firetrucks and Santa have to do with each other??"  Oy how I long for the days of less questions and more mouth dropping. 

 

 

 ok perfect, there is some mouth dropping...

 and Mrs. Claus was a hit as well...

 

EJ was asleep so, well, he missed out...yep he's our 4th, whatever.  

 

 

 Nolan asked for more cookies, candycanes and ice cream for Christmas, treats are this kids magic button!

 there were plenty of crafts

 and colored hair

 the grinch

and a
Fourth of July celebration in december...I couldn't talk her out of blue and red :)

 reindeer ears

Mr. Nol

 In the firetruck...:)

And well, this day just seems like it can't beat all that, but as we were driving looking at a few houses, we saw some horses getting ready to pull a carriage and had to stop, a really sweet man said he was there from 1130-8pm in downtown to give carriage rides...well we can't deny our horse loving girl...so back we trecked after some naps.

 

and as if it wasn't perfect enough a really sweet woman offerred to take our pic- dang fancy camera- can't really expect others to figure out the focal point!  But, love it anyway! And EJ is hidden in the pouch!

comfy cozy underneath the big blankets...talks of how this is how people got around without cars...which of course the kids thought was so cool and wished we could do every day!

 Jeremy took these during our ride with Nolan screaming and climbing all over; had to capture our view from our horse drawn carriage.  I think we said how lucky we were to live in Stillwater about 5000 times!

bride and groom number 2 we saw...

we crossed this bridge to WI and had fondue; the kids favorite for dinner and topped the night with ice cream... good night our most beautiful town on this most blessed night, our hearts and bellies are overflowing.